Gustav Goblin

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I would have probably enjoyed that movie had it looked more like this.

Off my GOAT, Terry. 

This blew me away when I first saw the preview in the thread. The lighting effects really inspired me to try something like that out myself which led to my bonus entry. Would love to see you do something like this on a full scale!

And it is revealed! Big props to BallpitWarrior, Bluetiful_Monday, Xophe and ESPECIALLY hypnopompia for having my favorite doors of this year's Advent Calendar. I had no idea hypnopompia was this strong with CSO already, even despite a strong showing in round 2 of TTA. Also Lasketchup genuinely fooling me into thinking he was Babar Tapie shows incredible potential. To all of you I mentioned, PLEASE keep building. You guys are amazing. To everyone else who entered, also please keep building. RCT is so cool dude.

And to Version1, this was a hell of a send-off gift. I hope wherever you go you find peace. Keep on working on yourself and find your tribe. It's always an uphill battle.

Now that the builders are revealed, it's time for some director's commentary!
 

Sundial Springs

The theme of sundials and the passage of time came from a very simple yet monstrous ambition. My first idea for the Advent Calendar was based on a movie my parents usually watch on Thanksgiving, but I didn't have the ideas or drive and it went under. A shame because it had some cool aesthetic tricks and a cutting-edge yet distinctly Gustav shoestring I'd love to reuse. Already in December with door after door opening, I figured the best choice of action was to make an entire park in a single day.

I had a plan too! I would use Loopy Landscapes to limit my choices of scenery and focus more on planning and less on detailing. I would not use any building hacks or trainers except to renew rides, water flowers, and change the size of the land tool. I also opted to go peepless and focus on macroing out a more semi-realistic park than forcing myself to work with single-wide paths and making everything peepable. Why an entire park? I have no idea, although I think it's for the better as I will soon describe.

I wanted to devote the entire process to Saturday, December 6th, but I got so excited to start that I began the night before. I was really excited for the lake that looked like a sundial (with the rock pointing towards Noonton) and the peeps walking clockwise through each time of day. By midnight, I had cheffed up an entrance and plotted the area for the lake. The entrance gates were going to be past the plaza with the giant sundial at first, but with my limited map size I decided to push the entrance gates back and have the plaza branch out into the main paths.

Unfortunately I underestimated my building speed and focus as well as how annoying it is to build in LL even without hacks. One and a half days quickly became two and a half. By the end of the weekend, I had mostly finished Mount Morne and gotten High Noon and Wild Horses in place. Still extremely impressive for my slow ass, but not what I wanted. If I had decided to go for a Design, I probably would have finished by the weekend.

Nonetheless, I was having a lot of fun and wanted to continue, so I did. Unfortunately having a full-time job, even a remote one, takes a lot of time and energy out of your day. The goal was now to finish a park in a week, which ended up being kinda sorta doable as I finished on Saturday morning. Sera Shores was done in the last 24-ish hours and was very very rushed, but I absolutely love how it turned out in retrospect.

Even if my initial review was a bluff, it's not completely false. The little tricks I pointed out were ones I really wanted to try out or found myself impressed by. I got the idea for the iron roof for tilled soil from one of Lurker's building challenge entries where he used a similar looking land surface from Locomotion. I also wanted to channel the time of day in each area through visual and color motifs. Hazy pastels for Mount Morne, multicolored buildings and warm colors in Sera Shores, deliberately darker paths and walls with bright accents in Nochtenburg, and bro IDK the coaster is called High Noon let's just do a normal Western area.

I approached this one like half a semi-realistic park and half a scenario playthrough with a carefree attitude. I took a few cues from CP6's YouTube videos and tried to channel the Fundamental Forest ruleset, albeit contrary to my builder bluff I am no SSSammy. I also tried to focus on weenies and sightlines, such as having the drop tower and biggest coaster at the back of the map. One touch I really like is how Crescent looks like a crescent moon from the entrance and riverwalk.

There was a lot of on-the-fly thinking, ideation, and cutting. For instance, Mount Morne didn't come easy despite being the first area I built and I ended up using some LL-style building tests I did in Open as a reference. Bits like a dark ride tunneling through hoodoos in Noonton, a moon bridge using vertical drop track for the reflection in Nochtenburg and a Lilliput-themed kiddie area where everything is tiny didn't make the cut. I also realized after finishing I could have done a medieval area in place of Nochtenburg for the knight/night pun, but I think having an area that just diegetically feels like a night in the city was the right move.

While it took longer than I anticipated, I think Sundial Springs was worth it. I'm so happy I just sat down and made a park. My ass is out here making goofy little dioramas and entering building challenges and going for weird ass concepts and forcing myself to be a permanent supporting player and never finishing anything over 200 tiles. Making a hackless LL park to practice my fundamentals has been on the docket since Head-2-Head Classic, but even back then my attempts would just result in too much yapping and posting unfinished screenshots and ending up with an entrance at best. This was the perfect environment for me to just make a little park under wraps and understand the process a little more. I also got to understand my strengths and weaknesses with a more traditional park. For instance, I felt surprisingly confident planning everything out but I also think my queues aren't interesting and need a lot of work. All in all, I think having a solo park to my name and hopefully a Bronze or Silver is a more lucrative investment to get out of this event than a little diorama.

In retrospect, if I really wanted to make a park in a day I would have done a LL-style park in Open. It is so much faster and easier to just copy and paste four ghost train pieces with SM and instantly give a 2x2 building windows than have to build all that track. It's still something I really want to try, maybe for a future DKMP contest. Can't say I'm mad doing another RCT1 park though! LLLL!

chAsiNg aFteR yOu

Nice review Gustav. Uwow guys, Hex is such a good J K/Hoob impersonator! Come on, y'all had to know it was me. I wasn't sure if we were gonna hit 24 entries so I whipped this up dangerously close to the end. I mean while V1 was waking up on the 24th. I kinda regret it now since we did end up with 24 and it cut into my time- spoiler alert- helping finish off a TTA entry. Sorry partner!

This was a fun little exercise in using some of the new objects from H2HX and working on my detailing after spending a week in LL land. J K and deanosrs were my big influences on the main angle with the interiors. I had a little area of the map I called Gustav's Fun Corner where I'd find cool objects and chuck them off to the side for later use. AmusementParker, Alex and Iretont did most of the heavy lifting here. I was particularly inspired by the way BallpitWarrior used Alex's light objects in his Polar Express entry. This one has more of a backstory and theme than just being cool surreal atmospheric stuff, but it's really hard and stupid to explain and it kills all the aura. Real ones will get it I guess.

Since it's not uploaded to the site yet, I'll unwrap my gift to you all and show you the other angles in this little micro! Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays NE!

Before my final round of reviews, I want to say that V1, you are underselling yourself big-time. It's easy to underestimate the effort it takes to organize these events, even if the community is the one doing most of the building. Also remember that these events don't happen without the one guy who brings them to life. I am such a huge fan of having us all come together every holiday season to, as you would gladly put it, JFB. No stakes, no competition, just build a nice little piece of RCT. It's a really selfless gesture and a great way to wrap up the year. Thank you so much for bringing this back and I hope it continues!

Antwerp In The Snow: If we're counting modified versions of existing parks, this is easily the best door yet. Just this one section of Stonehenge is one of the most beautiful and mind-boggling things I have ever seen in RollerCoaster Tycoon. It's genuinely on the level of players like Leon, AVC, Walto and Hoobaroo, objects be damned. While the whole Stonehenge is great, it's so cool having a version of the park that's just a souped up Antwerp.

So let's stop fangirling and dive in! This is such a vibe and I love the holiday-exclusive changes like the wreaths and Santa on the rooftop. The dark snow gives it a cool feel but a lot less contrast, especially with both coasters being a shade of blue. I changed them to red and green as a test but I gotta admit that's corny as hell. The yellow glows from the windows are the perfect antidote to all the cool colors and I wish we had more of them! A quick SM job to change the dark teal glass to yellow makes a world of difference. I think some Mahdezalg-style lighting effects on the ground using abstract objects and runway pieces would have helped nail the late night lit-up holiday vibe. It would have also been cool to see some snowdrifts on the roofs like you have on the ground, although that's just nitpicking. Really there's not much else to say because this is just a masterclass of RCT. Is it a stretch to say Bluetiful_Monday might be the voice of a generation?

Erlebnispark Teutonia Winterzauber: Hats off to the man behind the Advent Calendar because I recognize this as his work! Glad to see this project on the site in some capacity. Really lovely entrance scene with an adorable small scale and a cozy feel. Love the German-style architecture; always reminds me of my early days being inspired by players like Fisch and Royr. The ferris wheel is a really great weenie especially on that elevated platform. Proportionally everything works well, but I feel like if the map were expanded one tile on the left and right sides it would accommodate a busy crowd of peeps a little better. Making the entrance arch a little taller I think would help accentuate the sightline up to the ferris wheel from the peeps' point of view. I also think the natural foliage could use some more underbrush to smooth it all out. Great stuff Version1!

Driving Home for Christmas: IT MOVES! What a way to expand on the Ol' Smokey's Showboat formula! Featuring the Coca Cola truck doubles as an iconic holiday visual and a classic NE reference. All the moving scenery looks seamless, especially with the traffic and tractors moving at just the right speed in relation with the objects. The custom music playing through the radio really ups the immersion, almost like you're the one driving the Cola truck! It takes a genius with custom objects to pull something like this off, and no surprise Roomie's name shows up all over this one. This should have been Coca-Cola's Christmas ad this year, not that AI-generated garbage they thought was remotely okay and then tried to falsely cover up.

chAsiNg aFteR yOu: Oh HELL yes. This is my kind of RCT, plain and simple. Super atmospheric and surreal with a lot of detail to make up for its size. RCT as the world's funniest form of digital art. That little glimpse of space at the top is such a cool little detail. I also love how the details on the wall become part of the fade on the top. Such a cool artistic move. I just wish I could see it ingame! There's still more to see in-game WHAT DO YOU MEAN!!!! I'm coping with it by pretending that it's a present under the tree on Christmas Eve and we get to unwrap it on Christmas Day.

Guessing the builder on this one sucks. V1 just had to give me a final boss fight. Since I can't see it ingame before the big reveal, I can't see if some bozo forgot to put their name in the palette or the custom music (if there is any). I have to go by pure vibes and object recognition. A lot of the objects remind me of what the Lonely Hearts Club was doing in H2HX, especially the interior work in Constellations and Murder in McAllan. I'm inclined to guess J K or Deano, but they didn't sign up and haven't said anything about entering. I'd guess Hoobaroo off pure vibes but he's been radio silent too. There's no way it's Hex, right? All I know is I wish I could build like this and I want this player to teach me their ways. God I can't wait for Christmas Day!

And on that note, Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays NE! So glad I could be part of this with you all again.

The level of quality and conceptualism I aspire to reach. Can't wait to see this ingame once the admins approve it!