Park / Melody of the Light

13 Comments

  • Comment System%s's Photo
    comment below
  • Jappy%s's Photo

    Arjan! You came back!

     

     

     

     

     

    Oh wait... :p

     

    No seriously. This is a very nice park, and I can recommend anyone to see it. The landscape has a very natural feel to it, and the fields are nicely done. Maybe the vineyards are a bit too repetetive, but that's just a nitpick. 

     

    The village itself is very atmospheric. It does feel like a community lives there, and happily. It reminded me sort of the Bavarian village you see in Chitty Chitty Bang Bang! Even though that wasn't a happy place... You've succesfully made every building unique while still keeping it cohesive. That's a tricky thing to do with larger areas, so well done!

     

    Tha castle is huuuuge! You don't see these large structures in RCT anymore unless in H2H so it's great to see it here. Not much to say apart from i like it.

     

    The rides are pretty cool. I love how the track of the virginia reel is draped over the land and follows the contours of the village. I like that it isn't like a realistic coaster, it makes it unique. Before anyone moans about the fact the wooden coaster has two lift hills: who gives a shit, it's fantasty. What I liked less however was the timing... To see two trains on the lifthill waiting for another one to clear a section doesn't look good. You should take care of that in the future. The B&M coaster: pretty cool as well, especially because it came as a surprise. Didn't know this map had one! I can't really say much about the layouts apart from that they seem to keep a nice space and don't really have any awkward sections IMO. But I'm no coaster expert.

     

    All in all a review that's a bit all over the place, but it comes down to this: great park, still room for some minor improvements but no map is perfect. I hope you're not a one-trick pony and stay with us in the community, because I look forward to seeing more stuff like this!

  • Cocoa%s's Photo

    hey this thing is fantastic. reminds me of mont st michael in a really positive way, like a modernized version of the same concept. great archy in really tight streets- sometimes i would maybe complain that a lot of the great stuff is covered up from lots of angles but the cramped atmosphere really works here. its colorful and vibrant and really fun. the layouts are fucken weird but they sort of work in a quirky way. i really don't like the multi-part lift and drop of the main woodie though. I also like that you added in the old version too, that was really cool to see. I always love seeing a parkmakers progression like that.

     

    anyway congrats on the release, the park is super awesome. while its not the most original theme choice or anything, its still wacky and really fun. easy gold from me.

  • Lagom%s's Photo

    Loved the little car/bunny ride. Really perfect if you ask me. Architecture was very nice as well. A bit too strong colours here and there, but that's ok. Coasters didn't do much for me. Waiting trains on lifthills drives me crazy. But since this park is more about the archietecture than coasters I'm willing to look past that.

    Great work. Hope to see more from you.

  • CoasterCreator9%s's Photo

    Love the architecture and atmosphere. As others have said, some of the coaster designs could use some work, but they're fun in their own right. Definitely looking forward to seeing more from you.

  • Coasterbill%s's Photo

    This looks brilliant from the overview but I'm unable to open TT parks.

  • Liampie%s's Photo

    Very anticlimactic that you used the expansions... Lots of people, myself included, cannot open it. I'll try to work that out soon, but last time I tried to install the expansions my laptop was giving me troubles.

     

    Anyway, I can comment on what I see on the aerial: very Ghibli-esque: colourful, anachronistic, and stylistically vague and eclectic. It works, but to be honest it works better zoomed out than zoomed in. I appreciate that you made each building different and it's obvious that you've improved a lot along the way, but somehow it still feels a bit lifeless. Maybe there is too much architecture for too little rides. Virtually no rides at all, all the rides are outside the city... You may as well have left them out.

     

    My favourite buildings are the white and peach ones to the left and right of the bridge into the city. Those two have a lot of character.

     

    I hope I can check this out in game soon! And I hope to see another park from you in the future. With better theming-ride interactions!

  • Angroc%s's Photo

    Love it! I can't open it either, so my comment is just based on screens and overview screenshot.

     

    Favourite point for me is how meandering the rides are. They don't just stick to a designated fenced lot, but travel around all that nice architecture to explore. All your rides have a meandering aspect which I appreciate a lot. That said, I wish at some point there was some ride interaction maybe? That would've definitely pushed it up a notch further.

    I really like the architecture. The detailing and variation between buildings is outstanding. One critique here would be your use of colours. There's a tower for instance with a lipstick-red roof. And right next to that building, there's a building with bright bright yellow bricks. If the theme was different, it could work, but you're obviously going for a more of a german/french village feel here, so I think maybe you could've used some more muted colours for buildings, with only those bright colours used in very specific areas. Very harsh. Maybe you could've chosen a more muted red for those shingles? In essence, I think maybe the palette and colour harmonies could use some muting, but the detailing and city layout is amazeballs!

     

    Lastly, I am huuuge fan of that river rapids ride, and the scenery it interacts with.

    Both thumbs up, and can't wait to see what more you'll come up with!

  • Stoksy%s's Photo

    Unfortunately, much of my critique is related to what I find appealing in a park generally, it's for the most part not a slight on the skill or execution here but hopefully still retains some relevance for future releases.

     

    Foliage

    I have a problem with it, maybe others don't, maybe others find what I would consider a relatively 'different style' refreshing, maybe I'm being naive and trying to make everyone build in 'NE realism'. The most objective analysis I can offer here is that not every tile needs a tree and a tonne of bushes, and I think it's fair that this applies to 'fantasy' or 'semi-realism'. The river between the city and rural environment was so sharp it kinda killed the atmosphere for the rapids. Less trees, more sparseness would have helped, especially given how sudden the transition was between heavily forested waterfronts and sheer rock cliffs.

     

    Layouts

    I had a problem with these. Yes, you're not trying to be realistic which is absolutely fine, but even fantasy layouts need flow. It's one of the reasons realistic layouts are so "good" because realism inherently forces flow for them to a) look realistic, and b) look good.

    The rapids did way too much, and imo didn't fit the environment at all. It seemed odd and ugly to have the dual-station with the ride going across the path on coaster track and then into the water 'chute'. Idk, I just thought it would have been better (if you *really* wanted rides there, and I think it might have actually helped the area had you avoided rides other than the go karts - which I mention later), separating the two stations. Keep the wooden track as a side-friction coaster, and keep the water 'chute' for a rapids. The orchard circuit would have worked much better as an invisible mini golf, minor critique.

    The integration of standard flat rides into the city-scape was impressive, and I appreciate the "forced peep interaction" resulting from it (ie queuing, and a path to follow through the city). 

    I didn't like the coasters. They were just weird to me, instead of interacting with their environments they seemed to have been forced into the surroundings. I think a lot of people build the coaster first and then mould the environment around it, and I think this would have helped SO SO much with really bringing up the appeal of this park. If you did build the coasters first, then I can't really help you here. I just didn't like them.

     

    Architecture

    Archy was really great, the city just read so beautifully in contrast to the iconic structures like the church and castle. Maybe some of the landscape transitions were a little too much (again, maybe, it didn't detract from the area), but that's just me. Would have been nice to have some wider 'streets' purely for isometric viewing purposes, being unable to see the street-level and ground floors was a real shame as I think being able to see the peeps walking through the streets would have given you *even* more atmosphere.

     

    Summary

    Should be gold, but layouts killed it. 65% for me but I'm sure that people will give the architecture and atmosphere much more weight, which I think is absolutely fair and justified.

    Great stuff, just work more on the flow of your layouts/get someone else to build them/just go with more simplistic ones.

  • RWE%s's Photo

    I really want to open this... please, someone make it working! :(

  • Coasterbill%s's Photo

    Ask and you shall receive

     

    Attached File  Melody of the Light_Ekspert_2017-Fixed.sv6 (1.16MB)
    downloads: 202...

     

    Here's the fixed version with those 2 rides swapped out. It works in Open or Vanilla, no expansions needed.

     

    Anyway, now that I've seen it in game... lovely work! it has a very charming vibe to it, and while the architecture may be a bit repetitive, it doesn't really bother me for some reason.

     

    I absolutely love the color choices and the fun ride choices like the Count's Beer Barrels and Polka.

     

    You have a ton of skill, I can't wait to see more from you.

  • G Force%s's Photo

    Panelist, please use Bill's version to vote on the park in-case you weren't able to before. I'll add it to the official release sometime soon.

  • G Force%s's Photo

    Non-WW/TT version has been added.  Thanks Bill!

     

    As for the park, everything was really nice except for the wooden coaster I guess.  I understand you're not really going for realistic layouts and stuff, but I think not having multiple lifts or at least setting the dispatch time so the trains didn't stack would be a big help.

     

    Archy wise this is fantastic, probably some of the most elaborate buildings of this style we've seen in some time.  Felt unique as well which was a big plus for me.  Not to mention all the atmospheric details, especially around the docks and market areas.  The foliage actually turned out pretty well too, which was my biggest fear for this park.  Still a bit too much grass, but outside of that it was really nice and cohesive enough for me to buy into it.  Guess the landscaping should be mentioned as well, which was also top notch and very impressive how natural it felt and how it was integrated into the city area.  So overall, a nice map with lots of clever ideas and rides that we don't see much anymore.  This gets a very solid 70 from me, mostly for the archy and atmosphere.  Nice work!

  • trav%s's Photo

    This is now currently on the Showcase Server on OpenRct2, so if you haven't already seen it, please go take a look!

     

    I voted 85% on this because I thought it was beautiful. The architecture was fantastic throughout, and while not every building fulfilled a purpose, the buildings were still different enough that it didn't get repetitive.

     

    The landscaping wasn't the best, but it was definitely passable and worked well with everything around it. At first, I thought I was going to hate the foliage but it actually worked really well! There were plenty of colours throughout the foliage which gave it a nice contrast to everything else and acted as a strong border.

     

    The rides were obviously not great, but I liked how unique a couple of them were, such as the Dukes Barrels thing. I think if you want to improve further, this is the next step. First of all, maybe creating more realistic rides, or if they're not realistic then they should at least have a reason for not being realistic in my opinion. At the moment, they just seemed as though they weren't particularly great layouts because they were an afterthought to the architecture.

     

    I think I'll probably end up being the high vote on this, but the atmosphere and composition on the map brought it up to another level for me.

Members Reading