Micro Madness 2014 / [MM2014 R2] inthemanual vs. Corkscrewy vs. FK+Coastermind

stoksy and inthemanual are the same person, i knew it!

WOOT!

Now that this is in the books, i'll leave a few comments

Corkscrewy-the best thing to note with this micro was it had a ton of potential. Some of the ideas you had started hashing out looked brilliant. I haven't seen the movie yet, but Lego as a theme could be so brilliant if done correctly, so i would say definitely use this as a jumping off point. 

Inthemanual-for a little while, you had me worried. This park was so perfect for what it was, but i think it just simply missed on a few elements key to micro madness. The landscaping, underwater bit (ironic you are against me, as i made my own underwater theme in Monstrocity, lol) the floating islands, were all great. Loved the little embellishments on the island, that's the sort of fantasy "well, it looked cool" stuff i love. The landscaping work was brilliant.

Where i think this missed was it's in micro madness. What you gave was a beautiful snapshot of an unusual landscape, very much like a landscape painting, but it lacked a subject. There didn't seem to be something in particular to focus on. It just needed something to act as a focal point. As well, the park didn't seem as exciting from some of the other angles (other than the one pictured) which i think ruins a bit of the benefit to be had from a micro park, which allows the viewer to really focus and pick into whatever you build. Had you managed to get some more work done, and put in something a little more interactive, this could have been a bigger contender.

Thanks to everyone who voted for me, after round 1 i'm ecstatic to make something a little more favorable.

I know most liked the first version better, which is to be expected, as most people prefer realism nowadays to fantasy, particularly my brand of crazy shit. Originally i intended to include both concepts on one map, with a generally realistic park with smaller amounts of hallucinations throughout. The idea to split them was partially because i fell in love with the realistic version, and partially for the trick of getting all the votes. I knew that most people would dislike the "fantasy" element to this, thus splitting them allowed for me to get votes from both those appreciative of the realistic and fantastic elements of the concept. I wanted to spend some more time developing the colors overall in the trippin map, but I ran out of stream to get it done, and being so close to finished i just let them be.

5Dave, to answer your question, i really hadn't fully planned how it would connect. The further i got, the more i knew i would never be able to fit any of the casino bits i wanted, thus i never focused on it. I imagined that this coaster would likely replace the parking garage right next to the main casino, as it would then be easy to connect, and with some height would peak over the other parking garage. As noted, i just couldn't manage to fit any connecting elements on the map. 

So excited about the next round, i don't plan to disappoint!

I don't know who first came up with this idea of stacking monorail track to create structures but that screenshot of Mirage Hotel with the canyon walls made out of monorail track got me excited to go back and revisit a park I started 15 years ago. It was like a light bulb just went off in my head "oh, this is how I can do that!" So credit to whoever that unknown innovator was and to FK+Coastermind for using it in such an inspiring way!

Thanks Coaster Ed! I definitely did not create this concept, but I certainly took it to the extreme. I believe I was initially inspired by some screens Robbie or Pacificoaster showed me, and then decided to use that as the basis for a micro taking advantage of the smaller scale.