NE 20th Anniversary / History of New Element - 2021
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06-July 22
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CedarPoint6
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The History of NE
As the world tried to emerge from the COVID lockdown, all those hours indoors paid off for the RCT community in a big way. January 2021 began with a bang as the Grand Tour finals parks brought new heights to the concept of ‘crunch’ and saw new names rise into the spotlight. Within the first 4 months of the New Year, New Element saw four spotlight parks that couldn’t have been more varied. New techniques, classic styles, and even some LL thrown into the mix ensured there was something for everyone to enjoy. The excitement of new spotlight parks soon gave way to the next iteration of Head2Head, which promised to turn up the detail and deliver the crunch in a big way. Even with H2H9 keeping the community busy, the rush of gold winning parks continued with even more variety from scenario rebuilds to sports stadiums and everything in between. And in November came the cherry on top of the proverbial sundae as the OpenRCT2 developers released the New Save Format. The NSF had reached mythical status—having been discussed and rumored for years—but with a tangible release the door was now open for new options unlike the game has ever seen before.
The Grand Tour contest had carried New Element through the 2nd half of 2020 and culminated in a thrilling final. Five entries from 8 builders showcased a variety of takes on the theme of “The North Pole.” Coaster-GEOFF continued his steady improvement with Longyearbyen, a Norwegian themed park with a 4x4 off-road adventure ride with a nice surprise to be discovered after rotating the map. Mamarillas also went solo with his Remote Russian Archipelagos park. An expansive Zierer coaster, a speedboat tour of the Arctic, and a boat after CC9’s own heart made for a strong entry. WhosLeon and Tolsimir partnered on a beautiful map (Five Minutes to Twelve) where Norwegian fjords gave way to melting glacier ice where the struggle between environmentalists and a gas driller played out as a pair of launched, dueling coasters. Packed with detail and featuring a unique hacked mining tour ride, the map garnered a bronze medal as the third place finisher (though the 81% gold vote may have been even sweeter).
While voting controversy is nothing new, it was nonetheless a shame to discover irregularities which ultimately resulted in a swap of positions one and two for the Grand Tour final. The admin team handled the situation fairly and efficiently and ensure the focus remained on the incredible quality of both entries. Hydroportal and 6crazy6king6 nabbed 2nd place with a spiritual successor to Haystack Ski Resort from H2H8. Kugluktuk Lodge & Resort brought a crunch and textural detail in a crunch that could only come from hydro. A huge ski resort structure showcasing the increasingly popular ½ slope roof pieces gave way to ski slopes, railway infrastructure, and a beautiful natural landscape relying on 1k and Kryptonian rockwork Tolsimir’s snow pieces to give the map a wintery dusting. The crunch-heavy winter landscape may have foreshadowed a certain H2H final, but that would have to wait another 9 months to play out. In a very different, but no less beautiful approach, FK Coastermind and Zarathustra wowed with Tromsø's Nordlysfestivalen. Tromsø has a dark, moody palette where warm Norwegian architecture gives way to a snowy hillside and an absolutely incredible adventure coaster. With 2 stations, forwards/backwards elements, a turntable, and even a dropping track, The Tromsø Adventure Train is a showcase in hacked ride design with a beautiful setting to boot! An aurora borealis effect using a custom ride vehicle ties the whole map together with a unique centerpiece. Ultimately, the park received an 85% gold score in addition to the contest victory.
At the end of February, Storybrook Glen became the first of the year’s spotlight parks. Continuing the NCSO style development with a realistic flavor, Storybrook showcased the talents of an amazing 11 different builders who received credit on the park. Nin, Pacificoaster, and WhosLeon each took a 20% share with Steve being the only other building over 10% with a 12% share. The park’s roots lie in the Walibi Belgium scenario, but blown up, expanded, reformed, and remodeled into a map with multiple themed areas at a high level of detail. Storybrook is a showcase of how to use rides and ride vehicles in clever and surprising ways for anything from fountains to banner flags. It’s rare that a group park achieves this level of uniformity. Credit lies with the top three builders and their unapologetic push for quality. Build, delete, and do it again—only better than the last time. With none of the group taking these methods personally, the park was able to look consistent, detailed, and lively in a way few NCSO parks can achieve. An 89.50% score and a near unanimous ‘yes’ to spotlight solidifies the legacy of this park.
On the heels of Storybrook—only 12 days later, in fact—I released Washuzan Park Rainbow Summit. This park had been a passion project from the outset with a goal of building a hyper-realistic Japanese park that’s seen better days… all surrounded by what I hoped would be an unparalleled amount of context. It’s a testament to how fast building can go when you’re doing something you enjoy. To that end, I finished this park in about two years—quick for my build speed at least! I’m proud of how the park turned out, though both object limit and foliage textures became a bit of a hindrance towards the end. Still, I’m pleased with the 92.50% score and a near unanimous spotlight and happy to see people enjoyed the map.
The third spotlight came less than a month after Washuzan and brought a CSO build of the more fantastical variety—somewhat of a rarity in the grungy realism trend. Bigshootergill has always been one to buck a trend, like with his Mario Kart spotlight four years earlier. The Conquests of Quinlan Quinto offers a refreshing change from the norm. The park is huge and full of detail, elevation change, and unique object use. Louis and I helped a little with coaster layouts and support work, while BSG crafted an immersive world for the rides to exist within. Beyond the park itself, BSG put together an incredible readme with a full park guide and a fun adventure story to go along with it. The detailed readmes on parks such as Conquests and Washuzan and others later in the year would spawn a new category for the 2021 awards in “Best Additional Content”.
It was 4 years in the making for the 4th and final spotlight of 2021 as Cocoa released his epic DisneySea. This RCT LL release was the first in—you guessed it—4 years as Cocoa brings the spotlight back to the original game. Viewable in both a roofs on and roofs off version, the park is his take on Disney Sea, combining some of the real life themed areas with a blend of new ones. The park excels in dark ride interiors as well as overall landscaping. DisneySea joins a long line of LL Disney spotlight parks and has a certain nostalgia that only LL can ever seem to bring. With a near unanimous spotlight vote and a score approaching 90%, it would seem that the community agreed. As the years between major LL releases get larger, these releases become all the more special.
Beyond the spotlights, a number of gold winning parks graced the first half of the year. FredD kicked it off in January with Erlebnispark Ochsenbach, a Tripsdrill inspired CSO build. The large park with several nice coaster layouts may have been FredD’s best to date and showed strong production having come only a year after his previous gold winning effort. Next up, RWE with help from trav and FredD released Parque Monteril, a small park set within a Spanish cityscape. Feeling much like the successor to RWE’s 2017 Parenzo, Parque Monteril further developed the cityscape + park style and achieved a higher score this time around. Hydroportal, barnNID, and RaunchyRussell collaborated for gold #3 with Cook County Fair. This funfair set outside Chicago portrayed a typical American fairground better than anyone had previously done. The custom rides and facades made this park a standout within the fairground style of parks. The last gold from the first half of the year went to ar2910 who delivered yet another NCSO landscape, following up the previous 5. Oberlaken creates a fictional alpine micronation built in full vanilla—NCSO, no hacks, and no zero clearancing.
2021 meant the return of the game’s biggest contest. Head2Head9 signups opened on March 16th with the hope that 3 years was long enough to distance away from the drama of H2H8. Certainly there wasn’t a worry about interest: 99 sign ups meant more excitement than ever in the contest. And with the large amount of potential players came an expanded field—12 players and a playing captain. Other changes included a shift to a divisional format—east and west—which meant 6 rounds of play with the top 4 teams advancing to the semifinals and a grand final to follow. In between rounds 4 and 5 was a mid-season break, designed to stave off some of the burnout that plagued previous H2H contests.
As with every version of H2H, the contest provides a place for new players and fresh talent to showcase their skills. This year’s captains included Liampie and Inthemanual as well as four newcomers to the position: In:Cities, Tolsimir, Dr. Dirt, and Steve. All six captains had extensive backgrounds in the game with plenty of H2H experience. With the first pick in the draft, Steve chose Xtreme97—a strong choice for both speed and quality. Alex, FK+Coastermind, WhosLeon, nin and hydroportal finished out the first round of the draft. After 12 rounds, the teams were set with 13 players each: Logan’s Run, The Scream Queens, Cereal Killers, Tile Inspectors, Manual Laborers, and Adventurer’s Club. Pre-game polls indicated fairly well balanced teams with the early voting calling out Steve’s Logan’s Run and Tolsimir’s Tile Inspectors as having the strongest by a slight margin.
Round Robin play kicked off with a bang—6 complete parks with high levels of detail, custom rides, and new color palettes. Big names came out in force for round 1 from captains to #1 picks with Hydroportal, WhosLeon, Steve, Alex, Liampie, and inthemanual all putting in work to start the season. Hydroportal’s notable speed certainly helped Adventurer’s Club to a complete and detailed map in Lost World, though they went up against an equally strong park with the Tile Inspector’s Acqua Alta 1896. Each of the round 1 matches had incredibly close finishes. 5 votes ended up as the largest spread. Close finishes would carry through much of the season. And with early every park being finished helped to showcase the quality and parity across many of the teams.
From the first round, many of the themes and trends for the whole season would establish themselves. More extreme color palettes, custom rides vehicles as scenery, scenery affected by staff watering, half diagonals, and perhaps most notably a revolution in rockwork all became recurring elements through round robin and into the finals. We’ve seen how 1k rocks, Krypton rocks, and LOTR rocks have made their stamp on the collective community—everyone has a favorite. In round robin #2, match 2, the Tile Inspectors debuted new rock wall object pieces by Tolsimir in their park The Seven Liberal Arts. While similar to 1K rocks, these new objects broke down the size to a granular level, allowing for more detail in cliff faces and opportunity for additional variation than had been available previously. Although the park ultimately lost out to Logan’s Run’s Nippon Professional Baseball Championship Weekend at Tokyo Dome City, both the rockwork and other new features of Seven Liberal Arts (which we’ll get to shortly) ensured it would remain a memorable release. Only 3 rounds later, the Tile Inspectors outdid even themselves in Villerouge sur Mer. Fisch created yet another new custom rock set featuring over 40 new objects to revolutionize the way landscapes could be created in RCT2. Indeed, many of the subsequent maps from multiple teams following round 5 would feature Fisch’s rocks. The rocks, among other well done elements, pushed Villerouge sur Mer to an easy victory over the Cereal Killers. The Fisch rocks would go on to win Best New Object in the yearly awards—having become an instant classic similar to the likes of Toon’s B&M supports.
For years, players have used vehicles for things other than just rides—this trend finds its roots back in even LL parks. Monorail cars as market stalls, articulated trains as strollers, or flying saucers as grazing animals: the creativity of what a ride vehicle could become knew no bounds. The Tile Inspector’s took this one step further in The Seven Liberal Arts, but making purpose-built scenic elements as ride vehicles. Market stalls that actually looked like market stalls or statues that could easily be placed on a curved path. Combined with Basssiiie’s Edit Ride Vehicles plugin, these “rides” could be spaced at any distance or alternate vehicle types selected for further variation in the appearance. The new methods were not without controversy—multiple comments in the match topic worried about too heavy of a focus on specific object creation for specific purposes at the expense of the overall park composition. Despite that, the market stall tents took off in a big way and could be found in a number of the subsequent parks across all teams.
While the Tile Inspectors may have started the trend of custom ride vehicles for scenery, it could be argued that the Cereal Killers perfected it. Starting off the season at 3-2, the week 6 and week 7 parks became instant classics and some of the best in the competition. Week 6’s Gangland took the ‘rides as specific scenery’ concept to an entirely new level with a fully customized title sequence made of ride and text images as rides which moved off-screen automatically. The title sequence was only the tip of the iceberg, however, to a park packed with unique features such a murder mystery hunt which required viewer input to trigger various scenes. These features combined with a beautifully themed park helped Gangland win both Best Originality and Best Idea during the yearly awards. Splitvision can be credited as the brains behind the unique effects and the storyline within Gangland. Having previously shown a prowess for sequenced rides, timed operations, and in-game puzzles, it’s no surprise to see him flexing those skills in the competition. The success of Gangland and the week 7 masterpiece Rajasthan (led by breakout star A n d r e w) helped propel the Cereal Killers into the postseason.
The fight for the postseason would take all 7 rounds of the regular season to decide the final 4. Round 6 saw the Tile Inspectors and Cereal Killers clinch their respective divisions. Both had strong runs through round 7. The Tile Inspectors managed 4 straight wins to round out the regular season including favorites like Stardust Jubilee and X Games Alcatraz. In the East Division, Logan’s Run and the Scream Queens came down to the final round. Logan’s Run had strong wins in rounds 2 and 3 with Nippon Baseball Weekend and the Rivers of Babylon inspired Lemuria. Meanwhile the Scream Queens had to come from behind after narrowly beating Logan’s Run in round 1. Missing out with the underrated Esoterra and having the bad luck to go up against BOTH neon space parks, the team regrouped and pulled out wins in rounds 5 and 6 including the Robbie92 Bellum Aeternus—a key win against division rival Logan’s Run. Heading into round 7, the Scream Queens had the slight advantage in the standings. However, Logan’s Run would pull off the upset with the Scream Queen’s Atama Yama losing out to the Cereal Killer’s Rajasthan while Logan’s Run took a landslide victory with the humor filled Highlands over Adventurers Clubs’ sadly unfinished House by the Sea. The win-loss combo pushed Logan’s Run into the finals and unfortunately eliminated the Scream Queens from the contest.
On the West division side, the Manual Laborers had a tall hill to climb, starting out 0-2 before nabbing a crucial win in round 3 with Le Coeur du Ciel, Pacificoaster and Suormot’s flying Parisian cityscape and a contender for best park of the contest. They quickly followed up this success with cocoa’s The diegetic underground: Shadrach Stuart's secret subterranean sanctuary, or: a study in themes canonically indoors for the modern amusement park, featuring the impossible Underwater Base; the dazzling Glowing Forests; and the mysterious Yellowstone Cave—a name whose length we won’t see surpassed anytime soon! With two back to back wins, there were high hopes for the team. Unfortunately, they couldn’t capitalize on the momentum and remained at only 2 wins for the remainder of round robin. Meanwhile, Adventurer’s Club pushed hard on the quality and could very easily have gone 3-0 to start were it not for hydroportal’s Lost World losing out to WhosLeon and Rene’s Acqua Alta 1896 by just a single vote. Hydro would get his victory in round 5, however, taking Riverview Exposition to a landslide victory. Riverview would go on to win multiple awards at the end of the year and help hydroportal take home the coveted Best Parkmaker award. Round 5 brought Adventurers Club their 3rd win of round robin play—which surprisingly would be their last. However with the Manual Laborer’s struggles, Adventures Club found themselves with a seat in the postseason, rounding out Logan’s Run, Cereal Killers, and the Tile Inspectors.
Postseason play kicked off with the Tile Inspectors bringing Madinat Al-Hareer, a dense Arabian cityscape filed with fantastical rides and theming in a palette that some found hard on the eyes but certainly made a statement. Logan’s Run countered with the snowy Siege of Frostgard, a steampunk settlement in the frozen tundra being attacked by unknown forces. Both parks saw many of the trends from the regular season carried through: custom palettes, rides as scenery, custom rides, incredible density, and thematic crunch. While both parks were worthy semifinals entrants, Xtreme97’s Frostgard lost out to WhosLeon and AvanineCommuter’s Madinat Al-Hareer. Madinat would go on to win Best Theming at the end of year awards and be named by many as one of the best parks of the contest.
On the other side, the Cereal Killers presented Happy Valley Hangzhou, a classic RCT realism take on the Happy Valley chain of parks in China, while Adventurers Club built Florida Action Park, a play on the famous park in New Jersey. While Happy Valley went for the more traditional realism route—including a rare park without a custom palette—Florida Action Park leaned into the new meta of crunch and dropped little details throughout with clickable staff to tell stories. It’s unfortunate that Happy Valley is somewhat of an obscure chain of parks to most of the community because the references were well done and the details matched what could be found at the real parks. This falls under the similar risk as theming a park to a specific IP that some voters may not be familiar with. Although the park turned out well, it couldn’t hold up to Florida Action Park, with FAP (!) taking a commanding victory: a tough loss for saxman1089, Liampie, and mamarillas, but a clutch win for In:Cities and RaunchyRussell to take Adventurers Club into the finals to face the Tile Inspectors.
With the quality of the regular season and semis, all eyes were on the Tile Inspectors and Adventurers Club to deliver a show to closeout H2H9. Having up to 5 builders per park, there was plenty of opportunity to go heavy on the detail. The Adventurers Club leaned on hydroportal who led Scoop, RaunchyRussel, Hex, and Iretont in building the self-titled Adventurers Club. Referencing all the team’s previous parks throughout the season, the map blended grand architecture with fantastical landscaping with cutaways to a multi-layered park. Although some of the interiors remained unfinished, the overall presentation remained very strong. On the other side of the ring, the Tile Inspectors put forward Fisch along with Rene, wheres_walto, WhosLeon, and Sulakke to create Gladsheim. The save opens to the site of a battle as Viking warriors make their way through a snowy landscape which pushes the idea of ‘crunch’ further than most other parks dared go. A custom ride ‘snowstorm’ furthered this effect as the warriors forged their way to Valhalla. The fortress and village built into the hillside showcased many of the objects, rides, and styles developed throughout the regular season. While both parks were strong, the Tile Inspectors pushed the boundaries farther and took him the victory and season with a 52-11 win. Tolsimir was crowned the winning captain while In:Cities and the Adventurers Club took home a respectable silver medal. In the subsequent 3rd place match, the Cereal Killers snatched a win from Logan’s Run to award Liampie’s team the bronze.
With nearly the entire community focused on H2H9, it’s no surprise that the rate of other park releases goes down for a little while after the contest. Thankfully, there were still a few surprises as the final quarter of the year unfolded. Although no other park would achieve spotlight, there were a number of high quality golds to enjoy.
First, Alex took home the award for his NCSO Evergreen Gardens, a reimagining of the original RCT1 scenario. The park is a master class in landscaping and reinforces Alex’s position as one of the best all-around players. Later in October, Faas released Sawyer Springs, a clever park which rebuilt several of the original in-game designs from coasters to car rides to water rides. They’re all recreated with better proportions and flow compared to the originals and given a pleasant CSO overlay.
It’s a rare treat when a newcomer releases a new park. It’s even more special when that park achieves a gold win in the first attempt. Babar Tapie seemingly came out of nowhere with his DreamLand park. A blend of IPs from a variety of media sources, the park shines best in its sculptures of characters. While the ride design could use some work, it’s impossible not to appreciate the atmosphere Babar Tapie managed to create within the park. It is almost overwhelming at times with multiple different themes and areas competing for attention. With a first release as strong as DreamLand, Babar Tapie would be one to watch in the future.
A quad of golds rounded out December in a strong way. First, Rene nabs his first solo gold since 2014 with Knots Bessen Boerderij. The park features a classic Dutch style of parkmaking although multiple areas have been modernized since the construction started in 2014. Second, Ottersalad follows up his 2019 NCSO gold Caer Hywel with another. Marblehead is a Cedar Fair style realistic park on a peninsula with several themed areas and a number of strong coaster layouts. Next up is Swagtitties, coming in with Wings n Things Fun Fair, the winner of the timeline park contest over on Deurklink’s Discord. The park grew over several iterations into its final form, but showcases an incredible talent for NCSO as the renaissance in that style of play continues. Lastly, wheres_walto secures his first solo release in a more unique way: Ohio Stadium recreates the famous college football stadium to incredible detail and even brings in some of the surroundings to make a fully fleshed out map of the area that feels like you’re really there.
It would be remiss to not mention Splitvision’s late-year release, Attack on SS Infinity. Coming off his mind boggling effects in Gangland, is a working video game set up inside the confines of RCT. Users control a gunner that needs to shoot down an attacking ship before it attacks back. Clever use of vehicle interactions (and crashes!), timing, and custom rides are featured within a neatly presented console that makes you realize just how far this game has come from Forest Frontiers.
And speaking of how far the game has come, perhaps the biggest moment of 2021 wasn’t even a park. After years of rumors, rumblings, and maybe even a bit of skepticism, the OpenRCT2 developers finally released the new save format. Replacing .sv6 with the .park format, many of the former hindrances to park building were suddenly a thing of the past: Increased map size, more objects to select, a raised object limit, more path, more sprites, more rides, and a whole host of other features promises to revitalize the game in ways that have yet to be seen. In the same year we’ve seen the continued resurgence of NSCO and the first LL spotlight in years, we can also look forward to further pushed boundaries and incredible creations to come!
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Cocoa
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great writeup!! what an incredible year for rct. Some of the most insanest parks I've ever seen and so many of them that I feel half of them flew under the radar.
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FredD
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Wow I did get included in one of these write-ups after all! And with the brown tree nicely present in the screen
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