RCT Discussion / NE Realism vs. Fantasy Perception Poll (Spotlight Edition)

This is an idea that arose from discussion on Discord about realism, semi-realism, and fantasy. The idea is pretty simple: fill out this form by choosing which of the three above styles you think suits each park the most!

 

There are 20 parks - all of them Spotlight winners - from a variety of styles, eras, and games (yes, there are some LL parks in there). These parks were chosen for specific reasons: some were chosen to get a good baseline of what the community agrees on, and others are potentially much more divisive picks.

 

I'd appreciate it very much if you took the time to fill this out (it shouldn't take too long if you're familiar with NE spotlights, I assure you that there are no obscure parks in there); the more opinions we get, the more interesting the results will be! I'll eventually release the results of this poll along with some comments on them.

 

After you fill out the form, feel free to explain your choices in this thread!

> Creates realism vs fantasy poll
> Doesn't include any fantasy

Hey, that's why this poll is interesting - there were a few ones there that I would've voted as fantasy. In any case, I'm planning on doing extra rounds of this poll for more than just spotlights, so you can expect to see a lot more fantasy there!

Most Fantasy
DRoC

Mario Kart

-Semi-Realism-

Rocky Mountain Mystique (eh...)

Divinity Ridge

WoMB

Conquests of Quinlan

Aero's Wormwood

The Lonely Planet

Isole Calabria

Rivers of Babylon

Magic Realms Resort

Discovery Bay

-Realism-

Islands of Enchantment

Legacies Themepark

Ancient Worlds

Riverland

Zippo's

Emerald Pointe

Busch Gardens Asia

Washuzan Park Rainbow Summit

Most Realistic

My scale is almost identical to Jag's, though I would put IoE just above the realism threshold into semi-realism.

 

I find the question of "is it Realism" much easier to checklist than "is it Semi-Realism or Fantasy". I think if you've got backstage areas and unthemed/infrastructural looking rooftops then it's nearly always realism - how much so then just becomes a question of how convincing it all is.

 

And I definitely think you can make a case that unconvincing realism is still realism - it's about the intention perhaps?

The part about intention is the one I find most interesting. If you go back to the threads of these old spotlights (that one might consider to be semi-realistic), you might start getting hints that they were just considered realism in the era they were made.

I think a prime example would be Aero's Wormwood: looks plenty semi-realistic to many of us, but you've got people like RRP claiming it to be "so realistic and flowing", and aero himself confirming that many elements of the park were attempts to replicate real-life coasters and attractions.

If Wormwood isn't realistic, then what's stopping us from calling the next Six Flags/Cedar Fair park semi-realistic if it has transfer tracks that wouldn't work? On the other hand, stretch this point too far and you have to start considering shoddy "attempts" at realism (like a "B&M" coaster with 60 helices after the first drop) to still be realism. Personally, I'm not entirely sure where I stand on this, so I just deal with it on a case-by-case basis.

This poll made me doubt my notions of semirealism and fantasy, because I didn't think any of them are fantasy. Some were closer I suppose (Mario, Womb, DRC).

 

Interested what you're gonna make of this

Agreed with prior comments. 

 

1. Realism 'standards' have tightened and homogenized

2. Realism is a relative metric with contextual bounds

3. Just because it is put together with the loosest possible framework of a theme park setting (entry, distinct areas, 'attractions' that are accessible to 'guests' by some kind of infra) does not mean it is a 'realistic' or even 'semi-realistic' experience

4. Semi-Realism is shorthand for both "why would I want to make ugly boring bits in my realism project" and "I made richly detailed, plausible in-world functions that ground the ideas in my fantasy project"

Nice one Gamma. Will be interesting to see this. Could've also done a poll on here perhaps, albeit with images it's a little harder.

I noticed that time plays a bigger factor in how I voted these. Back in the very day I would probably have been more inclined to call RoB a realistic park. Now I'm not so sure.

I'm loving the discussion! FYI: I'll wait until the MM finals chaos has settled before I close the poll and post the results, so there's still ample time to get your answer in if you haven't yet.

I haven't seen all of these in game so I'll say what I think here going by the overviews and recall for the ones I have seen and I won't vote in the actual poll.

 

Fantasy

The Quests of Quinland Quinto

Dimensions: Realms of Creation

Divinity Ridge

Mario Kart: All Cup Tour

Walkman of My Brain

 

Semi-Realism

Aero's Wormwood

Discovery Bay

Islands of Enchantment

Isole Calabria

Legacies Thempark Europe

The Lonely Planet (though close to fantasy)

Magic Realms Resort

Rivers of Babylon

Rocky Mountain Mystique

 

Realism

Ancient Worlds

Busch Gardens Asia

Emerald Pointe

Riverland

Washuzan Park Rainbow Summit

Zippo's Wacky World of Wonders

 

Well there are my thoughts. Lots of them are debatable.

Alright, now that MM is over (barring the bonus round), it's time for me to announce the results!
 
We received 29 responses in total (including my own), but one was from a non-NE member and thus was ignored, so 28 it is. As I expected, some of the entries had a unanimous consensus, while others were pretty divisive. I'll go over each park's results, providing a brief analysis of each and also stating my opinion. Don't worry respondents, I won't name and shame anyone
 
Without further ado, on to the first park:
 
Aero's Wormwood by aero21

With a 17-11 split between Semi-realism and Realism respectively, the results of this one are relatively unsurprising. No one would really call Wormwood a fantasy park. It has a myriad of real-world theme park elements, and layouts that attempt to mimic real-world ones. The interesting part, however, is the division between semi- and realism. To be frank, I really couldn't notice a logical trend for who voted each way. I was expecting something like "older members see it as realism" or "the sticklers for realism see this as semi-realism", but there's plenty of responses here that buck any possible trend.
 
My personal opinion is that it's a semi-realistic park. I understand the argument for realism, as this is probably as realistic as it gets for a 2003 release, but I'm viewing this outside of any temporal context. Was not an easy vote though.
 
Ancient Worlds by alex

18-9-1 for Semi-realism, Realism and Fantasy, respectively. This one was quite interesting. It's pretty clear that alex went the extra mile to make this park believable as a real-world place, with things like realistic layouts, backstage areas and even an entrance shuttle, but the responses still suggest that the majority of members views Ancient Worlds as semi-realistic. It could be because there are "more realistic" NCSO spotlight parks out there, or because of the fantastical themes. Once again, there doesn't seem to be a regional or member-specific trend for this one - the lone fantasy vote did baffle me, though!
 
My opinion: semi-realism. Well, that's what I voted for, but I'm actually super on the fence between that and full-on realism. After all, why wouldn't this classify as realism? NCSO aside, I could potentially see this park existing under the Busch Gardens brand or something like that. However, I just went with my gut when voting, and my gut said semi-realism. Extremely difficult vote.

 

Busch Gardens Asia by robbie92

Yes, yes, full Realism sweep. Not much to say here. This park was included here for the sole reason of getting a baseline opinion from everyone, and that's what it achieved. I was secretly hoping for someone to vote semi-realism, though. Bummer.

 

If it wasn't obvious enough, I went with realism too. Moving on.

 

The Conquests of Quinlan Quinto by bigshootergill

Oh boy, this is a juicy one. This park was split right down the middle, 14-14, between Semi-realism and Fantasy. Perhaps unsurprisingly, though, as it does have both tags attached to it. This can be seen in the "park" itself, as well: relatively realistic coaster layouts sprawled across an almost undeniably fantastical land. This is the first time we can notice that the public perception of a park's style can go against the builder's original intention. In the park's description, bsg clearly mentions that this is not even supposed to be a theme park, arguably solidifying it as fantasy, but half the voters still believe it to be a semi-realistic park.

 

My opinion: semi-realism. Yeah, I went against the builder here too. My gut feeling was semi-realism mostly because of the ride layouts, and that it does look like a theme park, albeit a pretty unrealistic one. I find myself heavily leaning toward fantasy despite my vote, however.

 

Dimensions: Realms of Creation by Kumba

We have a 21-7 split between Fantasy and Semi-realism for this one. It should be obvious why no one voted realism, but the semi-realism votes are interesting to look at. Although most of this park is pretty damn fantastical, there are a few areas with decently realistic layouts, and it is laid out like a real-world resort park, with the hotel next to the entrance. The larger proportion of fantasy votes tells the story though: most people believe this to be a fantastical park.

 

My opinion: fantasy. Hotel be damned, have you seen the colors and size of that thing? And the Morbid area? Yeah, this is very clearly a fantasy park for me.

 

- - -

 

To avoid posting a massive wall of text and images (and so I can take short breaks while writing this), I've decided to split the results announcement in four parts. The rest is coming up shortly!

(cont'd from previous post)

 

- - -

 

Discovery Bay by alex (LL)

This is the first LL park of the survey, and the first one where someone couldn't view it. So, effectively, we got 27 responses for this one.

 

In any case, the split was 21-5-1 for Semi-realism, Realism, and Fantasy, respectively (again, weird fantasy vote haha). Here, it makes total sense that semi-realism would be the majority vote. alex even says it himself: it's a "modern take on classic LL 'Disney' style parks", most of which would probably be widely considered semi-realistic. This one turned out to be less divisive than Quinlan Quinto, and it does seem to agree with the builder's intention.

 

I went for semi-realism here as well. Even without looking at the park description, Discovery Bay reminds me a lot of old-school semi-realistic Disney and Universal parks.

 

Divinity Ridge by JKay

Another perfect split (14-14) between Semi-realism and Fantasy! This one's pretty weird to me, as I expected it to lean toward fantasy a bit more. However, the semi-realism votes aren't exactly unfounded - compositionally and aesthetically, Divinity Ridge does have a lot of elements commonly seen in semi-realistic parks of its era, albeit within a much more extravagant and somewhat abstract concept.

 

My vote went to fantasy for this one. The main thing here is that, to me, Divinity Ridge doesn't look like a theme park. It looks a lot like an RCT park, sure, but almost nothing in it looks like it'd make sense in a real (or even close to real) park.

 

Emerald Pointe by Coasterbill

Here, we have a 24-4 split between Realism and Semi-realism. Realism being the majority vote makes sense here - that's what the builder went for, and it shows, with all the real-world theme park infrastructure being clear to see. Interestingly, though, four people still voted semi-realism, and I'm not entirely sure why. Is the park's location unrealistic? Its size? Layouts? Colors? Composition? I'd be interested in hearing the opinions of the semi-realism voters.

 

As might be obvious from above, I voted realism here. Despite the warm colors and beachside location, this park has everything I would expect from a big American theme park.

 

Islands of Enchantment by artist

The first of two classic Semi-realism "poster boys" included in this survey received a 23-3-2 vote split between Semi-realism, Realism and Fantasy respectively. I'm willing to bet that parks like this one are the definition of semi-realism for many people here, and it's not hard to see why. Daring ride layouts that are still inspired by real-world counterparts, a clear theme park structure but with several "dream park" elements, an unrealistic landscape which offers creative freedom contrasted by attempts at realistic elements such as transfer tracks and custom supports. With a park like this arguably being in the dead center of the Fantasy-to-Realism spectrum, it's no surprise that the remaining voters are very closely split between realism and fantasy.

 

I went with semi-realism. As I suggested above, parks like this are my true baseline for "pure" semi-realism, with everything else being a bit more realistic or fantastical.

 

Isole Calabria by Turtle (and Steve)

By total coincidence, the second Semi-realism poster park shows up right after the first! Isole Calabria received 22 Semi-realism votes, with the remaining six votes going 3-3 for the other two styles. Now, at first glance, it might seem like people have the same opinion on this park and the previous one, but there are a few incongruities I'd like to comment on. Firstly, there appears to be a voter who thought this was realistic while IoE wasn't. But, actually, that's not the full story. While the fantasy votes remained the same, there was actually quite a bit of flip-flopping among semi-realism and realism voters between the two aforementioned parks. One person went from realism to semi-realism, while two went the other way. That's a pretty interesting phenomenon, and it shows that even among parks that are widely considered of the same era and style, there can be disagreements in the community.

 

For the same reasons as in IoE, I went for semi-realism here, and so did most voters.

 

- - -

 

There's the second batch taken care of, on to #11-#15 next!

(cont'd from previous post)

 

- - -

 

Legacies Themepark - Europe by Liampie

A 16-12 split between Realism and Semi-realism. Like with Wormwood, it makes perfect sense that no one would vote fantasy for this, but, as for realism vs. semi-realism, it's another divisive one. I can't speak for everyone who voted, but it does make sense that there would be division. It's definitely structured like a theme park, as the name suggests, but it doesn't exactly look like a common park for a lot of people. Despite that, the clear inspirations from real-world attractions, parks, and locales are there, and the themes are nothing you wouldn't expect to see in a European park or somewhere like Busch Gardens Williamsburg. So, it's mostly up to the viewer to decide where that falls on their spectrum.

 

I voted semi-realism. It was a bit of a hard vote (and I'm pretty sure I voted against the builder's intention), but the slight weirdness of some of the layouts plus the general composition of themed areas makes this park not entirely realistic in my view.

 

The Lonely Planet by J K

The newest spotlight of the bunch received a 21-4-3 split between Semi-realism, Realism and Fantasy. I know for a fact that J K intended for this park to be semi-realistic, but I can understand the dissenting votes. I can only assume that the realism bunch would point to the layouts, entrance area (and backstage area next to it) and general composition of the themed areas, while the fantasy crowd might point to stuff like the ACTIVE VOLCANO, massive wild mouse and even more massive structure in India.

 

As for me, I think the presence of all these aspects together is what makes it a semi-realistic park, and that's what I voted.

 

Magic Realms Resort by eyeamthu1

Here, we have a 18-5-5 split between Semi-realism, Realism and Fantasy. Like TLP above, a convincing consensus but with its fair share of dissenting opinions, and it's not hard to see why. Perhaps the realism voters saw this as simply an overthemed park that could very well exist somewhere in real life, due to its realistic layouts, convincing composition and resort aspect, while the fantasy voters thought "there's no way some of these themes would exist in real life." Once again, I can only guess.

 

I went with the majority opinion and voted for semi-realism. If I just looked at the park as the sum of its parts, I might've voted realism, but MRR as a whole gives me that almost-tangible "dream park" vibe that I just can't shake.

 

Mario Kart: All-Cup Tour by bigshootergill

And now for something completely different. This had a 20-7-1 split between Fantasy, Semi-realism and Realism(!) respectively. Now, I do believe everyone's entitled to their own opinion, and I know I'm showing my hand before revealing my vote here, but what's with the dissenting votes? I mean, it's supposed to be Mario Kart. A game set in a very fictional universe. The semi-realism votes I can kinda understand, as this could perhaps be a go-kart only park with a massive budget (you'd need one to make the Rainbow Road and Grumble Volcano areas work in any capacity), but the realism vote broke my brain. Is it realistic because it's authentic to its source material? In that case, would a recreation of Jurassic Park, complete with living dinosaurs, also be realistic? I'll just put a lid on that before I get too carried away.

 

As should be obvious from above, I went with fantasy here. It's Mario Kart.

 

Riverland by Fisch

Alright, we're back to reality for a while. Another Realism sweep. For this one, however, I expected at least a few semi-realism votes, so I was a bit surprised with the results. I guess I shouldn't be, though, seeing as it's a timeline park with very realistic surroundings and an immaculate attention to detail. I just thought at least one person would follow the "not gray, dirty and American = not realism" train of thought and vote against the grain. I'm a bit disappointed, to be honest.

 

I voted realism too, though.

 

- - -

 

We're in the home stretch now! Next post will have the final batch of results (#16-#20), plus some closing thoughts and updates.

(cont'd from previous post)

 

- - -

 

Rivers of Babylon by sacoasterfreak

Considered the GOAT park by many (I think?), and yet another Semi-realism poster child (although of a different era), it should be no surprise that RoB received a 21-4-3 vote split between Semi-realism, Realism and Fantasy, respectively. To avoid repeating myself, most of what I said about IoE applies here, just in slightly different ways. If there's one thing I can add, though, it's that a lot of the layouts here actually manage to feel more 'real' than in the slightly more modern semi-realistic poster children seen previously (at least to me).

 

In any case, I voted semi-realism for this as well. In my view, it's a bit more fantastical than Wormwood, a park from the same era.

 

Rocky Mountain Mystique by JKay

The predecessor to Divinity Ridge, Rocky Mountain Mystique had the exact same results: a perfect 14-14 split between Semi-realism and Fantasy. Basically everything I said for DR applies here too. The interesting thing, however, is that, despite the vote tallies being the same, the way in which participants voted actually differed. You'd expect the people who voted fantasy for DR to do the same here, and ditto for the semi-realism voters, but that just wasn't what happened, which is extremely intriguing.

 

My vote didn't change, though. Fantasy for DR, fantasy for this. Same reasons as before.

 

Washuzan Park Rainbow Summit by CedarPoint6

Look, I can explain. I know that this is as realistic as it gets, but, similarly to Riverland, I wanted to see if anyone would vote against this being realism simply due to it not being American or European realism. But instead, we got yet another full sweep. I'm disappointed again.

 

Yeah, I voted realism too. Let's just pretend this one didn't happen.

 

Walkman Of My Brain by mantis

This is the survey's second and final LL park, which means it also came with a "Can't Open" option. Strangely, though, more people had to abstain from voting this time, so we only have 24 responses to go by. Weird.

 

That said, the split was 19-5 between Fantasy and Semi-realism. Like in MK:ACT, I can't help but wonder why a few people voted semi-realism here. To me, there's barely anything even remotely realistic here. It's all a bunch of abstract and fantastical goodness. Then again, it could be my (lack of) age showing. Perhaps people who were around for the golden age of LL "realism" could have valid reasons to mark WOMB as semi-realistic.

 

Going by what I said above, I voted fantasy along with the majority of people.

 

Zippo's Wacky World of Wonders by Xophe

The final park on the list received a vote split of 18-9-1 between Realism, Semi-realism and Fantasy. Another relatively divisive one, but this is where I have a bone to pick with the non-realism voters. Between the huge swaths of parking lot, backstage areas, park hotel and the park itself, this, to me, is a textbook realistic theme park, albeit a dated one. So I'm struggling to understand why anyone would vote another way. Is it the dragon sculpture over the bridge? That's the one thing I can point out. The sole fantasy vote made me chuckle by the way.

 

All that said, I voted realism for this one.

 

- - -

 

Closing Thoughts

 

Overall, most parks had relatively unsurprising results to me, but a few ones, such as bsg's and JKay's parks, were super intriguing. General trends that I could notice include:

- Divisive picks tend to be on the semi-realism side. Of course, it'd be weird to have a park where people perceive it as either completely realistic or completely fantastical, so this makes sense.

- Due to the nature of the Spotlight accolade, it was quite common to see parks with a unanimous realism consensus, while parks more widely seen as fantasy are more contested.

- On that note, semi-realism is a weird area. Even parks widely considered as "pure semi-realism" have some level of diversity in perception. (more on that below)

 

The aspect that probably surprised me the most was how sets of parks that I generally consider to be equal in style and category resulted in differing opinions. I suppose that's to be expected from a categorization system as subjective as this.

 

Thoughts on the categories themselves:

- Realism: probably the easiest category to find spotlight parks for nowadays, and definitely the easiest category to achieve a unanimous perception in, as long as you have attention to detail (which many builders seem to have).

- Fantasy: while it may be tempting to think that there are no fantasy spotlights, I think this survey has proved that, at least to the fraction of the community that responded, some of them can indeed be considered fantasy. It definitely doesn't have the same unanimity as realism, but I hope to have proved that fantasy spotlights can exist (and can be done).

- Semi-realism: right. This one is weird. While realism has clear rules and conventions, and fantasy can basically be chalked up to "that's some crazy shit", semi-realism can literally be anything between that, due to the lack of a more comprehensive categorization. I believe this is why most of the community's disagreements in perception stem from this category. Some may believe "realistic park with no backstage areas or transfer tracks" to be the line between realism and semi-realism, while others can have a way more lenient view, and vice-versa for fantasy vs. semi-realism. This is why, in my opinion, "semi-realism" is a pretty useless label, but it does sound nice

- The categorization system: while discussing this matter with other members, I've noticed that a relatively common issue is that the Fantasy-to-Realism spectrum is very much designed for traditional parks, and, as such, doesn't cover every style of RCT. A few notable gaps include: artsy, abstract, conceptual, fictional recreation... Currently, most of these that I've listed end up getting smushed together in the fantasy category.

 

In conclusion... Wait, have I even concluded anything from this? Not really. In quantifying the community's perception of these styles, I was hoping to reach some sort of tangible conclusion, like "people from this region tend to think this way", or "these are the aspects commonly attributed to [insert style here] parks", but the more I look at these results, the more I start to realize that most of us probably just go by feel when categorizing these. Does builder intention matter? Does the park's era matter? At the end of the day, that's probably for each one of us to decide for ourselves.

 

Updates

 

So, you might have noticed that I called this poll the "Spotlight Edition". Well, that's because I was originally planning on making more of these, for different categories of parks, like golds, H2H entries, micros, etc. I have two big concerns, however.

 

Firstly, would people even be interested in subsequent editions? I got ~28 responses this time, which is a nice sample, but I am aware that interest (and thus, the number of respondents) may very well wane in the future. Therefore, I'd like to ask if you'd be interested in another edition. You can reply here, or tell me on Discord. Thanks!

 

Secondly, after spending upwards of four hours on this writeup, I've realized that these things take time. Of course, I did this all out of genuine interest in the topic, but I'm not sure if I can be bothered to do another one of these entirely by myself. So, if there's enough interest in subsequent editions, I'd like to ask if anyone would be interested in collaborating with me to create a survey and analyze the results.

 

- - -

 

That's about it. I'm super tired of writing, but it was fun. Thanks for participating!

Nice breakdown of the results, pretty interesting to see how it went. I struggled a bit deciding on a lot of these, for me transfer tracks and backstage areas were what I made my decision on.

Not totally surprising results but there's a few interesting bits. I voted in the majority for most. Surprised by the split in Quinlan Quito.

I voted based on assumed creator intention and whether it felt like something that could plausibly exist with perhaps a stretch of the imagination, or more like a map that just utilises the "shape" of a theme park. Didn't really factor in things like transfer tracks etc. For example Aero's Wormwood was intended as realism and achieved that based on the objects and "meta" of the time so I voted it as realism.

Will be interesting to see this applied to non-spotlight maps like designs or smaller maps like H2H parks.

Do you have individual voting results I can't remember what I chose for a few of these haha

On second thought I think I'd change some votes.I'd probably broaden my definition of fantasy more (or decrease my definition of semi-realism).

 

Because there were so many parks I tried to come up with some staples of the respective category. For realism this was super easy; things like crunch, ugly backstage areas and parking lots. Parks with no backstage areas went to semi-realism. Pretty backstage areas are more difficult. These were all parks though. If you'd ask me, fantasy RCT is mainly non-parks. Although I should consider otherworldly parks as well.

 

 

My new spectrum would probably be based more on whether it could exist in this or another world. Something like this:

Realism - does or could definitely exist

Semirealism - could technically exist, but probably would not or would otherwise not be functional

Fantasy - otherworldly parks and other stuff

 

 

The difficulty then lies in rating old parks. Basically because some tried to be realistic but lacked the objects or execution. Obviously that still happens, but with today's possibilities it's more easy to discern.

Do you have individual voting results I can't remember what I chose for a few of these haha

 

Sure thing! Check your Discord DM.

 

If anyone else wants to check what they voted again, you can let me know here, or via NE PM/Discord DM (preferred).