Head-2-Head-X / H2HX: Round Robin - R5M2 - Dambusters vs Evergreen Gardeners

What a match. Hats off to both teams, both in this round and throughout the season. I loved both parks, and this was a very difficult decision for me. Some moments I loved:

Showboat:

Moving water hack, detailed carnival exteriors (very accurate), the wooden coaster (superb!), the engine room/interiors in general, the giant water wheels, the wake (amazing new objects!)

Bene Volantes:

Amazing plugin effect, really cool forms on the architecture, stunning new objects, excellent floating island effect (though I am not the biggest fan of how I need to move my screen every time I rotate the map), the windmill, and the synced flying coaster with the wings.

I am voting for the Dambusters here, but I want to send a special bundle of love for the Evergreen Gardeners. I am sorry if my round 4 review of Raveland was too harsh. Please trust me when I tell you all have put out 5 great parks, and that you should be very proud.

And as for the Dambusters, same to you all. I've been loving the parks you all have made, too, and some of them have been growing me on a lot upon repeat viewings.

I'll be returning to both of these parks for inspiration in the future. Like captain JK said, this is what H2H is all about!

Smokey's - 

Very cool idea executed at a high level. I'm glad that you decided to make the map dynamic, I instantly thought of this comment when I saw the park:

Moving water is a good base layer, but the smoke pattern, ship engine, and passing debris also sell the effect really well. There's some slight lag, but likely unavoidable at this scale. The ship itself is surprisingly detailed (maybe not a surprise give it's the only thing on the map), I enjoyed seeing moving engine parts, workers shoveling coal, a casino, dance parlor, circus show. There's a lot to see, very impressive work and a well-deserved victory.

Ben - 

The initial view is quite breathtaking, I like that it's seen well from all angles. It really sells the floating island. In a way I'm reminded of Howl's Moving Castle with the different backdrops, I like it a lot. The plugin effect is really elegant and the UI makes it clear for users. I wish the released code was formatted, but that's me being lazy. What a remarkable stroke of luck that an elite plug-in author happened to become available just as you were looking for a replacement. 

In terms of construction, I really like the vibrant colors and gradients you've sprinkled in around the map. Big fan of the cock tower motif, there's lots of shaft/tip diversity represented which I like. My overall impression of the map is that it's beautiful, creative, and stylish, but without the backdrop/plugin feels slightly generic (the unique shapes and colors help a lot to give it character) and it could have used a little more of a pulse. There are a surprising number of really cool new objects throughout that I'm excited to use. This feels like your most ambitious team map of the season, y'all have had some real tough luck in your matchups

Winner

The poll is now closed. The final voting score was:

A quality matchup concludes, and this was another case where one just had a small edge for the majority of voters, which translates into a relatively clear result. Whilst we congratulate Liam and team on likely snatching a PlayOffs spot last minute, we must sadly say goodbye to RWE and the Evergreen Gardeners, as this result means they can no longer qualify.

Ol' Smokey's Showboat

Bene Volantes

4 alex 70 % 3 hoobaroo 20 % 1 Coupon 10 %

3 Fisch 64 % 1 Six Frags 30 % 1 Lurker 4 % 1 Sadret 2 %

8 total

3.5 weighted

6 total

2.28 weighted

Fisch probably would want to do a full write-up later, as he is on holidays in Mexico now, but from my side this was very fun to work on, and I'm sad we got beaten so hard, although the Showboat is one of those classic H2H parks and Hydro had the exact same idea for the semi's for us (although themed to the Titanic).

I was more of a flex this season, with trying to help out on the parks as they were being build, mainly with feedback/ideas, objects, palette requests, music conversions etc. That's why I joined really late on this park, pretty much after r4 was done and Fisch requested help to get this completed, as he knew he was going to be short on time 4 days before the deadline due to his Mexico trip.

At the start when I joined, Fisch basically had some canvasses of buildings ready to be detailed for me, and I did quite a few of those town buildings, with adjusting the gradients on them, adding windows, deco, crunch etc. Also did a few buildings on my own when I got more into building with his new blocks, mainly the post delivery building, the landing hangar building/tower and the swinger. Along the way I also created basically a new workbench, categorizing all the scattered new objects and made them into tabs so they were easier and faster to build with.

With 4 days left, Lurker and me were on our own as Fisch left for his trip, and while he was tuning in once in a while for feedback, it was just marathon-ing for me to get it to the finish line, as a large part of the back of the park still had to be done, and there were quite a lot of empty spots throughout. Also did quite some peep scenes with the new peep-editor manticore provided a week or something before the deadline, and I enjoyed it a lot doing them with the new functions, such as the baker pouching the oven, Lurker dangling from the ladder, G Force grilling at the bbq and the farmers shoveling hay..

Lurker was a major help these last few days, while he had trouble building on this height and was unfamiliar with most of the CSO. His % doesn't tell how much he actually contributed, because a % on this park is much more work than on a park which required less work, if you get what I mean He helped out tremendously with peep scenes and filling up gaps, and with Sadret's MP setup we build a lot on MP together (loved all the 'aarggg I can't get this trim to align!1!' )

Sadret was wow. His plugin blew us all away and the fact he created it in a few days was mindblowing to me. Then like a day before the deadline he and hydro were working on that fade effect and once I saw that in action, I just thought we couldn't lose anymore (thanks Alex ). He was also really valuable in setting up the flexible MP server for us (where no one in our team could get the MP to work before somehow) where we could upload when we wanted. He also created a plugin before when I had the idea to raise all land to the top of the island surface and then make it invisible, so people don't have the rotate snapping (but in the end I found out it resulted in some bad glitching around the park border, so didn't went through with it)

Special thanks to the other team members, such as RWE doing the hacks on the swinger, monorail (fix) and hang glider, mk for for the objects such as missing windows, blocks and the cloud object which was done in the last hour before the deadline (!), hydro for all the windows and the amazing plugin fade effect, and the other guys for the feedback and ideas.

Finally I want to talk about Fisch. I was curious to how Fisch won so many H2H's and had so many winning parks under his name. But now I know. He started pretty much right from the start of the contest with creating all the objects needed for this and realizing his vision he had for this project in a macro design for the map and laying the foundations of the floating island and chipping away at it, while also providing high quality waves of feedback for the parks under construction. While also motivating the guys that were working on the parks for each round. While also providing art and inspiration/ideas for each round. I've never seen someone so passionate about the contest and it's certainly not his fault we are out now. His vision for this park was great, although I'm a bit sad that due to the deadline and him being away for the last 4 days, we couldn't implement everything that we wanted for this park, such as an aura protecting the island (hydro made a whole set of objects for it) and a thunderstorm. I'm also sure that we could've polished some of the architecture more when he was here with us. He basically begged at some point if more people were able to help out, because he knew we could have finishing problems with his trip coming up, but almost everyone in our team had irl time issues. I'm glad I was able to at least get it to a somewhat finished state the last week, and I'm sure that version 2 will happen at some point, with the full realized vision he had!

Sorry for the wall of text, peace out guys, was fun!

Ol' Smokey's Showboat:
Such a fun and cool concept, having seen steamboats in real life it was especially cool to see one this detailed in RCT. Fantastic fully detailed interiors, there's just so much to explore inside the boat, and the way the rides are all implemented is great. The engine room has some amazing use of flat rides to pull off the working machinery and the motion effects to make the whole boat appear moving are cool  even if my PC lagged pretty bad running the park. It all looks like a place that would be really fun, going on coasters on a moving steamboat would be beyond awesome. Honestly one of my favorite "Boat parks" on NE.

Bene Volantes:
Originally, I wasn't going to be on this park until things in the lineup changed later on. The whole contest after R1 I was figuring I was done building for the contest, then a bunch of players ended up really time crunched, or unable to join because of the combo rule. As a result I was then on the park, and I can say it was difficult to say the least to adjust to a build like this, something really way beyond my skill level (And patience level). The angles especially were so difficult to deal with and lead to some rage (As Six Frags mentioned), one of my biggest regrets with this is the scenes and details I never got into this, partly because I spent so much of my time with it just trying to figure out how to place things. I really wish I'd done more to help Fisch's concept than I did, especially since I love the concept, really do hope a "Remastered" version can be done, to really re-add the cut content like SF said above).

Speaking of Fisch, his advice, sketches and feedback through this contest huge for me being able to get anything done. Especially for me starting out in R1, all the advice on how to give the buildings a clear purpose and make them come to life was massive.

For this park, would also like to shoutout Six Frags for being a hero in this build, going on those marathon sessions filling the huge gaps and making it even possible for me to do anything detail and scene wise at all, there's zero chance I'd have been able to do all of that. Also Sadret with the amazing plugin work, and everyone who spent hour and hours making the needed objects for this.

bene volantis:

this is awesome, and I sincerely hope you come back and add the finishing polish after the contest. the rounded, flowing ghibli archy is the best I've ever seen, completely unparalleled. that one curving street with the stairs is chef kiss. i will kiss your chef. (most) of the landscaping is awesome (some fisch block spam at the back) and the plugin and overall effect is certainly cool and I'm happy to see more crazy shit on an aesthetic level. really super memorable. I'm gonna say something weird...I almost wish there wasn't a coaster. It's such an awesome fantasy piece with a red intamin kind of draped on top of it unceremoniously. i know we're playing a contest and you have to appeal to the crowd and they like coasters and yadda yadda but fuck that noise imo. if its not important to the park, cut it i say. but that aside it really is awesome and honestly somewhat genre-defining from an rct fantasy standpoint. fresh as fuck.

Reviews!

Bene Volantes:

https://youtu.be/xdUD0A3ADNA

Ol' Smokey's Showboat:

https://youtu.be/Evk5aHW6a7M

2 great parks, but Showboat is a top 5 of the overall contest candidate for me.  Such great detailing.