Chris

There were a lot of things I wanted to do with the isometric system in Transport Tycoon, so I did rewrite a lot of it with a sequel to Transport Tycoon in mind - things like having multiple level roads and railways, and a more 3 dimensional data structure. It was written for Transport Tycoon, but in the end it turned out to be exactly what I needed for Rollercoaster Tycoon, it was adapted to become roller coasters on multiple levels and things like that.

Jas

It seems quite a shift going from quite a - the Transport Tycoon idea, I'm trying to think of the right word - it's quite in-depth and technical. I know Rollercoaster Tycoon is as well but Rollercoaster Tycoon is more fun and a much lighter game, I guess? I mean what made the move there?

Chris

Just personal interest I think. I never thought of it being a more light-hearted game as opposed to a technical game, I just thought "This is fun". I think I'd seen Theme Park, I quite enjoyed Theme Park. Again, I had this isometric system and I thought it'd be fantastic if I could get roller coasters to work in an isometric system, and then you could really see how they intertwine.



My vision for Rollercoaster Tycoon was based on a couple of pages in a book that I've still got (called "White Knuckle Ride" by Mark Wyatt), that's got two pictures of really big roller coasters on pages facing each other, one's a wooden roller coaster that's got an intricate structure and looked beautiful and so on, and then a steel roller coaster that had twists and turns and loops and corkscrews that were just going in and out of each other. And I just thought "I want to do that in an isometric viewpoint", and it would be fun to see it all in action, and it would be fun to build it, and I think that's just what drew me in.



I think I had less idea of how Rollercoaster Tycoon would develop than with Transport Tycoon. With Transport Tycoon I had a set idea, "This is the kind of game I'll end up with," with Rollercoaster Tycoon it just started "Oh I want to get roller coasters going," and I got a few roller coasters going and I thought "Got to get the people going," and then the game started to evolve like that, and gradually developed into a full game.

Jas

So it starts off really as a coaster sim?

Chris

Yes, yeah, I just thought "I want to see these in action", see my isometric system cope with it. And it could, it developed, and at the time I thought "This is more interesting than Transport Tycoon". I think I'd been working on Transport Tycoon for too long, and roller coasters interested me a bit more.

Jas

You weren't consciously trying to appeal to a wider audience or anything like that? It was for yourself?

Chris

No, no, I just though "This is fun," maybe thought that a few other people somewhere, perhaps some mad roller coaster enthusiasts might buy a game like this. I think I mentioned to a few people I was thinking of doing a roller coaster based game and they were like "Nah, nah, you need to do Transport Tycoon ," so I was kind of working against the grain there. It's a little known fact, but I had a publication deal for Transport Tycoon 2, I had to actually buy myself out of it. I only remembered that recently.

Jas

And this was because by then you were so into doing Rollercoaster Tycoon?

Chris

Yes, I just decided I couldn't go through with Transport Tycoon 2. I had worked on this system, I'd upgraded the isometric system, I had little blocks moving around, block based tracks on multiple levels. It was all designed for Transport Tycoon 2, so I could have a more flexible system for trains, I mean much like what became Locomotion, and the current Transport Tycoon. But I'd just lost interest, and I thought "This is much more fun, I'm into roller coasters now! I want roller coasters going round the place."

Antonia

So they're both real-life interests, roller coasters and trains?

Chris

Yes. I've always been self-motivated, and if something really interests me I will work night and day on it, if it fascinates me I'll really put the work in. If I'm not interested I really, really struggle to keep focus. At the time I spent 2 or 3 years doing Transport Tycoon games, when the interest started to wane I just thought there's not much point in carrying on. The roller coaster interest started to come up and just went from there really.

Antonia

Do you do anything involving them in real life - transport museums, trainspotting, anything like that?

Chris

I definitely did when I was younger, I'm still interested in trains and transport and aircraft and so on, probably not as much as when I was young. With roller coasters I'm definitely still interested, what's my roller coaster count now? 600-something? I've ridden 656 different roller coasters around the world.

Jas

That's pretty impressive!

Steve

How many are there around the world? How many have you got to go?

Chris

I think in total there are over 3000. Trying to get them all is a bit tricky, because I've got most of the easy ones. I've probably only got about half the UK ones, and there's a lot of obscure little ones in little parks around the UK, I've probably got about half of the ones in the USA, I've got a small number in Europe, a small number in China. I've got a friend, she's just passed the thousand mark, she spends all her spare time travelling. There's a few other people I know that have got well over a thousand, but there's very few people that's got over 2000. You have to be very dedicated.

Jas

They're creating new ones all the time.

Chris

They are building new ones, yes. Apparently China has now got more roller coasters than any other country. It's really really growing over there. It's not just rubbish roller coasters either, they're actually spending money on really good quality American and European roller coasters. There's a mixture, there's a lot of rubbish there as well, and they have their own manufacturers who do rip-off clones of not very good European coasters. I think we've gone a bit off track now, what was the question..?

Antonia

Interests.

Chris

I think I've always written games on my own interests. Even going back to little isometric games, it was whatever interested me at the time. I find it quite difficult to write a game based on someone else's ideas. I think over the years I've had so many people suggest probably really good game design ideas to me, and my eyes glaze over.

Antonia

The framing is something that you're just not interested in?

Chris

Yes, and it's nothing to do with the quality of their ideas, it's just it need to be something that completely inspires me, and then I will go all out and do my best with it.