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It still boggles my mind that Chris Sawyer wrote Roller Coaster Tycoon was written in pure assembly, only failing back to C to handle windows sound apis. The ga

It still boggles my mind that Chris Sawyer wrote Roller Coaster Tycoon was written in pure assembly, only failing back to C to handle windows sound apis. The game is a masterpiece, it defined an entire game genre for decades. And RCT ran smooth on my pentium 2 400mhz processor, even with hundreds of guests and dozens of rides. I believe there are many magnitudes of performance hiding in poor software abstractions in modern software.

ChuckNorris89 6y ago
That also blows my mind but then again there also craftsmen who can make beautiful timepieces all by themselves so I guess making fun games in assembly is not that different than making a beautiful timepiece if you have the love and passion for it with the paciente to boot.
- m463 6y ago
  And then there are the monks and the sand paintings.
rerx 6y ago
I have never played Roller Coaster Tycoon, but Bullfrog's Theme Park (1994) was a massive hit with us kids on the Amiga. That one really defined the genre five years earlier, to be fair.
- madarco 6y ago
  Transport Tycoon is the predecessor of RCT, using the same engine and it was released in 1994 too. Having played both on my 386 back then, I'd say that TT run much more smoothly and with a bigger world
  - mekster 6y ago
    What's very impressive is that you'd still think the graphic doesn't look so bad 25 years later and the music was superb too. Some of the tracks are stuck in my head indefinitely.
- Maken 6y ago
  What Roller Coaster Tycoon brought to the table, and makes it shine even years later, is not the theme park simulation but rather what the title promises: the roller coasters. The game comes with quite complete roller coaster (and some other rides) designer tools, which not only let you build the entire track from scratch, but also includes a simulation of vertical and lateral acceleration and g-forces along the track. It also has a appeal system for the rides, which is directly linked to the ride simulated operation parameters (plus some theming bonuses). Designing rides is what (for me) takes most of the playing time and I judge every later entry in the amusement park entry by its roller coaster design tools.
  - rerx 6y ago
    Yes, laying out roller coaster tracks was the major thing that made Theme Park so exciting to us in 1994. I am sure Roller Coaster Tycoon did a much better job at everything, but the genre was already defined. :-) Edit: I kind of enjoyed reading this flame war from 1999 between fan boys and girls from both camps https://groups.google.com/g/comp.sys.ibm.pc.games.strategic/c/O6ABvWUAvBQ?pli=1 https://groups.google.com/g/comp.sys.ibm.pc.games.strategic/...
- mekster 6y ago
  I remember deleting the introduction movie file because 5MB sounded like a good space saved.
xattt 6y ago
It ran smooth on a Pentiuk MMX 200 MHz with 32 MB of RAM. A Pentium II 400 MHz computer might as well have been a Cray to me at the time!
gambiting 6y ago
What I'd really love to know is how the game was ported to Android/iOS recently, because as far as I can tell the game is literally a 1:1 copy, so I wonder if they wrote some kind of x86 assembly interpreter for it? I cannot imagine they just remade the game in some other engine and achieved this level of accuracy.
- warmwaffles 6y ago
  It was reverse engineered by a group of devs. https://github.com/OpenRCT2/OpenRCT2 https://github.com/OpenRCT2/OpenRCT2
  - gambiting 6y ago
    Right, but that's the OpenRTC2, and I mean the official port done by Atari that is available on both Android and iOS currently https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.atari.mobile.rctclassic&hl=en_GB https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.atari.mobi...
    - nodule7 6y ago
      Chris sawyer gave Atari devs the assembly source code and helped them with porting it, completely separate to openrct
olyjohn 6y ago
Back when I had first played TTD, I had a demo of the game and it came on a single floppy disk. And it ran smoothly on my 486 with 20MB or RAM. I played that demo for hours and hours...

ChuckNorris89 6y ago

That also blows my mind but then again there also craftsmen who can make beautiful timepieces all by themselves so I guess making fun games in assembly is not that different than making a beautiful timepiece if you have the love and passion for it with the paciente to boot.

m463 6y ago
And then there are the monks and the sand paintings.

rerx 6y ago

I have never played Roller Coaster Tycoon, but Bullfrog's Theme Park (1994) was a massive hit with us kids on the Amiga. That one really defined the genre five years earlier, to be fair.

madarco 6y ago
Transport Tycoon is the predecessor of RCT, using the same engine and it was released in 1994 too. Having played both on my 386 back then, I'd say that TT run much more smoothly and with a bigger world
- mekster 6y ago
  What's very impressive is that you'd still think the graphic doesn't look so bad 25 years later and the music was superb too. Some of the tracks are stuck in my head indefinitely.
Maken 6y ago
What Roller Coaster Tycoon brought to the table, and makes it shine even years later, is not the theme park simulation but rather what the title promises: the roller coasters. The game comes with quite complete roller coaster (and some other rides) designer tools, which not only let you build the entire track from scratch, but also includes a simulation of vertical and lateral acceleration and g-forces along the track. It also has a appeal system for the rides, which is directly linked to the ride simulated operation parameters (plus some theming bonuses). Designing rides is what (for me) takes most of the playing time and I judge every later entry in the amusement park entry by its roller coaster design tools.
- rerx 6y ago
  Yes, laying out roller coaster tracks was the major thing that made Theme Park so exciting to us in 1994. I am sure Roller Coaster Tycoon did a much better job at everything, but the genre was already defined. :-) Edit: I kind of enjoyed reading this flame war from 1999 between fan boys and girls from both camps https://groups.google.com/g/comp.sys.ibm.pc.games.strategic/c/O6ABvWUAvBQ?pli=1 https://groups.google.com/g/comp.sys.ibm.pc.games.strategic/...
mekster 6y ago
I remember deleting the introduction movie file because 5MB sounded like a good space saved.

xattt 6y ago

It ran smooth on a Pentiuk MMX 200 MHz with 32 MB of RAM. A Pentium II 400 MHz computer might as well have been a Cray to me at the time!

gambiting 6y ago

What I'd really love to know is how the game was ported to Android/iOS recently, because as far as I can tell the game is literally a 1:1 copy, so I wonder if they wrote some kind of x86 assembly interpreter for it? I cannot imagine they just remade the game in some other engine and achieved this level of accuracy.

warmwaffles 6y ago
It was reverse engineered by a group of devs. https://github.com/OpenRCT2/OpenRCT2 https://github.com/OpenRCT2/OpenRCT2
- gambiting 6y ago
  Right, but that's the OpenRTC2, and I mean the official port done by Atari that is available on both Android and iOS currently https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.atari.mobile.rctclassic&hl=en_GB https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.atari.mobi...
  - nodule7 6y ago
    Chris sawyer gave Atari devs the assembly source code and helped them with porting it, completely separate to openrct

olyjohn 6y ago

Back when I had first played TTD, I had a demo of the game and it came on a single floppy disk. And it ran smoothly on my 486 with 20MB or RAM. I played that demo for hours and hours...