![]() For me personally it's a very exciting project and I'm very much looking forward to getting it finished and seeing it published.Ĭhris Sawyer: Day-to-day activity varies quite a bit here. I think as the newer versions of RollerCoaster Tycoon have moved on in terms of style and gameplay there's now a gap in the market for the original "classic" version of the game with its unique graphical style and more simplistic gameplay, and the success of Transport Tycoon has shown how well the mobile and tablet touch-screen interface suits this style of game. But with the success of Transport Tycoon on mobile and with the experience and willingness of the small team from Origin8 to continue working for me it was looking a lot more feasible, so they're working with me to create a very faithful conversion of the original PC game. First up, what are you working on right now?Ĭhris Sawyer: My "pet project" at the moment is an ambition to bring my old PC game RollerCoaster Tycoon 2 to modern mobile and tablet platforms - not an easy task given that the original game was written in low-level x86 assembler code which only works on the PC. Thanks for agreeing to answer our questions. Here's the result: a chat with Chris Sawyer, the creator of RollerCoaster Tycoon, about pretty much everything. I don't normally go for email interviews, but it seems this is our only option, so I agree. It's not that he doesn't do interviews, I'm told, it's just that he'd prefer to answer questions over email, via an intermediary. In the process of setting this interview up, Sawyer is described to me as a "very private person". What's he up to these days, I wonder? How hands-on - if at all - is he in development? Why do his games continue to enjoy such a passionate following, so many years after release? And, what does he think of what Atari's doing with RollerCoaster Tycoon? So, it's an interesting time, I think, to interview Chris Sawyer. Again.Īll this as Frontier works on Planet Coaster, a promising-looking rollercoaster management simulation many RollerCoaster Tycoon fans have pinned their hopes on. And the in-development RollerCoaster Tycoon World has suffered what looks like a troubled development, with negativity surrounding the quality of the game, delays, and a new studio at the helm. It was so bad, we awarded the game 1/10 in our review. But these games have, so far, been poorly received.Ītari's RollerCoaster Tycoon 4 Mobile game was a micro-transaction-riddled disappointment. And what of RollerCoaster Tycoon? Atari, which was once embroiled in a legal battle with Sawyer over unpaid royalties, currently licenses RollerCoaster Tycoon from Sawyer in order to make new games in the series. Sawyer went dark for a decade, resurfacing in 2013 to release a mobile version of Transport Tycoon alongside a small development team called Origin8. That same year, Sawyer released Locomotion, which he called the spiritual successor to Transport Tycoon.Īnd then. 2004's RollerCoaster Tycoon 3 was the work of Elite: Dangerous maker Frontier. It's at this point that Sawyer let go of RollerCoaster Tycoon's development reigns and allowed others to have a go at steering the carriage. Despite partnering with publishers such as Hasbro, Sawyer retained ownership of the RollerCoaster Tycoon franchise, and, reportedly, made a killing as its success grew. And so his next project became RollerCoaster Tycoon, which released in 1999. While plotting a Transport Tycoon sequel, Sawyer fell in love with roller coasters. An expanded and improved version, Transport Tycoon Deluxe, launched just a year later. MicroPose picked up Transport Tycoon, released it in 1994, and scored a hit. ![]() His idea was to take Sid Meier's Railroad Tycoon further by combining its gameplay elements with his isometric code to create a new kind of map. In the early 1990s, while converting Amiga games such as Elite Plus, Frontier Elite 2, Birds of Prey and Dino Dini's Goal to the PC, Sawyer created his first management simulation game, Transport Tycoon. ![]() And yet, despite this radio silence, Sawyer's games are as fondly remembered now, over 20 years later, than they ever were. The inventor of RollerCoaster Tycoon seems happy to let Atari build new games in the much-loved strategy series while he gets on with other, pressing matters, such as riding real-life roller coasters and helping out at his local school. These days Scottish video game programmer and designer Chris Sawyer flies under the radar. ![]()
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