10-03-2015, 11:17 AM

After maybe 10 years of not playing RCT1, I installed it again. Amazingly, the game is still good and fun, but by all means not perfect.
Since the developers are interested in improving their previous titles, I analysed it for that purpose.
Restrictions, good and bad.
A game is a balance of opportunities and restrictions. For example, an opportunity might be to build a coaster freely, but the restriction allows it to get a bad rating.
Applying restrictions is a way to create a challenge, something to strive for or as a player to get better at. In RCT you can really get skilled when it comes to creating coasters with high rating. You feel good accomplishing stuff. This rating system wouldn't be fun if a bad rating didn't matter. So we need the restrictions to find purpose in what we do.
Sometimes restrictions sound good on paper and the game designer might not even question it, but it turns out that it doesn't really make the game fun. It can even be hard for players to realise how 'un-fun' the restriction makes the game.
Restrictions can also be just annoying. In many cases, annoying is not accepted and modders quickly removes that feature. But annoyance can be a part of the game, to punish players for making bad decisions.
These things are important when analysing a game and it's mechanics. Are the restrictions relevant and encouraging the players? Or maybe just discouraging and annoying?
Annoyances after playing RCT1
1) 'Guest 145 can't find the exit of the park'.
I was starting up Forest Frontiers, with the ambition to make it nice and authentic park. The first thing that happens when I builds a lot of roads in the middle. 10000 messages of guests being lost, and it's the smallest park ever! So what is the purpose of a 'getting lost' feature? To punish players for building a big park? I fail to see what I should have done better here. (And maps didn't help).
http://i.imgur.com/tXC86F8.jpg
The plaza-liked centre caused countless of guest getting 'lost'. A restriction to punish players for huge parks, but why?
2) 'I won't pay that much for Twister 1'
This feature constantly makes people boycotting my rides because they are too expensive, and it comes with a chain reaction. The problem is $0,20 is nothing! I've never seen a real amusement parks lower the ticket cost of any ride in my entire life.
I wouldn't mind this feature if my Merry-go-round was like 2 years old, but 4 months...
3) Janitors suck in this game. They are spending 500% of their time walking in queue-paths, which can't even get puked on!!!
4) Very small excitement-factor researching rides. From RCT2 we know there is a list, a queue, from which the next researched ride is picked. There is no randomness involved.
5) 'I've been queuing for Go-Karts 1 for very long'
WELL TO BAD THIS IS A PRISON. This just makes the players feel guilt, and for no reason. You can have a short line, but that wouldn't be realistic. Guest should be able to decide when they don't want to wait any longer.
Conclusion
Analyse the games you are playing (especially beta-testers), do features make sense or not? Then demand improvement, it's not always easy for developers to realise what really is fun in a game. Things might sound good on paper, but turns out to make the game worse. There is no reason to have boring restrictions in your game what so ever.
Moreover, it's easier for developers to change the game by removing annoying bits, instead of hearing 'We want three billion new features'.
------
Omg, tl;dr - Games need restrictions to be challenging and motivating. However, sometimes restrictions are just annoying and get people on the nerves. It's important to make sure all the restrictions are relevant, and make the game more fun, especially when adding realism, because some realism is simply just boring.