Randomizer mod for RollerCoaster Tycoon breathes life into a bonafide classic

To my profound horror, there are probably people reading this article who haven't been around as long as RollerCoaster Tycoon, the classic theme park management sim from 1999. In the decades it's been with us, every square inch of RollerCoaster Tycoon has been picked apart and mastered. There's nothing left to discover and no surprises in store. RollerCoaster Tycoon is a solved game. Or it was, anyway.

Enter the RollerCoaster Tycoon randomizer mod from Die4Ever, the same creator who's brought us such bangers as the randomizer mods for Duke Nukem 3D, Blood, and Shadow Warrior. Using it, you too can enjoy being buffeted by the uncaring winds of fate as the mod mucks around with your scenario goals, length, starting money, and ride stats. You could, for example, be tasked with attracting 10,000 guests on a budget of $1000, or you might find that all your coasters have been altered to possess an OSHA-violating level of intensity.

You can pick it up for free over on the RollerCoaster Tycoon randomizer GitHub page. You can't just plug it into the basic, out-of-the-box game, though, you'll need to use OpenRCT2—an open-source reimplementation of RollerCoaster Tycoon 2—to get it to work. On the plus side, that means you can run the mod within RollerCoaster Tycoon 2 very easily.

I kind of love the strange afterlife of PC classics. With a lot of them, there comes a point when the only people left playing are the myriad Dr. Frankensteins who want to perform weird and inadvisable experiments. In RollerCoaster Tycoon's case, it's either relatively understandable attempts to enliven it like this randomiser mod, or else truly dangerous people like the guy who built a coaster that takes 12 real-life years to reach its conclusion. Give humanity a sandbox and someone will build a very funny hell in it, I guess.

One of Josh's first memories is of playing Quake 2 on the family computer when he was much too young to be doing that, and he's been irreparably game-brained ever since. His writing has been featured in Vice, Fanbyte, and the Financial Times. He'll play pretty much anything, and has written far too much on everything from visual novels to Assassin's Creed. His most profound loves are for CRPGs, immersive sims, and any game whose ambition outstrips its budget. He thinks you're all far too mean about Deus Ex: Invisible War.