RollerCoaster Tycoon®: Deluxe
RCT Deluxe is one of those rare old gems that, no matter how much people try, has yet to have a spiritual successor fully recapture its essence or innovate in a meaningful way, and the reason for that is in the game’s fundamentally brilliant design: it’s a concise, well-balanced blend of extreme customization and structural rigidity, two seemingly-conflicting ideals that are perfectly intertwined. Coaster design, park layouts, scenery, and other aspects offer near-infinite variety, but the isometric view and deceptively simple and intuitive grid system offers a very acute precision to coaster refinement that allows a player to master the art of designing and redesigning coasters.
– Real player with 377.0 hrs in game
Read More: Best Nostalgia Simulation Games.
Where to begin? RollerCoaster Tycoon is arguably the best tycoon game of all time. The game’s development was mostly credited to only one man (Chris Sawyer), and was released in 1999. There were four games that defined my childhood. The Sims, Age of Empires II, Dungeon Keeper 2, and this.
RollerCoaster Tycoon truly gives you the power to make exactly the kind of amusement park you want to build. Even in the scenarios, it largely feels like a free building game; the game does not ask you to do anything you don’t want to do. For example, instead of asking you to build a park based on nothing but rollercoasters like some games might have implemented, Rollercoaster Tycoon simply plops you down on a plot of land and basically says, “Get this many guests and have a good park rating in three years. Have fun and buh-bye!” This game should be truly applauded for being a tycoon game that is not only great fun, but never turns into a chore by forcing you into situations where you feel you’re only doing something to beat a level. It gives you an end goal, and it’s up to you, the player, to decide exactly how you’ll get there.
– Real player with 125.4 hrs in game
RollerCoaster Tycoon® 2: Triple Thrill Pack
Where I grew up, in rural eastern Ukraine, in the early 2000’s, there was no internet, no smartphones, no kfc and NO FREE PORN! There was however intel pentium…and Roller Coaster Tycoon!!. I remember spending hours, meticulously building my park from scratch, earning milions on big rides and food, attracting 6k+ guests into my park…and then torturing them, by cutting off the escape routes, flooding paths and charging $15 for toilet. And it was magical, pure joy. Even now, with the graphics definitely looking tired, it will bring you hours of very simple fun, build a ride and see how much you can charge before guests say its enough. Or starve them, then build one burger bar, put a very steep price and watch money flooding in. Or even better, build a coaster that will eventually crash, then comfort all the mourners with free black balloons…and free rides on the coaster that just has crashed! Yes, this game was always my favourite, a safe haven where I could unleash all my sadistic fantasies! And after all these years, nothing has changed, I still love to see the message ‘Robert D. has just drowned’.
– Real player with 963.3 hrs in game
Read More: Best Nostalgia Simulation Games.
RollerCoaster Tycoon 2 is likely my favorite game of all time.
I’ve put much more than 500 hours into it spanning my entire life and continued to play it as a non-steam game whilest it was not available on Steam. When I saw that it was, my wallet got sad, because in just a few moments my money was gone.
This is in my opinion THE best RollerCoaster video game in existance, and well for that matter in my opinion the best Tycoon game of any developer. Everything is made to a precise definity and managing your park is easy, but at the same time heavily difficult! The more you know about how to play this game, the more fun it becomes.
– Real player with 153.6 hrs in game
Contraption Maker
I used to like this game. A lot. I won firts place in one of their contests, and second place in another. For which I received reward in the form of steam games. Contraption maker is a great example of a game that never stops growing. Even now, they keep adding new content to it.
But… things havetemporarily changed.
Top Meadow and Game Dev Castle took over the development and publishing of the game, and I get the feeling that they don’t really care about the game itself anymore. They look at things from a rather business perspective which is bad for this type of game’s health. I am talking about DLC packs, and the fact that they ruin this game’s fun of uploading and sharing contraptions, puzzles and mods.
– Real player with 205.6 hrs in game
Read More: Best Nostalgia Simulation Games.
If I think about my earliest days of video gaming, back before I got into my classic platformers like Sonic the Hedgehog, the title that stands out to me the most (amidst many education-focused games) was The Incredible Machine. A game that tests your ingenuity to solve puzzles, and your imagination to create them. Many of my fondest gaming memories from those days came from T.I.M. I got this game when it was in alpha, and the fact that I got to play any part in this game’s development, even just by messing around with the parts and reporting bugs, is something truly special to me.
– Real player with 37.8 hrs in game
American Theft 80s
It’s the 80s, so put on your nostalgia glasses (even if you weren’t there)!
From the creators of Thief Simulator.
Every house, bank, shop and museum can be robbed with the right tools, you just have to know how to do it.
Earn your way up in a county full of corruption and crime while discovering what the residents are hiding.
That’s right, if you see a house, bank or a shop you can get inside, but learn about the tenants first. You don’t want to get caught.
Remember VHS, cassette players and CRT TVs? No? Well now you can get to know them. Tenants will surely share them with you, albeit not knowingly.
Earn cash and reputation in the underground world filled with corruption and crime.
Sometimes the only thing you can do is get in the car and drive as fast as possible. But be careful, the cops are not playing around and will chase after you.
Make sure to bribe the police to avoid being wanted.
There are many classic styled minigames available. Beat the highscores and get achievements for it!
Use tools like crowbar, bolt cutters or lockpicks to help you in your jobs.
KEY FEATURES:
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steal from houses, trailers, banks, shops, mansions and more
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use lockpicks, crowbars and other tools to break in
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finish shady jobs for cash and reputation
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drive around seamless sandbox
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buy and steal cars
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buy houses and decorate them
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disguise yourself as an electrician or a policeman to fool tenants