Rollercoaster Tycoon

As a lot of you probably know, I spend a lot of time playing computer games. As some of you don't know, I also like Disney World a lot. And pretty much every time I go to Disney World, I come home and start playing Roller Coaster Tycoon again.

This year, I actually didn't start playing right away. I got back into World of Warcraft, and played some NHL '09, and even revived MLB Front Office Manager and League of Legends. But when the huge storm hit on Wednesday and we lost internet, I lost my two big computer game time sinks (WoW and LoL). Roller Coaster Tycoon was the inevitable beneficiary.

This blog post is for RCT fans. Here's some of my own discoveries, for your edification:

• The first thing you should do when you start a level is go to your research screen and do the following: bump research up to maximum, disable Ride Improvements and Scenery and Theming, disable roller coasters if you already have the Steel Roller Coaster (see below), and disable shops and stalls if you've already got the following: any food, any drink, information kiosk, bathroom.
  
• The Steel Roller Coaster's pre-made track called Shuttle Loop is a great money-maker. It's cheap to build, takes up a small area on your map, and doesn't require you to try to work out the intricacies of banking turns and minimizing nausea. There are other small tracks in the other versions of the Steel Roller Coaster. I recommend them as well.
• Go Karts has the highest potential excitement of any ride. Seriously. It seems like as long as you don't have too many level straightaways, the excitement just goes up and up with each block of track you add.
• People like the Log Flume more than the excitement level would make you think they do. It's inexplicable, but it's true.
• Charging admission to the park rather than for each individual ride is almost always the best way to go. It keeps your rides popular, and I think you make more money anyways. You can also still charge a small price for roller coasters and other similar rides.
• The desert parks are the best, because you don't usually have many trees to get around, and you don't have to worry about whether or not you should let your handymen get distracted by mowing the grass (answer: you should not let them).
  

What about you guys? Got any of your own advice? Post it in the comments.