Golightly Gardens

The fictional backstory:

Recently I received a letter from a solicitor, regarding the last will and testament of a long lost relative called Octavius Golightly. The gentleman had retired a multi-millionaire, and with time on his hands and an unashamed interest in classic coasters, he purchased a large empty plot of land on which to build his own park. He drew up the plans, selected the rides, hired a core team of staff, and then fell seriously ill with pneumonia. Seeing the greedy ways of his children and having recently come across my name, he decided to will me the land and a substantial amount of money on condition that I finished what he had started.

I was stunned and delighted! Upon examining the drawings it was clear that he was no fool, and a park built accordingly would be both popular and profitable. As an added bonus, he left me free reign to build as I wished once his initial layout had been completed -- at that point it would be my park. The solicitor added that should I accept the challenge, there were some boxes of papers Mr Golightly had left to me which he had been forbidden to open. These contained an extensive collection of blueprints for classic rollercoasters, water rides, dark rides, and buildings, from the 1900s up to the 1940s, many famous and some obscure, plus a few modern ride designs. It was clear that for some rides and buildings he had been unable to acquire the prints, so instead he collected photos from which he could reverse engineer them. These filled several albums. Finally, at the bottom of the last box was a pile of park maps. Mr Golightly had taken the best bits from them and incorporated them into his own park layout.

Looking at the financial plan it was clear that the park could not be built in one clean go; it would have to be constructed gradually in order to earn enough money to complete Octavius' dream. As a fine businessman, he had set out the sequence in meticulous detail while leaving room to manouvre should anything go wrong during the process. Armed with all this information, I set to work.

The scenario:

The concept for this park is to be a showcase for many of Steve Franks' wonderful real ride recreations, which run the whole gamut from the Lakemont Leap The Dips to Nagashima Spa Land's Steel Dragon 2000. A few of my own rides and recreations will be in there too, and I will credit each contribution as I install it. The main starting area (Octavius' dream) is based on a classic amusement layout framed by two wooden out and back coasters. From there I will expand further, and it is in these newer sections where the majority of the modern rides will be located. I have chosen Steve Franks' Masterbench v1b as the base for the park, as it contains a wide selection of rides and scenery and allows me to build his recreations complete with their amazingly accurate stations and decoration. There will even be a few custom-built mazes for the fainter of heart. As such, I hope it will be a beautiful and fun park with something for everybody. I will add screenshots to the thread as building progresses. Wish me luck!

The first two coasters, which frame the park, are in place. On the left is Steve Franks' recreation of The Dips at West View Park, and on the right is my recreation of the Cyclone at the Wellington Centennial Exhibition (1940). The Cyclone will have a more interesting station in due course - the original was even plainer than the one shown here.



In the middle of the park is a hand built maze. The final version will be bigger, with a series of mazes interlocking with each other. Mazes are cheap to build and, if positioned well, rake in the money, so they are an ideal centrepiece for a planned park. The biggest challenge in creating an attractive layout for this park is going to be the positioning of the coasters. Some of Steve's recreations have a big footprint, or are quite tall. This can upset the overall balance or look if the rides are poorly placed. I may even put the central maze on a raised mound of land to compensate.

[Paul Drabek]

Harold I really get a kick out of your taking RCT to a new level.

Have fun

Paul

This looks cool. Can't wait to see where it ends up

Thanks, guys! One of the lovely things about Steve Franks' recreations is that all the hard work of theming the ride is already done for you, because he's put his best efforts into recreating the stations and scenery from original photographs and postcards of the rides in question. Yes, it feels cheap to plonk down so many great rides just like that, but it makes a change from battling with statistics.



The top left hand corner by the Dips' station is where today's action has been happening. I know it doesn't look like much has changed, but I spent a long time landscaping the area only to have to flatten it again. Still, the lake and causeway are meant to be there and I see no point in removing them. They will come in handy later on.

Six individual mazes have completed the maze area, and out of shot the Cyclone's brakerun, station, and lift have been updated. The final brake run wasn't long enough and I'd missed errors on the first turnaround as well. I've installed two new rides: the Virginia Reel "Over The Top!" (1920) from the Pickering Pier in Venice, California, and the Teddy Bear rollercoaster (1935) from Kennywood. It was the same as the version at Stricker's Grove. I may move the maze area one space towards the park entrance to keep it clear of the Teddy Bear. At the moment, that corner looks very slightly cramped.

The other quadrants will house a few water rides and historic flats, plus some custom-built stuff. One of the current problems is that the Cyclone coaster has an intensity value over eight, but the excitement is around six, unlike The Dips where the values are approximately 8 for both measurements. I appreciate that the scenery around the station of The Dips helps significantly, but it does beg the question of whether I should simply abandon the "framed by coasters" approach, demolish the Cyclone, and freestyle the rest of the park. At the same time, I don't want to make it seem like I'm throwing the rides at the peeps. They need something to discover. Maybe the morning will bring a fresh perspective.

Today I decided it was time to reorientate everything. I've replaced the Wellington Cyclone with the Big Dipper at Springlake Park (Steve's recreation) and put both of their stations near the entrance of the park. It may sound a bit nonsensensical to have two big draw coasters at the front, but due to their L-shape it forces the viewer to look towards the back of the park, giving a more open feel. In addition, the Springlake ride is better than the Cyclone and the scenery around the station is big enough to keep it in proportion with The Dips.



As far as the ride placement goes, I was experimenting with a few ideas. I think having a gentle, "safe" haven in the middle for the grannies and little children will work well. It's easy to get to and means guests don't have to walk too far if they need to calm down and do something else. The new rides (on the right of the screenshot) are the Bobsled at Coney Island, Jazz Railway at Rocky Glen Park (1926) and the Auto Race at Kennwood. In the middle I put in a custom boating lake complete with an island, which will be expanded.

I haven't had a lot of time to work on this recently, but the next attraction is a dark ride, and I'm using a recreation I made of the Toonerville Fun House @Ocean Park in California. Unfortunately all the nice scenery I put in didn't transfer over into this scenario base, so I'm having to rebuild that from scratch. The fun house will be next to the Teddy Bear coaster. After that it's time to start thinking about water rides, mini golf, and little thrillers such as twisters (scramblers) and go-karts.

As an experiment, I've put in a mini golf instead of the fun house, and a river rapids ride behind it. The park is now open to guests, and behind the boating lake is a food court with a carousel in the middle (building recreated by Steve Franks) visible at the top left of the screenshot. This gives the park a rather unusual feature: the carousel is the focal point, not a big ride or fairytale castle. Somewhat surprisingly it is the virginia reel which is making the most money despite the lack of a queue. There are two very small mazes (3x3 Maze and Cyclone Maze) which are making $600 and $900 per hour respectively. I think Mr Golightly would be pleased with the success of his dream park. As promised, there will be a few more rides in this section, and then I will start expansion into the areas outside the main enclosure.