How Planet Coaster takes SIM gaming to exciting new levels of realism

Theme parks are awesome. This is a fact of life. The smell of burnt popcorn and the sound of bumper cars colliding gets our hearts racing faster than the coasters themselves.

This said, we all have individualized reactions to the thrill of a theme park. While some of us absolutely love a 5.8G free-fall, others' eyes widen in terror at the mere thought.

Frontier, a leading independent game developer with more than a decade of experience with SIM gaming, examined these individualized reactions when developing its new game Planet Coaster.

Aside from all the bells and whistles of a typical "build-your- own-[park/neighborhood/environment]" game, Planet Coaster goes a step further -- into the brains of park guests.

With a talented team of developers at the helm, research for the game delved into excruciating detail. The team studied factors that may affect guests' stress and comfort levels, as well as general psychological states -- and, importantly, how much money they're willing to part with as they make their way through the park (the primary objective of the game is to get guests to spend as much as possible, while keeping them in high spirits).

"Planet Coaster is all about the individual," says John Laws, director of art for Planet Coaster, in the company's dev diaries video series. "The crowd reacts as a group, but they're driven by the individual need and the individual response to things in the park."

The approach adds an element of realism. If, for example, players don't put enough toilets or trash bins around the park, the characters are visibly affected; the overall environment becomes increasingly stressful and unstable. If players fail to install an adequate number of ATMs, guests will run out of money. (It doesn’t get more realistic than that.)

"Traditionally, in SIM games, crowds don't matter, so we'll take shortcuts and let people walk through each other. It looks ridiculous; you stop believing in people," says Laws, explaining that considerable effort went into Planet Coaster's mastery of crowd dynamics.

In an interview with Mashable, Frontier elaborated on this sentiment: "In a traditional game, you have a number of statistics that regulate how well your simulation is formed. But these tend to be impersonal. In Planet Coaster, we use the guests and the visitors in a very visual way. The guests are the lifeblood of the simulation. Each visitor has their own 'guest brain' -- they can express how they feel, how they think, what their interests are. They even have their own language, Planco."

Along with all these customizations, the simulated guests in Planet Coaster's parks have unique interests and "emotional profiles." Their personalities range from timid and shy to thrill-seeking extremes; some guests even have heftier appetites than others -- just as in the real world.

"We aim to be as close to reality as possible in terms of the spread of diversity of interests," Frontier told Mashable.

Original image has been replaced. Credit: Mashable

Part of the research conducted during the game's development examined real theme parks and their crowd flow. The developers also created a new, dynamic algorithm to replicate park crowds -- hundreds or even thousands of people -- with as much detail as possible.

Each algorithmic tweak and resulting guest reaction takes the game's simulation and management complexity to unprecedented levels. When a park or ride is optimally built, the wave of emotional reaction from the crowd is the user's reward. The ripple effect is immensely satisfying to watch.

Original image has been replaced. Credit: Mashable

"I'm a great people watcher. All our animators are," says Laws. "They observe and film themselves all the time doing stuff, and seeing that come through into the game ... that's extraordinary."

Within the game, users can bring the crowd to life, manipulating details to elicit terror or joy -- effectually playing the role of benevolent creator.

"You go to a theme park, and it's about escaping the ordinary; it's a fantasy world. In a game, you can let the park come home with you. You're the boss; you're the one who can decide how to surprise or delight your guests," Frontier said. "The sophisticated reaction of park visitors in response to your actions and management skills takes gameplay to a completely new level."

Available to Pre Order & Play The Beta Now on Steam.

Full Release November 17th