Rollercoaster Creator 2 – Puzzle-based, rollercoaster-building action with more purpose than your average rollercoaster game
Creative Puzzlement
I cannot for the life of me understand why rollercoaster rides appeal to so many people. Some try to claim that it gives them an adrenaline rush and is a form of extreme sporting but this is simply not true since unlike the adrenaline-inducing sports of the extreme nature such as base jumping and rock climbing, rollercoasters are designed to be as safe as the figurative houses that I have heard many people mention, effectively providing you with a quick, choppy, but ultimately predictable ride that seems about as appealing as a blind date with Anne Widdecombe. One type of rollercoaster-themed fun I can get behind however is the simulation of the rollercoaster experience: these, unlike real rollercoasters like Kraken, never claim to be something that they’re not and Rollercoaster 2 is no exception. Take the beginning and end of a rollercoaster ride, discard the middle bit, and you have the premise of the game, which is to fill in the rollercoaster-shaped gap in order to allow the ride to go smoothly every time. It’s a game of creative puzzlement, and it may just surprise you.
Aiming to Please
The aim of Rollercoaster Creator 2 is still to come up with a rollercoaster run that successfully allows the carriages to get from beginning to end whilst collecting a minimum number of on-screen gems along the way. The gems are always scattered in a manner that shows you roughly what the shape of the coaster should be like, though improvisation and the utilisation of logic and light thinking is also necessary in some of the later levels, of which there are 30 this time around. You will find that you will come to rely on some of the provided shapes along the way which include steep drops, swift climbs, and of course loop the loops for good measure.
Like Paint, but More Puzzling
The original Rollercoaster Creator gave us the premise of solving the riddle of filling in the missing pieces of rollercoaster, and now this sequel is here to give us a bit of refinement and polish on an already-successful idea. The gameplay is pretty much identical to its predecessor, with the mouse being used to select from the toolbox menu, which looks a little like a seriously truncated Microsoft Paint menu: it allows you to either draw tracks onto the screen via a freehand function or lets you use some of the preset shapes, a restricted number of which are available in many levels. This game lets you use a line tool in order to create straight vectors over long distances: simply click and drag to extend the line to the desired length. You can also erase tracks, undo your last creation, or clear all creations from the screen entirely in case you feel you can do better.
Coast to Coast(er)
Rollercoaster Creator 2 doesn’t really have huge amounts more to offer than its predecessor, but you can clearly see a re-jigging of the menu design, some visual refinement, and wider range of levels to get through. It’s nice to see a rollercoaster game that actually focuses more on the puzzle than the big shiny tall thing that you built, so this game is recommended for those looking for some puzzles to solve and to bridge some gaps, whether these be the physical ones in the game or metaphorically in their lives: I’m not here to judge.
78/100
