Good news

After weeks of speculation in the newsgroups, the rumour is now fact; Today, Stern Pinball announced Rollercoaster Tycoon. Two days ago, the machine went on test at Sterns 'unofficial testing location' "Season Tickets" arcade in Streamwood, Illinois, USA. It should go into production within the next 6 to 8 weeks.

PC Bestseller

The machine is based on the widely popular Roller Coaster Tycoon PC computer game, one of the best selling PC game titles of all time and also one of my all time favourite games. The objective of the games are similar; Building great rollercoasters and attracting as much visitors to your theme park as possible.

The great Lawlor returns

Rollercoaster Tycoon is the second game designed by former Bally/Williams employee Pat Lawlor, who is well known for designing many popular pinball machines in the past like Twilight Zone ('93), RoadShow ('94), Funhouse ('90) and bestseller The Addams Family ('92). Six months after the shutdown of the Williams pinball division on October 25th, 1999, Pat Lawlor started up his own company with former colleagues Louis Koziarz, John Krutsch and John Youssi.

Playfield layout

Rollercoaster Tycoon has four flippers, three full size and one a bit smaller; basically the same idea as we've seen in Road Show. The real eyecatchers are the coloured ramps who remind me most of the ones in Rocky and Bullwinkle.
One of the ramps (called "The Rocket") sends the ball all the way up to the playfield glass, after which it races down a ramp that goes under the flippers and back up, right into a lock lane!

And then there's an inverted ramp coaster called "The Chicago Loop", a bit like the 'Tony's Palace' ramp in Who Dunnit. Other rides and features include the "Scrambled Eggs" spinning ride (A spinning disc as seen on Lawlors game Safecracker), the pop bumper "Bumper Cars", the "Handyman" drop target, the "Maintenance Man" stand-up target and an information kiosk that gives out random awards.



Could this information kiosk be? Yep, the mini Dot Matrix Display is back, in the top right of the game accompanied by three flashers.

Unusual playfield inhabitant

Right next to the DMD is a weird 'basket-like' construction also known as the "hysterical Dunk the Dummy side attraction" that seems to be able to shake up and down. On the testing location, the basket was inhabited by a Troll (remember them?) but this might still get replaced by another gimmick in the original production run.

All in all, the game looks like great fun to me, and I can't wait to play it. Being a big fan of the PC game helps the buzz (I am also eagerly awaiting version 2 of the PC game), but judging from the pictures the machine would do quite well without the game's hype!

That's all

Check out the report on Pinball News for more info and photos!