00:00Panic Coaster 2 is right around the corner. Frontier Development's latest theme park
00:04management sim boasts new themes, mechanics and above all the addition of water parks.
00:10To celebrate Frontier invited us to none other than Thorpe Park on a sunny English day to talk
00:16with them about their long-awaited sequel. There was one catch though, for at least our first chat
00:20they wanted to talk on one of Thorpe Park's rides, specifically their most recent record-breaking
00:26coaster, Hyperia. Standing at 72 meters tall and reaching speeds of up to 80 miles an hour,
00:32it was a daunting prospect. As senior producer Adam Woods and I buckled in, only one question sprang to
00:38mind. How much do you really like roller coasters? I didn't say it was a good question. I really,
00:44I really like roller coasters. Yeah? How does that sort of tie into developing a roller coaster game?
00:50Well it's a bit of a dream come to isn't it? The only other thing I could do is design roller coasters,
00:55but I can do that in Planet Coaster 2. So I can take a roller coaster, I could be inspired by
01:01Hyperia here today at Thorpe Park, jump on Planet Coaster 2, jump into sandbox mode and try any of the
01:08either returning, some of the returning favorites from the original game or some of the new roller coasters.
01:13Yeah, yeah. Have you got a, what's your favorite roller coaster to try and remake and see if you can answer it now?
01:19I would like to try and recreate. Cool, the rain's quite stinging. Yeah, it's a bit of a chill. I would
01:31quite like to recreate Vampire from Chessington World of Adventures because that was my
01:41first big roller coaster as a young child that I got to go on. Lovely. So it holds a special place in
01:49your heart. Cool. I'll tell you what viewers, this rain at 80 miles an hour, it hurts. It's a slap, isn't it?
01:59That's a new one, I haven't done it in the rain yet. That stings, doesn't it? Yeah, yeah, right in the eyes.
02:05I'm sure that's a bit of a Atolian. Feet firmly back on the ground, we retired to the Event Hall,
02:13where we were given more hands-on time with Planet Coaster 2. Frontier put us to work,
02:17as Woods alluded to, challenging us to recreate Hyperia. As a total Planet Coaster novice,
02:23my attempt was fine, but content creator Digital Dan's much more accurate effort stole the show.
02:35Finally, as the day came to a close, I sat down with creative director Rich Newbold to talk over
02:44the finer details. Rich, thank you very much for joining and thank you guys for having us.
02:48It's been a great day. Obviously, we're here to talk about Planet Coaster 2 and probably the biggest
02:55new addition is the water parks. How challenging, if any, has it been balancing the pre-existing
03:02roller coaster mechanics with the new water parks system?
03:06With the water parks, we did have to consider how it impacts the way that people build their
03:10theme parks. We don't have parks that are just, the player doesn't have to build water parks,
03:14doesn't have to build just theme parks, you can build them together. So the consideration was how
03:18we adjust the economy to allow players to do that. If they wanted to just build a water park,
03:22making sure that we have infrastructure in place for your guests to buy their tickets,
03:27buy the inflatables, so you can still monetize the water parks and that experience that you're
03:30building. So the consideration on the water parks and the management side was how it fits in with
03:34the systems that we already had with the roller coaster and the rides and the shops you already
03:38had. And on the creative side, it was how you're going to build these things. How are you going to
03:41build these big open bodies of water? Basically, that was a system that we didn't have in the
03:45original Planet Coaster. It was coasters or flat rides. And we created a new system of building these,
03:51we call them volumes of those kind of open areas for pools. And that's something we then fed into
03:55the path system as well. So we rebuilt the path system from the original one, it's now much easier
04:00and quicker to build long bits of paths, but you can also build those plazas. And the way that we
04:05tackled the creation of a swimming pool was something we then fed back into the path system as well,
04:09because we wanted both of those creative tools to feel very similar. And whether you're building a pool
04:13or a path, as they kind of look to you in the game, they're very similar in size. So that's how we,
04:19the consideration of adding waterpots to the game was on the management side, but also on the creative
04:24side as well. Talking of the sort of pre-existing systems and everything, what do you think is the
04:30most improved aspect that was already there in the first game? On the creative side was where we
04:36focused some effort on taking those amazing creative systems that we had in the original one,
04:41we saw these wonderful creations that people took the themes and the ability to create blueprints on
04:46their coasters and their parks and saw how they were taking those scenery pieces and using them in ways
04:51that we hadn't envisioned them being used and creating something that looked amazing visually.
04:55That's where we put a lot of effort in and creating what new systems that can we add to
04:59that that really allow people to be even more creative. So we have five new themes, but we've got
05:04also the ability for you to put those scenery pieces directly onto a flat ride and a rollercoaster
05:09car as well. And it will move around with those as well. So those theming opportunities,
05:13those creative opportunities, by taking these new scenery pieces and attaching them directly to a
05:17coaster car and watching it move around your track with those attached to it or animating off it or
05:21you've got your signs on it was something we put a lot of effort on. And that feedback we had from
05:25players of we want to have the ability to scale the size of things. So now on some of the scenery
05:29pieces you can adjust the scaling as well. So you're combining those two systems together and the new
05:34scenery. I'm just really looking forward to what people do on their theme parks, but also on the
05:38rides themselves and just see how they take the kind of the flat rides that we've we spent some time
05:43taking away some of the detailed theming that the version in the original Planet Quest might have.
05:47So it's a bit more plain, more vanilla, so that you can now add your own theming to in a much easier
05:53way as well. So depending on where you want to put it in your park, you have that flexibility now of
05:58I'm going to put this in my mythology section, I'm going to put all the mythology pieces on it,
06:01because it's more of more of a blank canvas. So we want to make sure that the the more creative
06:05players had a lot more tools and capabilities to see what they came up with. Gotcha. Well, sounds amazing.
06:10So it's obviously been quite a while since Planet Coaster 1, and you had a couple of a few titles
06:16in between there. You obviously had Planet Zoo and you have the Jurassic Park, Jurassic World,
06:20sorry, Evolution games. Are there any lessons that you learned from developing those titles that you
06:25put into place with Planet Coaster 2? Yeah, with Planet Coaster 2, it's a multi-platform game,
06:30which the original Planet Coaster wasn't. That was PC to begin with, and then we released Planet Coaster
06:34console later on. Because this is a multi-platform game, we took some of the learnings we had from
06:39Jurassic World Evolution 2, which was a game I was game director on, on how we build systems,
06:43build feedback into players and input systems that allow you to manage your parks if you're
06:48playing mouse and keyboard or on pad at the same time, launching at the same time. And also adding
06:54ways for people to share their creations, their blueprints, cross-platform as well. And that's
06:59something that we built upon in the original Planet Coaster. It was the Steam workshop, it was all PC,
07:04but in this we have Frontier Workshop, which is a multi-platform sharing mechanism. So now,
07:08if a player creates something that looks amazing on PC, the PlayStation 5 players can download that
07:13after the workshop and put it into their park as well. So bringing those learnings and how we build
07:17these games, multi-platform at launch at the same time, and providing tools and methods for people
07:23to see the information, different interface scales. So if you like your HUD to be kind of bigger because
07:28you're playing further away, like you do on a traditional on-account experience, you might want
07:32it to be a bit larger, but having that ability to manually adjust it to be smaller if you're going to play on
07:36your desk. So there's a lot of systems, like infrastructure systems we took a lot of learning
07:40from, but on the management side and the creative side, it's looking at ways people want to have
07:44access to the different buttons or the different shortcuts as well, and making sure they're accessible,
07:49regardless if you're on a mouse and keyboard or a pad. So something like the radial menus,
07:54so the ability, which was something we took from building Planet Coaster console and Planet Zoo
07:58console at Frontier and going, right, we're going to need this from day one for Planet Coaster 2,
08:04but it's also something that's not just for pad. If you're playing on mouse and keyboard,
08:07there's a way to access that radio menu as well, which is also, and then like quick access,
08:11so that was some of the learnings we took. What are you most excited about players experiencing
08:17when Planet Coaster 2 drops? Yeah, for me, it's that it's the creative potential that our community
08:21has shown in the past of taking the themes that we have, the scenery pieces, and then using them to
08:26build new things. Water parks is a great addition, it's a very vibrant new looking addition as well to the
08:33parks that you're building, so you've got these big open blue bodies of water that visually look
08:36great, having those amazing body flumes, so different types of flumes, raft flumes,
08:42inner tube flumes, but the way that they look is a new type of visual, they have a distinctive look,
08:46they're very vibrant colours, the tubes, this transparency, I just, I'm looking forward to seeing
08:51how people add those additions to their existing theme park creations that they're building in Planet
08:56Coaster 2, taking that stuff and then layering in the water parks as well if they want.
08:59So, are you excited to get your hands on Planet Coaster 2? What aspect are you looking forward to
09:09stretching your creative muscles most? Let us know below and make sure to stick with Games Radar
09:14for the latest news, previews and more.
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