A Project of Nostalgia, Knowledge, & Challenge

My gaming experiences started with two different scenarios when I was young. My mom had gotten my dad a GameBoy as a present when they were newly married. They had 3 games (that I know of) - Tetris, Frogger, & Jungle Book (Dad's favorite Disney movie). It was fun but I didn't play them much. The other experience stemmed from me playing on my parents' computer when I was young. My parents had a very old windows computer in our first house (probably Windows 98) and I could do stuff on Word from a young age. The first games we had for that computer were an e-Games compilation with mini-golf and classics, The Game of Life, some educational games (Jump Start, Dr. Seuss), and of course RollerCoaster Tycoon. (I was 3 when it came out.) I immediately loved it and spent a lot of time playing it with my dad. The game stuck with me and all 3 of the games became a staple of my childhood. 

When I got to college, my friend across the hall and I coincidentally played the game and we would play with our doors open and talk about it. When I got to grad school, I always wanted to play it again but I had a new laptop with Linux and no Windows machine. It was only recently I got myself a gaming laptop and restarted playing it. To my amazement, it held up incredibly well 20+ years later and I even found it fun in new ways. (Of course, adding OpenRCT2 really helped.) 

While enjoying the game, I started to realize a lot of ideas I've wanted to implement in game development projects have come from this game:

• pseudo-3D elements
• world rotation
• simulation/management systems
• AI systems

This game highly influenced me and a lot of what isometric development takes I know from having a bachelor's in mathematics (along with a Master's in Physics). This project will combine everything that I've built over the years. I hope that it turns into a fun project that can become something fun for people to enjoy. If not, it will at least be something I can enjoy and be proud of.

Oh and a lot of what this game will involve doesn't have a lot of tutorials online so I have to come up with my own ideas and approaches since I'm using Godot. Hopefully watching a lot of Marcel Vos videos will inspire some ideas in systems I later include. It will be a fun challenge.