One of the most basic laws of gamer psychology is that whatever power you give us, we'll find a way to use it to hurt people. So it's easy to see how putting us in charge of designing theme park rides might be bad news for the punters. But Rollercoaster Tycoon 3 doesn't make the creation of killer rides easy. For one thing, no one can actually die in the game.
So its players, bless their black hearts, have made rides that slam, crush, trap, drown and bury the riders in ways that almost make you wish they could die, if only to end the suffering.
MASSACRE Creator: atomrock5 Customers' fate: This is beautifully shot. We open on a long path full of customers, then cut to a distant coaster. It's rocketing down a very long, steep slope. Cut back to the customers. Life is good. Rumble rumble. The cart on the coaster behind is moving very fast. The track ends, with no bumper, pointing directly along the line of the busy path. Cut back to the coaster. Back to the path. Massacre. Watch it
OMG DROP Creator: ExtremeAnimator Customers' fate: Customers are strapped into harnesses on all four sides of a large black column. The ride then lifts them up at enormous speed. Since there's no top to the tower, the harnesses and customers rocket up into the sky. No longer attached to the building, the riders are separated from the harnesses and gravity plummets them into the concrete steps they'd used to board the ride. Watch it
DEATH TRAP PARK Creator: CRL Customers' fate: A small crowd of customers with blue balloons stand on a square of path. In every direction, a rollercoaster track leads directly to them, with a loaded train of carts at the opposite end of each. The carts accelerate. The carts hit the crowd. The carts go through the crowd. The carts hit each other. Everything spews upwards in a tall column of carnage. Watch it
MURDER THE PARK INSPECTOR! Creator: 1chevelleROCKER Customers' fate: The Park Inspector has come to assess the safety of the rides and he doesn't look overly impressed at being trapped in a cage with lions and bears, then getting hit by 12 rollercoasters. He's then put in a flaming furnace surrounded by an electric fence, into which eight high-speed coasters are crashed. The Inspector, naturally, survives. Watch it
THE SMASHER Creator: alx12345 Customers' fate: First, one group of customers are stood on a platform in front of a square pit and run over by a car to push them into it. An extremely tall rollercoaster leads the other group of customers to a point directly above the pit. A section of track runs down towards the hole. The car passes the zenith, plummets, goes directly into the pit and crushes everyone beneath, then explodes. Watch it
