When I was a kid growing up in the early 2000s, there were two things I loved more than any of the plethora of other interests I had: LEGO's Bionicle line, which ran from 2001 to early 2010 (and will return in 2015) and Chris Sawyer's masterpiece Roller Coaster Tycoon. All day I'd play with my Bionicle sets, build new ones, and participate on Bionicle forums, and all day I'd build massive theme parks with thousands of guests and crazy roller coasters in Roller Coaster Tycoon. Both of these things allowed me to harness what many people I know call my best trait: my creativity. I could create the most colorful and awesome-looking figures with my thousands of Bionicle pieces and give them elaborate backstories. I could construct the most thrilling and twisting roller coasters, as intense as the guests's programmed intensity limits would allow them to ride, and decorate them with an assortment of scenery items that almost told a story itself.
Now that I'm grown and have more resources available to flesh out my creativity, I've put these two interests of mine into a fully self-created game, programmed with an incredibly flexible program called Game Maker Studio. It hasn't been an easy path, nor has it been a short one. I first learned about Game Maker in 2005 from a friend of mine who recommended it to me, and my early games were quite amateurish to say the least. Back then I had neither the capability nor the skill to create a game as complex as a theme park simulation. The idea had always been in my head, but for several years I stuck to more simple games like puzzles and mazes.
It wasn't until 2009 that I felt I had the skill to undergo the creation of a game of this caliber, and the resources available to actually make my vision a reality. The result was Bionicle Park Tycoon, a molding of my two biggest interests as a child. It was the natural choice. Not only did I love Bionicle as much then as I did as a kid, but I was also an active participant on Bionicle forums across the web, giving me an audience for my game. At the same time, Roller Coaster Tycoon was still a game I played when I had the time, even all those years after it first came out in the late nineties. I had a better understanding of how theme park simulations worked than when I did as a younger folk. It's not just about building awesome roller coasters and other rides; the player also has to manage their money, figure out how to make a profit, figure out how to keep your guests happy, and understand the huge differences in even the placement of a burger stall. Don't put food shops right next to a huge roller coaster! Don't create a coaster so large and intense that no one rides it and you can't make back the money you spent building it! All these are strategies a theme park builder, whether virtual or actual, must learn to be a success.
I finished Bionicle Park Tycoon in late 2010. I obviously couldn't sell it, as Bionicle is a trademarked brand. Nonetheless, I considered all the effort I put into it well spent. According to the website I hosted the file on, it's been downloaded thousands of times. I constantly got messages from Bionicle forum-goers about how awesome the game was and how many hours they spent playing it. If it sounds like I'm bragging, it's because I've never had so much positive feedback for any of my creative works as I did with Bionicle Park Tycoon. That, more than anything, is what I'm proud of the most. Obviously the game is nowhere near as complex as Roller Coaster Tycoon: I'm not Chris Sawyer, after all. But the fact that this game I made entirely on my own with no intention of selling got as much praise as it did makes it in my opinion one of my greatest accomplishments.
The screenshot you see up above, however, isn't Bionicle Park Tycoon. Bionicle Park Tycoon looked a lot more crude and simple than the game up above, which already looks crude enough as it is. It's homemade: what can I say? No, the screenshot at the top of the post is of it's long-overdue sequel, which for now is so creatively named Bionicle Park Tycoon 2. Over the years, even when I've left the Bionicle forums after activity died down since Bionicle's cancellation in 2010, I received many messages asking if there was a followup to Bionicle Park Tycoon in the works. I never gave the idea too much thought before, as I was focusing on college and other creative projects. Plus, now that Bionicle was over, there wouldn't be an audience for it. Sure, people still fondly remember Bionicle from their youth, but most of those people aren't on Bionicle forums anymore, and with no future of the line visible, there'd be no reason for them to return to the forums and see my work. It appeared Bionicle Park Tycoon would be just a one-hit wonder for me, something fun for me to work on and fun for people to play, but also something with no future, much like Bionicle itself.
Then, just a few weeks ago, the future of both Bionicle and Bionicle Park Tycoon was saved by an announcement from LEGO that, after many years of dormancy, Bionicle would be returning, currently set for 2015. New fans are likely to come in, and old fans now have a reason to be interested again. More importantly for me, an audience for a Bionicle Park Tycoon sequel was restored. That was all the motivation I needed to get to work on a sequel. That screenshot up above is only a few weeks' worth of work, so it's very pre-pre-alpha. But work will continue throughout the coming months. I have plans for this game that greatly exceed the ones for the first installment. I can only hope that the feedback I get for it will be half as good as what I received for the original. With this project underway, my two favorite childhood interests are molded together once again. I can only hope the kids who might play this, the new fans of the new Bionicle starting in 2015, will have Bionicle Park Tycoon 2 as a fond part of their childhood too. That, more than anything, would be the greatest thing I could ever ask for.
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