The Strange Reality of Roller Coaster Tycoon

Both birds are yellow but the louder one is yellower |
Directly support me and watch exclusive videos by joining Nebula at go.nebula.tv/j...
Support me: / jacobgeller
Follow me at: / yacobg42
Additional voice by Leon Cox: / ratsoalbion
Julijonas Urbonas, “Designing Death:” julijonasurbona...
RollerCoaster Tycoon: the best-optimised game of all time?: www.pcgamesn.c...
Custom Parks included:
Adventure Park by AndreasS80: rctgo.com/down...
Extreme Heights by Matsku84: / does_anybody_have_the_...
Mr. Bones Wild Ride: www.reddit.com...
Valravn- Official POV: • Valravn - Official POV
Kings Island Vortex Commercial: • Kings Island Vortex 19...
Dollywood Commercial: • July 1987 Dollywood Th...
Kraken at SeaWorld Orlando: • Kraken at SeaWorld Orl...
Unity Footage: • New Editor UI in Unity...
Thunderhead On-Ride POV: • Thunderhead Wooden Rol...
John Found- Programming in Assembly: • Assembly language prog...
The Euthanasia Coaster: • Video
Planet Coaster- Euthanasia Coaster (Chris Harrison): • Planet Coaster - Eutha...
H Positive (film): • H POSITIVE | Omeleto
Game Footage Used: Roller Coaster Tycoon 2, Planet Coaster, Metal Gear Solid 5, Saints Row IV, Space Engine, SimCity, DOOM, Lego Island 2, The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess
Music Used (chronologically): Graydo (Stealth Inc. 2), Carousel (The Evil Within), Jurassic Style, Medieval Style (Roller Coaster Tycoon 2), Main Theme (Fallout 4), Ragtime Style, Pirates Style (Roller Coaster Tycoon 2), Hexagon (Super Hexagon), Strange World/Marching Through the Fields (Dragon Quest VIII), Main Theme (Roller Coaster Tycoon 2)
Thumbnail by: / hotcyder
Description Credit: Maurice Manning, “The Louder Finch”

[@JacobGeller]

For a full director's commentary on this video, including my feelings about later Roller Coaster Tycoon titles, join my Patreon at www.patreon.com/JacobGeller!

[@hassaanrana2431]

Dude, this is awesome. I hope you look into more retro games. If you are going to, then definitely check this out www.doomworld.com/25years/the-roots-of-doom-mapping/index/

[@HarveeTV]

Chris Sawyer lives in my village and helped in my old primary school he's a really nice guy!

[@CONGTHEGUERILLA]

U kinda look like nathan fielder w a beard

[@screenteasing]

Some Pilots withstand more than 10G for some time with the right breathing and muscle contractions. So I doubt the usefulness of that coaster unless it is longer, or harder.

[@alexbristol4413]

Hey Jacob, where is the quote about the yellow birds from? I really like it and just wanna quote whoever it was, especially if it was you! :D

[@lyeisen3244]

Obsessed with the dissonance I felt with “oh cool, Rollercoaster Tycoon!” And then “Warning! Consensual euthanasia discussed!”

[@valenciansun]

Isn't all euthanasia consensual? Otherwise it's just murder

[@NoriMori1992]

This is why I'm not a fan of content warnings.

[@mikaeus468]

@NoriMori1992 I'm the opposite. What if a loved one was euthanized? A pet, even?

[@hunterkil1er342]

Bubble wrap and caution tape the world. ​@@mikaeus468

[@sociallyineptsnapper]

@@NoriMori1992you’d rather just… go into the video and get it out of nowhere?

[@CanelaAguila]

One can not stress enough how impressive writing a game in assembly is. Where in your average programming language you'd say "save 3+5" somewhere in memory so I can use the result later", in assembly you say "allocate 3 in memory drawer x, 5 in memory drawer y, then allocate the result of adding drawer x and y to drawer z"

[@Games-tx1zc]

Don't even get me started on division. Imagine writing physics calculations in assembly

[@mlgpro2241]

can confirm, writing even otherwise straightforward projects in assembly becomes mind bendingly difficult

[@rum-ham]

I think you're comment actually under sells just how difficult this would be. Doing 3+5 is easy in assembly compared to the other things he would have had to do like writing graphics and audio libraries. I'm still not sure I believe this was actually 100% written in assembly, especially not by a single person.

[@Mutantcy1992]

@@rum-ham you're correct. 1% was written in C

[@Lambda_Ovine]

Programmers today complain when they have to even think bout pointer references, tell the system to allocate memory and then properly free it in C/C++, they think is an outdated way of programming that needs to go away, hell, they complain if they have to consider data types when declaring variables instead of using a catch-all var like in JS or nothing at all in the case of Python. I cannot fathom programming anything with intended for the end user entirely in Assembly.

[@georgia2361]

"i want to get off mr. bones wild ride" is how im feeling about the general state of human existence at this point in history

[@SunflowerSpotlight]

Accurate. 😂😭

[@Mr.Korzack]

This comment is aging both really well and Hideously as Mr. Bones' 2020 unfolds!

[@Joesizzle777]

LMAO facts

[@V0TION]

xd

[@friendlyplayer92]

xD

[@DStecks]

It's an important point that Chris Sawyer didn't just program RCT in assembly for the sake of it, he did it because of all the park guests having need and personality driven AI would have annihilated computers at the time if you'd try to write that in a normal programming language. Every park in Rollercoaster Tycoon is essentially a The Sims house, but with 100+ sims in it.

[@rmac3217]

That part seems one of the easiest, RNG creates guests from a pool of potential guests, each with a timer on certain attributes and a range for ride stats. How he managed to create the physics engine is the question.

[@Xfacta12482]

@@rmac3217 Easiest to code in a logical sense doesn't mean easy work for the PC. Think about when theres eventually hundreds to thousands of guests. Quickly becomes a lot of calculation the computer is trying to do.

[@rmac3217]

@@Xfacta12482 But that's the whole thing about RCT and why it was the most epic cereal box game release... The computer doesn't have to think because Chris Sawyer programmed it in the most basic language possible, so it runs smooth on Windows95 with no RAM with all sorts of sh happening in the map.

[@dojelnotmyrealname4018]

@@rmac3217 The physics engine in comparison would be trivial. The cool thing about physics on coasters is that you know exactly where the train is going next, all you need to figure out is how fast it's supposed to be there.

[@joenoodle6914]

@@rmac3217 i think you should consider thinking before you speak

[@oliparkhouse]

I admire how you planned the script to gradually climb, quickly drop, then move around like a rollercoaster until finally returning to the start. Truly brilliant.

[@sponge6197]

oh shut up

[@oliparkhouse]

@@sponge6197 nah u

[@raistlinlove1307]

@@oliparkhouse shut up

[@oliparkhouse]

@@raistlinlove1307 u tho

[@raistlinlove1307]

@@oliparkhouse Literally just kiss me, you freak!

[@someguy1421]

I like how the thumbnail also makes it look like it says "Strange Beauty".

[@JacobGeller]

ME TOO Totally unintentional haha

[@martijn9568]

It's hard to unsee it now!

[@coolbrotherf127]

That's what I thought it said at first.

[@nuclearbirds]

Just now realizing that it -doesn’t- say “strange beauty”

[@elnico5623]

@@JacobGeller no way it was.... i literally just now come to realize it doesn't read strange beauty

[@wilderat]

the whiplash i felt going into this video thinking "oh boy, wonder what cool things i'm gonna learn about roller coaster tycoon today!" and then immediately being hit with "CW: DISCUSSION OF CONSENSUAL EUTHANASIA"........... honestly i should expect nothing less from a jacob geller video at this point LMAO. i LOVE how you talk about the game's code in relation to the structure of roller coasters, it's such a cool comparison i never would have thought of on my own. your videos continue to never fail to delight me.

[@max3446]

His content is just consistently excellent.

[@sanjuanaofeliacordovacamar5940]

What a T W I S T

[@alexb8433]

You could say it was....... a roller coaster

[@Tacom4ster]

For a less serious discussion, check out this deconstruction of Rollercoaster Tychoon 3, very well made, focusing on game feel and feedback m.kzbin.info/www/bejne/gZXdfZx-aKtpnqc

[@safe-keeper1042]

Same here.

[@papanugget2368]

Mr bones wild ride is exactly the kind of dumb nonsense that makes life worth living.

[@pivotman243]

watch the DNSL video it does it a great justice

[@jxun4l3ht10]

Absurdity of humanity is truly a thing of wonder.

[@BierBart12]

I remember watching someone build a train track from a planet to the moon in Space Engineers. It had the same chaotic energy.

[@saml1939]

wrongwrongwrongwrongwrongwrongwrongwrongwrongwrongwrongwrongwrongwrongwrongwrongwrongwrong you must solve the riddle.

[@peterthompson8380]

rttrdtrttutsddtrdtddztdtrdturtttt5

[@rachelhermanson7829]

As I kid, I came up with the genius business plan of putting all the people that had negative thoughts about my park in an enclosure so they could never leave. That way there could only be positive reviews of my park. I couldn't understand why people stopped coming...

[@angeltier987]

I did the same but it was on Jurassic park operation genesis. The guests did not leave.

[@ThZuao]

Well, I had a tiny pool of water...

[@electralumen165]

The most fascist theme park ever.

[@hi28]

@@ThZuao and the rest is history.

[@zetjet9901]

Sims Moment

[@HATECELL]

I tried programming in assembly once. I'd rather go on Mr. Bone's wild ride than do that again.

[@chadgarcia983]

>customer is upset >make an island in the middle of a lake >banish them there there are no unhappy customers in my park.

[@hyperflame17]

There is no war in Ba Sing Se

[@beretperson]

Easy there Long Fenng

[@averylazyguy8154]

The Earth King has invited you to lake laogai.

[@Youtube.Commen-tater]

The island has one ride, and its exit is underground with no pathway, making the peeps drop into oblivion

[@ricetomeatyou852]

You mean banish them to the underwater floorbed

[@delilacain7882]

There's something neat about knowing one of my favorite KZbinrs has also been to Dollywood. Yes, the south is very strange.

[@UltimaJC]

As someone who used to work there, I know how you feel lol.

[@DiggitySlice]

It's strange because its not degenerate

[@icannon6611]

@Jay Bee I've lived all across the country and the Asheville area is my favorite. Don't want to ever leave it

[@lotus6273]

I have been to dollywood AND splash country

[@peppinoandweskerfriendsfor3450]

Tennessee sucks and I want to live somewhere else, but Dollywood was fun so it’s worth it.

[@ultimatemacchia]

"RollerCoaster Tycoon is written in Assembly" I felt physical pain hearing that

[@Smorb42]

same

[@Koffiato]

I freezed for a second there

[@t.dominey4150]

Writing a game in assembly is so much more terrifying than the idea of a killer roller coaster

[@reverieWithRupam]

I teared up hearing that

[@ShiroNero94]

I was listening to this in the background while programing and I actually got a chill down my spine.

[@patrickcross1571]

As an architecture/planning student, I can understand what you’re getting at in regards to the feeling of ‘density’ with wooden roller coasters; although today minimalism is kind of the hip new thing, in design there’s definitely something to be said for having a feeling of fullness and/or rich detail, like the rough yet sturdy look of a truss bridge in comparison to the fairly uniform beam bridges on the interstate. If done right, hitting the ‘organized chaos’ sweetspot, you can create what feels like a symphony for the eyes.

[@patrickcross1571]

Addendum: There’s also an appeal in seeing something being ‘optimized’ with all its moving parts visible. I’d liken it to the feeling you get when seeing the inside of a clock tower with all its whirring cogs and well-wound springs; it satisfies your OCD need for perfection while also being exciting, dynamic, active. I imagine the appeal is there in any other simulator or RTS.

[@alberthwang2900]

Since my childhood, I've driven past Six Flags Magic Mountain many many times. Each time, I'd look over and see the familiar white hills and valleys of Colossus. That coaster truly deserved its name: it just LOOMED over the entire valley, as if mirroring the Sierra Nevada mountains. More recently, I drove past that park again, having not been there in probably over a decade, and did a double take. Those familiar white peaks were gone. There was this weird, skeletal. . . framework. . . where it used to be. It was like finding out the Alps were mined out for coal or something. As if some part of the land was. . . taken away. . . . so anyway, that's how I found out the wooden coaster Colossus was remade into a hybrid wood-steel coaster called Twisted Colossus in 2014.

[@BlueRidgeBlackRedneck]

They are a product of their time too. such an excessive and luxurious amount of natural resources, used for something like a wooden roller coaster… is such a good metaphor for the abundance those generations felt in the massive growth era they experienced. Plus the time taken to craft such a giant thing in the age before computers. I wonder where the engineering drafts for the Coney Island Cyclone or The Beast at Kings Island are.

[@patrickcross1571]

@@BlueRidgeBlackRedneck I'll bet you that at least a partial copy of those are hiding somewhere in the Library of Congress' collections. Maybe the NYC archives if not there.

[@mistermoo7602]

"Some of the most visible engineering some of us will ever see." What a poetic description of roller coasters. Bravo.

[@WannabeMarysue]

Mr Bones Wild Ride is a fun thought experiment with a memetic title. But the longest RCT2 coaster ever made now is called the Century Coaster, and is named such because it takes over 100 real world years to complete. And almost 900,000 in game years. And the fun thing is, there's always further potential for more creative solutions to make longer rides! EDIT: Smashing the record of the Century Coaster, the longest RCT2 coaster is now the Universe Coaster. Thanks to iTzNikkitty in the replies for bringing it up.

[@princessthyemis]

Whoaaaa whaaat?!

[@Rosebrickwork]

@piss piss piss piss piss piss piss piss piss piss nice name btw

[@literallyglados]

okay but I WANT TO GET OFF CENTURY COASTER doesnt quite have the same ring as I WANT TO GET OFF MR BONES WILD RIDE

[@WannabeMarysue]

@@literallyglados Yeah, I know. Like I said, I still love Mr Bones Wild Ride. I think Mr Bones is a fun story featuring understandable game mechanics. Mr Bones is like the immediate and understandable satisfaction of watching Super Mario 64 doing a backwards long jump. The Century Coaster like is hearing a Super Mario 64 expert talk about parallel universes, impressive but inscrutable. idk if that analogy even make sense But You Know

[@literallyglados]

@@WannabeMarysue oh yeah I get it

[@CheesecakeMilitia]

10:20 the whole "RCT was programmed in assembly it's super optimized" thing is kinda overblown. OpenRCT2 devs will tell you there isn't much special about the code, and if anything, the fact that it was written in x86 assembly probably held the series back. It'd actually be impossible to run the original games on a calculator, but thanks to the OpenRCT2 team rewriting the game in C, that's now a thing someone could actually try if they wanted to. Well-written C code is just as good as well-written assembly and is far more valuable for porting purposes. Chris Sawyer himself had to hire a team to rewrite the entire game for the RCT Classic mobile release. Doom is probably the better example of a well-written game that can run on a toaster - people have literally written books on that subject.

[@7cleverboys]

yes

[@JamEngulfer]

I think in the past, having the whole thing written in assembly would have provided a decent amount of optimisation and if you really want, there are some things that can be more efficiently written in assembly. However, I’d wager most of the time, modern compilers will make any decent sized C program faster than a manual ASM equivalent due to the crazy optimisations compilers can do now.

[@mjan9347]

As a member of OpenRCT2 team: yes, not much else to say. Please upvote this comment to the top.

[@akshaydalvi1534]

Also Mr bones is not the longest roller coaster in RCT kzbin.info/www/bejne/h6DXm4Gieddjjbc

[@jakecirino]

Still, as a software developer I look up to Chris Sawyer for RCT. It is quite the programming marvel to produce something like RCT using assembly.

[@nomnomgoblin8901]

I want to get off Mr. Bones' Wild Ride.

[@yaveker]

I want to get off MR. BONES' WILD RIDE.

[@spacedasher4738]

Day: 237 I’ve finally gotten use to sleeping in this hell. Wish I could say that for the others though. Apparently Susan vomited from the sudden decent in her sleep. Thank god, i’m not on there cart. I taught myself to not think and just feel the environment of this limbo. After that I decided to do some writing. After I finally escape this limbo and see my daughter one more time, i’m going to share my story. Might as well make a script for my documentary. I’m seeing why Jeff calls me the optimistic one. Welp, this is Steven signing off.

[@raiaqila1443]

You Can't.

[@SupersuMC]

@@spacedasher4738 Write. A book. Now. :D

[@spacedasher4738]

Supersum Creations Thank you, it’s been my dream to write a book. This will motivate me forwards.

[@sonicthehedgegod]

i can’t stop laughing at the leap from “It is as if death is divorced from our cultural life, just as death rituals are in our secular and postmodern Western society. But if it is already legal, why not make it more meaningful... as a ritual adapted to the contemporary world.” to “So I made a roller coaster.”

[@kittykat5090]

when you put it like that, it makes it even funnier

[@quillclock]

a true artists if I ever heard one.

[@WaddickLawnCare]

This just really shows the insanity and lack of any knowledge the “player” had! Fucking pathetic

[@vizthex]

for real, lmao

[@karak962]

YEAH OH MY LORD

[@0xEmmy]

12:01 actually, RCT would probably never run on a graphing calculator, precisely because it's written in assembly. Assembly languages are so low-level, so non-abstracted, that they have to be tailored to the exact type of CPU that runs the program, and converting an assembly program to a different CPU type means either rewriting it from the ground up in a different language, or including a clunky and inefficient compatibility layer. And graphing calculators don't use the same type of CPU as an IBM-compatible computer. RCT is very well optimized, to x86 systems - at the expense of being nigh-impossible to run on anything else. (Though with decades of time in between, even the compatibility layer might not be impossible on modern non-x86 systems, though a graphing calculator is still very much pushing it.) I will also note that with modern CPU's, it's often beyond human capacity to hand-optimize an assembly program anywhere near as well as a compiler could, meaning that one would be better off programming in something like C or Rust.

[@fowlerfreak7420]

dont expect an emotional artist type to understand anything you just wrote

[@chickenicecream1942]

@@fowlerfreak7420 L take

[@fowlerfreak7420]

@@chrisstoltz3648 I'm an engineer. Stfu.

[@vaels5682]

Here's a guy who knows

[@arahman56]

Also, just the information density: graphical calculator displays are too low-res to display everything effectively. But on the flipside...we do have Doom running on graphical calculators.

[@bonhll8070]

“Roller Coaster Tycoon” “Consensual Euthanasia” oh boy this is gonna be a wild ride.

[@kappaross6124]

A Mr. Bones wild ride, perhaps?

[@luuketaylor]

@@kappaross6124 What a shame that I am four months late to make this comment. But hey, you must still be on the ride, am I right? :)

[@hornibitch382]

@@kappaross6124 I WANT TO GET OFF MR BONES WILD RIDE

[@johnfoltz8183]

Sure, a theme park would open a coaster to guests that has never been tested. Action Park would like to know your location.

[@redengineer4380]

This video is sponsored by Mr. Bones.

[@juliannavarro3440]

When I heard RCT2 was coded in ASSEMBLY my mouth droped. Having made modest programs in highschool coded in Java, C# and other high level programming languages myself, coding in Assembly was a nightmare to me. Its known as a low level programming language because its the next step to code directly in binary, its extremely hard and it can break quite easily, you need to hsve a great amount of knowledge not only in code but the integrated circuits (the chips) themselves into wich you are coding. Its like making a tailored suit from scratch directly from cotton threads.

[@tedsmith9726]

6 months into using assembly: "Okay I got it to say 'Hello world!'"

[@ultrahenk]

He had already coded at least two games in assembly before - Transport Tycoon 1 and 2 - so I guess he sort of knew what he was getting into.

[@narex45635]

@@ultrahenk But the audacity to start Transport Tycoon 1 in assembly is still baffling.

[@UltraMonkeyLP]

By the lord did that shock me as well, to have some madlad even consider "yes I will write a game in asambly" was impressive. And that he even did it at least two more time showed me that he is a masochist and a genius or mad. But what can I say, genius and madness are two sides of the same coin.

[@LaPingvino]

@@ultrahenk you mean Transport Tycoon and Transport Tycoon Deluxe right (usually known as TTO and TTD)

[@Cometstarlight]

I couldn't help but laugh every time you showed that boat bursting into flames after SOARING off the ride

[@user-bo6vy5eg8g]

boom

[@princessthyemis]

Oh my gosh me toooo!!!!🤣🤣🤣🤣

[@justinokraski3796]

I think the repetition makes it funnier as you face the inevitability of seeing it again

[@rmac3217]

The old actual water slides with a launch ramp or drop in at the end were awesome though, no flames funnily enough.

[@ethanomcbride]

Getting killed by a roller coaster feels like the most hilariously undignified way of dying, I kinda want it

[@sluttyMapleSyrup]

Really? Careening into the afterlife at mach-1 from G-forces literally suffocating your brain while riding an unstoppable train with no brakes is undignified?

[@maxiepattie85]

Make Room Make Room (AKA Soy-lent Green) Book/Movie gives you a custom virtual fantasy before they take your life (and make food out of you)

[@RetroPlus]

Probably the raddest possible way to die

[@Marispider]

All I can imagine is being terminally ill and standing there at the entrance with my closest family and friends tearfully wishing me farewell before I get on the death coaster. They hold and comfort each other as they watch my lifeless body flopping around the last few loop-de-loops. Yeah, that's definitely a way to go.

[@blobbyblue02]

"Rollercoaster Tycoon 2 is fully programmed in assembly" I have never feared a man so much!

[@asthmaticancom4806]

From what I've seen it's actually about 97% in assembly, but that's pedantry and I am also terrified

[@lgbtthefeministgamer4039]

the worst part is it would've ran better if he programmed it in C

[@LimeyLassen]

Urbonas: We should think about death, here's a ride that kills you Mr Bones: Haha here's a ride that kills you for 3000 years Urbonas: Wait no

[@Dorian_sapiens]

Urbonas Urbonɐs ∩rbonɐs ∩∩rbonɐs Mrbones

[@Bad-Sir]

I want to get on Mr Urbonas dying ride

[@blankieplays1350]

THE RIDE NEVER ENDS

[@GreenThingonTV]

The Sarlacc of rides.

[@HeavyEyed]

I’m so glad I’m not the only one who had an unhealthy obsession with RCT and still has no idea how to make a coaster, also our go-to design is exactly the same haha

[@dustmybroom288]

15 took me 15 years to get good at building roller coaster in the game.

[@Littlevampiregirl100]

dont know how many times i built coasters that needed the largest drops, the most screws and turns, as high intensity as possible when the excitement was always a failure, and to let it be painfully long if none of the other options were possible but then eventually i had more will to learn the game, rct3 specifically, and wanted to make something realistic, ahah.. it becomes like one big math problem to solve. first of all had to understand how to make a coaster that does not make turns that break necks or drops that turn the riders into pancakes, or constant zero or negative g force that would make heads explode. there was a lot of learning and getting familiar with different coaster types, it took me surprisingly long time to understand what i was actually doing. but you almost feel like some scientist when figuring things out. after a lot of experimentation, i made just a few different coasters that seemed like they could exist in real life as popular attractions, with a bunch of useless coasters made in between. that was satisfying to create something with almost peak excitement and different mixtures of intensity depending on who you catered to, though the medium ones were most popular. but having that large and cool looking coaster farthest away from the entry with great intensity and even greater excitement, and it attracted the more crazy guests over and over again, that was something else. the nausea meter i learned not to care about, the guests dont seem to care, and first aid buildings fixed the actual problem coming from that. i think it also increased the guests nausea tolerance to other rides, which i thought of as a big bonus

[@subprogram32]

I already knew about the Euthanasia Coaster, and have been on the internet more than long enough to learn of Mr Bones Wild Ride. But I sure as hell didn't know that Rollercoaster Tycoon's core code architecture was designed with the same design ideals as a rollercoaster itself! That was pretty mindblowing for me, and yet again is a reason I love all your videos. :D

[@pebblessyou]

I mean, it's not like Chris Sawyer set out to make a rollercoaster game that's programmed with the same brashness as rollercoasters in real life. That's just a comparison Jacob made. Sawyer simply chose to do it in assembly language for performance reasons, not artistic ones

[@BigDBrian]

@@pebblessyou yeah, and honestly it's a lousy comparison based on a lot of hand waving and not knowing the invisible engineering that goes into roller coasters (understandable, because it's behind the scenes)

[@KuraIthys]

@@pebblessyou It's arguable it may not strictly speaking be for performance reasons as such either. He was probably just used to working that way. Pretty much everything he made was pure assembly. Certainly his other famous game is. (Transport Tycoon.)

[@despota2]

Because this argument is pure bullshit made up to say something substantial in the video essay. Chris is an established assembly programmer who had a huge amount of code already done for TTD. By that time it was the norm to develop in c/cpp and hand optimize the hot loops. Coding fully in assembly had more to do with being a relic in a new era than a conscious philosophical choice.

[@gastonzumbo9860]

Yeah, that part of the vid is pure conjecture but imo Jacob fails to paint it that way and it comes out as fact. It's understandable because he's a journalist and not a programmer, but maybe instead of guiding himself off of that article about RTC optimization he could've asked a programmer. Not his best work honestly :/

[@morgastic23]

Halfway through the video and I'm like "Damn this is actually really poetic and shines a light on coasters that I've never seen before." That analogy that a coaster is a horror movie with the scary parts in plain view, yet still scares you? Beautiful

[@benjaminlee985]

This reminds me of the story "The Cold Equations," a story whose central point is simply "sometimes the laws of physics result in bad things happening to people who don't deserve it." Rollercoasters and rocket ships, both fields where you can crunch the numbers and say with certainty, "given *these* facts about the situation, *this* is what will unavoidably happen to the fragile humans in that situation."

[@seancallaghan54]

Rollercoasters are the dragons of theme parks. Wherever they rest, they dominate that location and fixate everyone. Equally dangerous feeling while showing unimaginable wisdom in their bodies

[@quantumblauthor7300]

Not sure about the "wisdom" bit; are you high, bro?

[@lennyjay8390]

Dude, you‘re way too much into dragons!

[@stoneytheduck5554]

"Oh cool, RCT video" "There is a rollercoaster designed to kill you" "oh.."

[@Tantalis77]

and it doesnt feature boosters that launch you off the track, i mean wtf?

[@sageitout]

Sounds like my type of rollercoaster :)

[@rmac3217]

Launching you is too messy, my coaster has to keep your organs in tact for harvesting after the ride.

[@stoneytheduck5554]

Damn my comment got some love, thanks yall

[@EmeraldAshesAudio]

That sounds like a perfectly normal RCT video to me.

[@smallpharma]

I love what you do. Your work gravitates around physicality, and places, buildings, locations as individual bodies, it's fascinating. Your videos about the haunted house as self-made vessels of resentment, and the call of the caves we can't resist, and now the skeletal honesty of a roller coaster's design... Idk man I feel things. It's all so.. physical? Fleshy? Like these feelings are not so much rooted in the mind, but in the body - the fear of roller coasters is not rational, as you said we can already see it all, it's the body that fears what's to come. And we can't help but answer the calls of dark, deep places almost like it's stronger than us, more powerful than our rationality, like it's the body answering rather than the brain. I love how your work admits we as a group can't help but give an identity to these objects too, how by just being built they become others and separate from us and thus deserving of intention and recognition and sometimes an odd kind of conscience. It resonates so hard. Love that. Keep it up man.

[@-bravoechodelta255-6]

this man really wrote a thought provoking thesis about... literal roller coasters. someone give this man an award

[@danielmakuch3094]

One of the things that really fascinated me was the crowd noise inside of the game it really does capture that strange oscillating tonality of crowds in person

[@someonesomething9282]

"I've been queuing for Mr. Bones Wild Ride for ages."

[@johnfoltz8183]

Mr. Bones Wild Ride has broken down

[@driiifter]

The best coaster I ever had was extremely simple in design, it had no twists or loops or anything, but it went high off the ground and spanned around the entire park. I almost went bankrupt constructing it, but when it was done it stayed completely packed for decades until I had to sell it off because it was breaking down like every day.

[@gamesandculture]

Whew this is niiiiiiiice. The comparison between spare steel construction and spare code is so compelling.

[@Sinnohfreak387]

The leap from the euthanasia coaster to Mr. Bones Wild Ride is possibly my favorite transition ever

[@snachicat]

Mr. Bones' wild ride almost killed me when I choked on water laughing at 3:37. Truly a multifaceted death machine

[@Bunta1987qwerty]

I’ve never clicked so fast. RCT is a classic series.

[@glowerworm]

You can play it on mobile for about $7. RCT Classic

[@TankleKlaus]

@@glowerworm you can get the original rtc on steam for like 3€ or so

[@edsantoss]

7 or 3 still kind of a paywall dont ye think

[@naufalap]

I spent so many hours in my childhood on this game

[@electrollama2127]

There is still a decent community on r/rct and Twitch.tv, partly due to the new and improved OpenRCT2.

[@mdmjeremiah]

I used to imagine all my parks as real parks and I would walk around through them in my mind. It helped me to understand how a footpath might be in a wrong spot or how another trash can would help. This game allowed me to do that in ways no other game ever did. That’s why it had always been my absolute favorite game of all time.

[@PunpuniaDweller]

Truly a modern philosopher. I'd listen to him talk about oranges for an hour.

[@hyreonk]

modern philosophers exist tho, and they are definitely worth hearing

[@qualia765]

May I recommend exurb1a, he is somehow even better.

[@poisondamage2182]

and he's somehome make oranges the most horrifying and simultaneously melancholic thing in the world

[@PunpuniaDweller]

@@omn30 yes, i like your shirt. enjoy the orange!

[@mayman4255]

@@hyreonk There are barely any.

[@wannabe12g68]

When you went into the “catastrophically big” sequence I didn’t know what I was feeling. Your videos always make me emotional and provoke a lot of thought, but I didn’t realize that the Fallout 4 soundtrack was on in the background stirring up all those wonderful memories. It’s one of my favorite games of all time.

[@rylanruffles7106]

I’ve ridden on a wooden roller coaster called the Goliath, there’s a part where you go upside down, and the ride itself is way different than the steel roller coaster. I even got a shirt that says,”I’m not a zombie, Goliath is that good.” I visited the park during a halloween event.

[@theoleadfoot2864]

Cedar Point?

[@lazilylapis676]

There's a wooden coaster in mtl, the monster, wooden coasters just look way more intimidating somehow...

[@shadow_shine3578]

Oh my gosh I remember it.

[@commissarvigil4806]

I rode one with the same name in Atlanta

[@LilypondMovie]

Six Flags Great America? Used to work there. That ride is way too short imo

[@tylerpayne7467]

I had no idea Mr. Bone's wild Ride meme came from Roller-coaster Tycoon 2. I have learned at least some context for a part of the internet. Interesting. Well assembled video as usual.

[@ashnambers]

I want to get off Mr.Bones wild ride

[@Johnof1000Suns]

I heard of the meme before, but not the context of a roller coaster from Rct 2 that kills people from slowness.

[@aero5679]

@@ashnambers BUT THE RIDE *NEVER ENDS*

[@mia_c_21573]

This is a really cool video, but I want to address a view things, technically: All processors run machine language, and most video games are compiled from high-level languages like C into machine language ahead of time - the processor is not translating into machine language at runtime. Some languages, like Javascript, are translated more or less in real time (with some optimizations). Nowadays, a C programs with a sufficiently good compiler will outperform an assembly program. The compiler is better at optimization than a human. At the time, assembly was likely more necessary to create a program that ran so well even on horrible computers (like mine as a kid!). Again, a super amazing video, but it's worth mentioning that for most video games "undoing the abstraction" is done ahead of time.

[@notnullnotvoid]

"The compiler is better at optimization than a human" is a myth. Modern compilers are great at performing some kinds of very tedious optimizations, but they also routinely get fairly obvious decisions wrong because at the end of the day optimization is hard and requires intelligence to do well. A lot of low-level optimization work involves finding where the compiler did something sub-optimal, tweaking the code to give the compiler hints about how it should generate machine code differently, and verifying that it generates roughly the machine code you expect. A human can still do better, but the difference between writing the assembly directly vs. tweaking the C code to get roughly the assembly you want is small enough that it hardly every matters.

[@GameDevYal]

"it probably would be able to run on your graphing calculator" ...if that calculator has an Intel x86 processor, at least :P The reason almost nobody writes anything in assembly directly these days is that it only will work for one processor architecture, because other brands of CPUs will talk in a completely different computer language. One of the big selling points when C was introduced was that you didn't have to rewrite your entire program from scratch for every architecture you'd support, you could just compile the same code again with different settings and it'd work just fine.

[@clapanse]

That's not really a limitation though, since nearly all modern computers run on an x86-64 instruction set. All modern AMD and Intel CPUs, including macs, can run x86 assembly code just fine. The reason nobody writes anything in assembly any more is because it's incredibly annoying, and modern compilers have gotten very good.

[@tifforo1]

@@clapanse Don't most smaller devices run ARM processors that use a different instruction set?

[@qualia765]

No, assembly code is different than machine code. Machine code is what only works for certain processors. The game would be able to work on a graphing calculator, it just needs to be compiled it to machine code for the graphing calculator instead of machine code for your computer. However, I'm definitely not an expert, this is just how I think it works after a decent amount of research.

[@clapanse]

@@tifforo1 Yes, cell phones and tablets run ARM. I was referring to laptops and desktops with my statement above, but I apologize if that wasn't clear.

[@clapanse]

@@qualia765 Assembly is instruction set specific. You can't compile x86 assembly to work on ARM, or POWER, or SPARC, or IA64 for example, so in that way it's really quite similar to machine code. Most other programming languages are more flexible though.

[@arthursb42]

I let out an unexpected loud laugh the second you said this game was made in assembly, I'm still haunted by my extremely basic assembly classes in college lol, can't imagine making a whole game like that

[@CronicasDeGisthia]

Jacob, I've been following your channel for years now, and I love your content. But the transition of the text synched with Big Boss's blink in 1:13 is just masterful and absolute peak editing.

[@hatster401]

My first roller coaster ride was my friends expecting me to scream while I just sat there silently while they thought I died

[@luigivercotti6410]

Yeah, I never could scream either, what is up with that, are we weirdos? Like, I really really tried, many times, but every time nothing would come out. I dunno, have _you_ figured it out, because I'm still tryin' here.

[@MyoticTesseract]

i remember always freezing up as i felt the G's of a rollercoaster as a kid instead of screaming. idk, it's an interesting phenomenon

[@okeus]

me, on a coaster: content, a tad of euphoria others: screaming for some reason idk

[@IndianJokarDanceGarden]

I screamed on a roller coaster once and my brother yelled at me afterwards because I "ruined his POV video"

[@phantasm_4638]

I really appreciate the Fallout music in the background. It was one of those “is that...yup” moments. Flipped the nostalgia switch instantly. :)

[@anima9450]

Wow I just noticed the word "reality" in the thumbnail kinda looks like "beauty"

[@eliegbert8121]

That’s deep dude

[@princessthyemis]

Yeah that's so cool! That's what I thought it was!

[@Ang3lUki]

You hit the nail on the head as to why RCT was so compelling. It's a challenge. Oh, you like rollercoasters? Name every track piece.

[@Kaboom1212Gaming]

The thing is ... you wouldn't die in the coaster. Lack of oxygen to the rain only begins to do real damage after about 3 minutes. You may experience some damage due to the g forces, but at most everyone will wake up at the end of the ride with a bad headache. Fighter pilots especially could potentially even stay awake for nearly the entire ride, though they would be experiencing quite intense G-lock.

[@UltimaJC]

When he showed Thunderhead from Dollywood at 5:15 it made me oddly nostalgic for that job, which is something I never thought I'd feel. It was a relief when I quit working there, but I still miss the good parts.

[@cheemsdoge]

I swear I never thought I would enjoy Dollywood, it’s such a bizarre concept but they managed to execute it perfectly.

[@ninjawafflezz5356]

Such is the nature of rose tinted glasses

[@pavarottiaardvark3431]

Years ago I told one of my friends about this coaster design. She has a long term degenerative condition that will eventually seriously reduce her quality of life. She thought the Coaster was a much cooler than the other alternatives for the terminally ill....

[@skateordie002]

She okay as of late?

[@meandkitty8387]

Its so important to be able to envision death in dignity, and im also quite enamored with the design of this rollercoaster. Wish your friend as much joy as she can get.

[@pavarottiaardvark3431]

@@meandkitty8387 often dignity means "going out of one's own terms". And if that's by rollercoaster, the so be it :P

[@princessthyemis]

O_o

[@tokojose8774]

Ok, I've slept on it, dreamed about talking it over with my mom, and reached a conclusion: I want to die on euthanasia coaster.

[@JonoSSD]

I remember feeling like a genius when I figured out a cheap, quick and very popular coaster design that would always make my parks bucket loads of money. Was able to replicate in RollerCoaster Tycoon 2 and 3 as well to cheese my way out of most challenges. lol

[@snowfractals]

I never expected another person to have such a similar experience when it comes to the picture they got after their first rollercoaster. Yours is so similar. Obviously the ride is different. Mine was Journey to Atlantis at Sea World, but still. Mine had me, wide eyed and screaming, with my mom next to me, eyes covered with sunglasses and also screaming. Then there's my dad, sitting behind us, again, also wearing sunglasses, but he has this grin that lets you know that he thinks our reaction is funny. It is probably the only picture of younger me I like because I don't think about the physical person I'm looking at, but the memory. So, thank you for an incredible video as always, and also reminding me of that.

[@nano8640]

the way you described assembly is a little incorrect. most programming languages are run through a compiler and turned into assembly, writing assembly by hand doesn't necessarily make the code run any faster. compilers can usually out optimize a human

[@jjjx32]

you're cutting out an extra step. it's like switching from emulating a game to running it on native hardware. that's astronomically good for efficiency.

[@nano8640]

@@jjjx32 what? no it's not. compilers target specific architectures, there is no overhead unless you're writing your game in a language with a runtime

[@killerbee.13]

The optimizers of 20 years ago couldn't necessarily beat a skilled human most of the time, so it was a more-reasonable decision at the time. But yeah, nowadays there's almost no reason to ever write assembly directly. Although, languages like Java or C# do still entail extra work by the computer at runtime to execute bytecode or to JIT the CLIR, and though modern GC has more or less trivial impacts on overall performance in most instances, it does increase the memory requirements and can make timings inconsistent which can result in stuttering for a game. And scripting in games is usually interpreted, which does involve a lot of work at runtime. But the answer to that definitely doesn't need to be assembly, there's a whole range of intermediates.

[@JamEngulfer]

I’d say it probably made the program run much faster at the time, but now it’ll probably be faster if it was written in good C. Although this does make me think, could you write an LLVM frontend or something for Assembly and put the RCT2 code through its optimiser? I wonder if it would be much faster with the modern compiler optimisations.

[@nano8640]

@@killerbee.13 idk, i have no benchmarks that prove this but i think gcc was probably good enough to out optimize a human even at its inception. memory management is just not a problem human brains are very good at solving

[@DominicGo]

RCT was my childhood!! There were so many copycat “theme park” games released at the time, but RCT will always be my favorite.

[@sacredchi]

its online for 10, i just got it and i can't get the goal for diamond heights! as a kid i loved drowning people...

[@josephbrown9685]

I was addicted to this game when it was released 20 years ago. I actually got pretty good at building coasters, though it took me a few years of playing to get there. I still remember my best park. It was on that unlimited money desert map. Great video.

[@mndlessdrwer]

I don't think I've ever been afraid of roller coasters. I get alarmed sometimes when their restraints aren't quite as good as I'd like, but I know that they're statistically one of the safest thrills I could possibly have. I never scream on roller coasters, I just laugh, because it's thrilling and exciting to be flung around like that. To experience physics in such a visceral way without much, if any, risk to your person.

[@RTRC_2012]

I grew up playing Roller Coaster Tycoon 3 and I love it to this day! This video brought a big grin to my face and a tear to eye.

[@profileuser5845]

everybody's talking about Assembly and I'm here like whoa the fallout and what remains of edith finch music in the background was really well used

[@xmlthegreat]

Ironically, RCT would probably *not* run on a calculator because their Assembly instruction sets might be completely different, and porting it would be a gigantic pain in the ass.

[@mjan9347]

Just like you said, it wouldn't. Unless, there was some way to convert all those assembly mnemonics into something higher level and recompile. Oh wait, OpenRCT2 does exactly that! And the video in almost all the scenes shows OpenRCT2 footage, not the vanilla.

[@BierBart12]

@@mjan9347 So.. could a calculator run OpenRCT?

[@xmlthegreat]

@@mjan9347 so a different version of the game which is not the same game at all but a recreation would work on different systems because it was designed to? Wow, you really are blowing my mind there.../s Besides, I've never played RCT in my life... I just watch this guy's videos and studied x86 assembly in college for one semester. Never knew the history of OpenRCT or whatever.

[@mjan9347]

@@BierBart12 given sufficient devotion to compile it for the platform - yes. OpenRCT2 is fairly portably, although it requires C++17 support from the compiler.

[@crazyphan18]

“There is a roller coaster designed specifically to kill you.” Me: I think I’ve watched Greystillplays build it. Multiple times. Sees the design, hears its stats. Me: oh yeah. Definitely seen this in Greystillplays Planet Coaster series.

[@shadow_shine3578]

Oh my gosh your right!

[@aurus7245]

13g blender moment

[@wyaumann]

id heard iterations of "____ ______'s Wild Ride" before, but learning of its first version, and that it is not in fact a fast-paced crazy experience but a FOUR-YEAR-LONG INSANE CALAMITY blew my mind. and all of the air from my lungs. my family briefly worried about my health while laughing.

[@shreki2057]

I'm currently playing Fallout 4 and listening to your videos in the background, so when the main theme started playing while I'm midgame I was very confused for a moment.

[@iammaybeasliceofpie4674]

I once read that Chris Sawyer made RCT so that he could go to themeparks and file the costs as a tax writeoff. I found that quite amusing. Fun video!

[@roser338]

Everything that comes out of this channel is so fascinating. I've never played Roller Coaster Tycoon, hell, I've never felt very enthusiastic about theme parks in general, but this video was able to catch my attention in so little time. I love it

[@aifynx2546]

I think I could listen to you read the phone book and still be enthralled.

[@0xfolling]

Lovely video as always! But I feel a short correction is needed for the Assembly part. Whilst there is overhead for the computer to interpret the abstractions we build, that overhead is not present during a game's execution (assuming you're using a compiled language such as C++). For interpreted langauges such as Java or C# there *is* an overhead, but even that can be optimised away with a process called "JIT" (just in time compilation). So writing a programm in Assembly does not pose any additional benefits regarding the interpretation of the written code compared to something like C++. It gives you more control and more room for specificity, which *can* lead to optimisations otherwise not possible, but that is not because of the amount of interpretation avoided. I would also like to mention that many games were programmed in Assembly or Assembly like languages. The fascinating part about RTC is that it did that with a far more complex featureset in an era where using Assembly to programm games was already no longer a part of the practice. This doesn't change your overall point at all, I just felt it needed a bit of clearing p. A short "fun fact": Assembly is also not the final step, it is interpreted down at the hardware level into "microcode" which is then in turn interpreted by the CPU to the actual instructions necessary for evaluation.

[@noahcarter3868]

Thank you for this. As a computer engineer I cringed and was going to write this myself.

[@dyna9444]

First time in a while i’ve thought “this comment needs more likes”

[@oni7488]

That picture of you and your dad on the coaster is beautiful.

[@tristanrow4951]

I never thought I'd hear you talk about Mr Bones Wild Ride

[@anonymouse903]

The thumbnail (when small) can read both "strange reality" and "strange beauty".

[@Dorian_sapiens]

😮

[@taxmanfelix8605]

I can't say how excited I get whenever I see a new Jacob Geller video has been released.

[@unitymask]

5:15 I've been to that coaster!! The Werewolf or Loup-Garou ride in Walibi. And yeah, it is a massive thing entirely of wood and you can HEAR that your entire way through, even going "inside" through a jungle of the supports. It is incredibly visible to the point it almost feels like a background prop for the park and (admittig here i am a coward) i felt nervous just LOOKING at the height. Love that one

[@_colonial_]

Ah yes, being blended at 10 gees. Truly a dignified death.

[@ryujin7213]

God I love this game, and I love listening to this man talk about literally anything

[@BenersantheBread]

"-cause Roller Coaster Tycoon, is written in assembly." Oh, those poor developers...

[@dustmybroom288]

You mean developer

[@Roxor128]

Just think: the first playable emulators for the SNES and its contemporaries were also written in assembler.

[@emilyking1177]

Tbh his death coaster is less deadly then any of the coasters I ever made in RCT2

[@lewist5677]

"My go to move when building a coaster was always to go as high as possible, do a giant drop, a few spins and then desperately try to connect it back to the start." Preach 🙏

[@johnfoltz8183]

Can't construct Roller Coaster 1 here... Too high for supports!

[@arturslunga3415]

"I want to get off mr Bones Wild ride" Me: It's just lines of code, they don't have real feelings. Meanwhile, some super advanced creature looking at humans: They're just a collection of cells, they have no real feelings.

[@bimlauyomashitobi421]

KZbin: Video uploaded 16 seconds ago Entire comment section: Commented 13 hours ago

[@JacobGeller]

patreon, babyy

[@opera_ghost8504]

not gonna lie, I'll never get tired of hearing your childhood anecdotes

[@uncoherentramblings2826]

The lack of the "unabstraction" step is not what makes it optimised. It' more complicated than that. Other than this minor point of misunderstanding, great video!

[@MeonLights]

I never played Roller Coaster Tychoon, it either passed me by or I didn't have a computer that could process it. But I always remember the story of the player who was overshadowed by a rival so they built a rollercoaster that would launch the carts into the rival's park, therefore ruining them with the death count.

[@SupersuMC]

Only possible in OpenRCT2 multiplayer, but amusing nevertheless.

[@enginecalibrationcode8779]

I never knew I could be so moved by a mini documentary about coasters. It brought back reflections of childhood. I played Rollercoaster tycoon as a young teen and I thoroughly enjoyed it. I spent hours refining parks and creating rides (some were indeed killers). I applaud your documentary. It was strangley touching.

[@jamesculverhouse4657]

So engaging it felt like a 45 minute deep dive, also i remember feeling so smart when i "figured out" just doing ups-and-downs™️

[@chiefdan07]

You forgot to mention how the game feels “alive” similar to GTA games. The peeps think on their own, walking where they want, making decisions on their own.

[@rmac3217]

And in 1999 even the few games where you had response options and the NPCs/story changed based on your actions in the game was groundbreaking.

[@seanmccormack9776]

The fact that you put a sharp turn immediately after the initial huge drop stressed me out so much!

[@SupersuMC]

Lateral G's can be worse than the vertical ones. At least the vertical ones don't threaten to throw you put the side of the car!

[@alexanderraissanugraha6799]

I don't know if this was intentional but i think it's cool that the "REALITY" in the thumbnail looks like "BEAUTY". A pretty cool double meaning

[@bananogamer6972]

This man makes a coaster with 10 vertical loops and calls himself an artist while I built a dive coaster with a drop of 1200 ft and a 90° turn in planet coaster, we are not the same

[@TheBaldr]

You got to remember that almost all console game up until the early 90s were written in assembly languages for their particular system. Atari, NES, SNES, Sega... Chris Sawyer had been working in the industry since 1983. Just because something is written in Assembly does not mean it is optimized, and computers do not translate higher languages and thus become not as optimized. Almost all higher languages have to compile before a program can be launched. A well optimized higher language code can compile into something just as efficient as if were programmed in assembly.

[@t0ss]

This was so good. My only point of feedback is the Assembly section. (As a software engineer in industry for 5 years and someone who studies computer science) I’m not gonna write a giant essay here about the depth of the errors on the assumptions made there, but if you’re interested(or any one else reading) let me know via reply here. I’m open to a discussion via whatever method you prefer (Twitter dms, email, etc)

[@Stettafire]

As a developer that bothered me too.

[@0rangepel378]

I was *not* expecting any of this.

[@Nacalal]

As someone that's worked with assembly, I don't think I could overstate how genuinely monumental the task of writing an entire game in it would be. Now most people would likely use something like C++ to build a game, which is the smart thing to do given compiler optimizations and rendering libraries and the fact that it turns in to the same binary format that compiled ASM does, but that sort of thing wasn't really an option at the time this game was made. If anything, it stands as a testament to the developer's will to actually complete the project, and as someone that puts a lot of passion into computers and programming, I find it genuinely humbling to see. For anyone that doesn't have experience with ASM, using it to build a game from the ground up is akin to having to live through Mr. Bone's wild ride.