The original RollerCoaster Tycoon holds a special place in my heart as the first non-educational video game I ever played. In fact, I thought that all games with “tycoon” in their title were made by the same people, so I grabbed a number of them (fortunately no terrible ones). RCT2 also got a lot of play time, and while I played pretty little of the third, I did still enjoy it. That is not today.

In recent…well, more than “years”, the RollerCoaster Tycoon franchise hasn’t been putting out the best of games. Honestly, most people playing coaster-building games are either playing the Planet Coaster games, or openRCT2, which is just community-enhanced versions the first two games made by Chris Sawyer. The newest announcement, RollerCoaster Tycoon Wonderworks, does not seem to be an improvement to come. When the trailer first came out, my internet was down, so I wasn’t watching video. I mostly just looked at the screenshot of the back heads of the park guests and thought they looked awful. Once I saw them a bit more I didn’t hate them as much as I did when they were standing still. The style isn’t really my vibe, but I wouldn’t call them bad. But after seeing the trailer, worse things have definitely come to light.

First–and probably foremost–what the heck are those coasters? You know, the things the game is named after? Pretty much every one is something that will kill someone, or at least give them a disability. The other rides aren’t much better, either. The people on the swinging ship look like they’re having about as much fun as those standing in line, or the staff with zero customers. And what is up with the zero customers? Not just for the stalls, but for the entire park? The lines are tiny, and the paths are near empty. I can get that Atari wants to really show off the big parks and big rides, but you win these games through people. Even without the “earn x number of guests” challenge, the guests are the most important tool you have. If you want to really show off how good your game will be, pack those paths up (and don’t put down the repeat flat ride half a dozen times).

The UI layout does look pretty good…sorta. It’s nice and clean, there aren’t buttons here, there, and everywhere like some stuff has. Now, RCT has never been a highly intense game, you don’t need a tonne of buttons, but there are a lot of places you can look at. Wonderworks seems to have handled the main screen quite well. The other screens that you can click to though, is a very different story. Are you telling me that words cannot fit properly on your chart? What is “…nits” “Staf…” and “even…”? Well, I know they’re “Units” “Staff Cost” and “Revenue” from letting the game run a bit, just please make the chart a bit bigger so the words don’t have to move. And while I am a bit of a sucker for pixelated graphics, it needs to be done properly. That pixelated interface over the non-pixelated park absolutely does not fit.

I think Atari very well knows that to get people excited for a new RollerCoaster Tycoon game, they need to appeal to the nostalgia of the original players. Or maybe the players who started with 2016’s Classic, which was…just a re-release the first two games. But not for the players of the games created under their banner, the only popular one of which was RollerCoaster Tycoon 3. And if you did like those games, hey, good for you. Like what you like. But the writing is there. The UI is very pixely. Most shots in the trailer are from the original camera direction. And even though the guests are a very cartoony style, the talk bubbles smiling above their head–yep, that looks like the first two. The RCT website really reflects this, too. There are some sales buttons for all games near the top, but you need to scroll about eighty per cent of the way down before you actually see a real image from a game after the first two.

All in all, this doesn’t look like a computer game to me. This looks like a mobile game that was made into a computer game. And there is some computer games that would work great on your phone, I’d have a lot of fun playing Balatro on a small screen. Heck, RollerCoaster Tycoon Classic even released as a mobile game. But RollerCoaster Tycoon Wonderworks doesn’t feel like it’s being made for bigger screen, even a screen as big as a tablet. The style, the words that don’t fit, even the tiny lines–lines you’d think you would want to make huge for a trailer. This looks like a phone game that has been put on a computer screen. Now, this trailer is “early access”, so there are probably still a number of kinks to work out. But there were also some pretty large parks shown, save for guest count and multitude of flat rides. So I can’t imagine the shots were taken that early in the game’s development. Not to mention that trailers, early access or not, are essentially for advertising. And if they want to be showing all this as good…well, I think I’ll be playing some openRCT2 and Planet Coaster rather than taking the time to learn the bad.

Did you play any of the RollerCoaster Tycoon games? What ones? What do you think of the upcoming Wonderworks? Tell us in the comments below, or on Facebook!