Transport Tycoon
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| Transport Tycoon | |
|---|---|
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| Developer(s) | Chris Sawyer |
| Publisher(s) | MicroProse |
| Distributor(s) | MicroProse |
| Release date(s) | Transport Tycoon 1994 (UK) Transport Tycoon Deluxe 1995 (UK) |
| Genre(s) | Economic simulation game |
| Mode(s) | |
| Platform(s) | MS-DOS, Windows 95, PlayStation |
| Media | CD-ROM |
Transport Tycoon (TT) and Transport Tycoon Deluxe (TTD) are computer games where the player is in control of a transport company, and competes against rival companies (or not, playing solo) to make as much profit as possible, by transporting passengers and various goods by road, rail, sea or by air.
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[edit] Overview
Programmed by Chris Sawyer (TT in 1994, TTD in 1995), TT(D) uses dimetric view in 2D and with 8-bit graphics. However, what TT(D) lacks in graphics is made up in gameplay. TT(D) is still arguably one of the best transport simulators in terms of gameplay. The few gameplay glitches were mostly resolved with the advent of TTDPatch.
To start building a transport empire, the player must construct transport routes, consisting of stations near industries or towns, and in the case of trains or road vehicles, physical routes. One transport route can utilize several different forms of transport, e.g. truck→ship→train. The player's company and the individual stations each have ratings that depend largely on the efficiency of moving goods from one stations to the other. Higher ratings then attract more goods to a station.
The other necessary components of a transport network are the vehicles themselves, built at appropriate depots, which must be connected to the road or rail networks. Towns and cities have their own road networks, but extra roads may be needed to connect them to other towns, or to various resources.
Once a resource or passenger is picked up at one station, then delivered to another station, near to where there is demand (a town, for example, demands passengers) a profit is awarded to the player. The amount awarded depends on the delivery time, distance, and amount delivered. How important each factor is depends on the type of goods being delivered.
At times, subsidies are offered for delivery of one resource between two particular places, and the first company to do so is awarded a subsidy for a certain period for that route, giving them extra profits on that route. This encourages the player to create a larger more complex transport network, rather than simply improving on previously profitable routes.
One concept which is designed to stop players from mutilating the landscape or the towns is that of the Local Authority. Each city has a rating for each transport company, and if this is too low, it will prevent the player from blowing up houses, or constructing stations. This value is affected by the level of service, the destruction of trees, etc.
Over time, cities develop and expand according to economic factors and new industries or other resource sites appear. Some natural resources are eventually exhausted and industries without transport service may shut down. Also, new, improved vehicles are introduced and eventually replace older models.
One major weakness of the game is the woeful artificial intelligence which is incapable of constructing sane networks, and often destroys the landscape of a game by leveling mountains (which costs it nothing, nor lowers its local authority rating) in its attempt to connect two railheads.
The game was originally published by MicroProse. The game is still available as a budget title in some places, but a version compatible with modern computer systems is rarer (though the game will run under Windows95, and emulation programs such as DOSBox). Many people resort to downloading the game as abandonware.
After the success of Transport Tycoon Deluxe, Chris Sawyer turned his attention towards a sequel, but during development he changed his mind and produced RollerCoaster Tycoon, which turned out to be a runaway hit. After RollerCoaster Tycoon 2 was done, work on the third version was left to another development team, and Sawyer returned to work on his Transport Tycoon sequel, Chris Sawyer's Locomotion. It was released in September 2004 and was described by Sawyer as the "spiritual successor to Transport Tycoon", but received poor reviews and was not a commercial success. Despite this there is an active Chris Sawyer's Locomotion community who continue to produce modifications.
[edit] Transport Tycoon and Transport Tycoon Deluxe
Two Transport Tycoon games were released, dubbed Transport Tycoon and Transport Tycoon Deluxe (the latter often abbreviated as TTD or TTDX). The deluxe version, as its name implies, is an expanded and improved version of the original game. (A "World Editor" expansion pack was also released for the original Transport Tycoon, but was overshadowed by the Deluxe version released shortly afterward).
The primary, but important, difference between the games is how signals operate. The original Transport Tycoon allows only bi-directional signals, which allow trains to pass in either direction. The deluxe version introduced uni-directional signals, that only allow a train to pass in a single direction.
The change in gameplay from this relatively minor alteration to signals is significant, as the old bi-directional signals would allow a train to travel in both directions. This is similar in concept to having a single lane street that would allow traffic from either end. Unsurprisingly, it was possible for two trains to try to travel in opposing directions towards each other on the same run of track. While this would not result in crashes on a properly signaled route, it required either the building of extra track to allow the trains to pass each other, or the building of a great many tracks in parallel to avoid the problem in the first place.
The new uni-directional signals allowed one-way tracks to be built, which gave the player much greater control over how the transport network could be run. This allowed for efficient routes to be built, and prevented trains from trying to travel the "wrong way" down a section of track. By incorporating both uni-directional and bi-directional signals, effective switching yards, junctions, and other useful designs could be built.
The deluxe version also expanded the game to provide tropical, arctic, and toy-town environments, as well as the classic temperate environment. The new environments came with different industries, and some extra challenges. For example, towns in the arctic environment would not grow without regular deliveries of food, and those in the tropical environment also need access to fresh water.
Due to copyright issues with using names of real vehicles in the original Transport Tycoon, they were replaced with fictional ones in Transport Tycoon Deluxe. A third-party fix was released later for players wishing to revert to the original names. Players can also rename their vehicles and stations (useful for identifying individual services in a network) and can rename whole towns which provided a better game play for users.
[edit] Third party updates
Several development teams are currently working to improve Transport Tycoon. TTDPatch provides gameplay enhancements and numerous bugfixes to TTD by patching the original binary. OpenTTD is an open source rebuild of the original TTD code with bugfixes and general enhancements and makes it possible to run TTD on many more operating systems. However, OpenTTD does at present still require the original graphics and music files.
[edit] Music
The music in this game was originally composed for the game by John Broomhall, between 1994 to 1995. It features old-style blues and jazz tunes, all in MIDI format but with a ".gm" file extension (as such, the user is only required to rename the extension of the music files from ".gm" to ".mid" or ".midi" in order to render them playable in a MIDI player).
Transport Tycoon music is also available to download on internet fansites (original FM synthesis, PlayStation version and High quality Nagels version)
[edit] See also
- OpenTTD is a clone of the Microprose game "Transport Tycoon Deluxe" by Chris Sawyer. It attempts to mimic the original game as closely as possible while extending it with a lot of new features.
- TTDPatch the patch for TTD, improves add-on graphics and better gameplay
- Chris Sawyer's Locomotion
- Railroad Tycoon
- RollerCoaster Tycoon
- Simutrans
- SimCity 4: Rush Hour
