Transport Tycoon is a business simulation game designed and programmed by Chris Sawyer, and published by MicroProse on 15 November 1994 for DOS. It is a transport business simulation game, presented in an isometric view in 2D with graphics by Simon Foster, in which the player acts as a transport company owner, who competes against rival companies to make as much profit as possible by transporting passengers and various goods by road, rail, sea and air.
Transport Tycoon is a business simulation game where the player takes control over a transportation company and is tasked with building out a transportation network by constructing transport routes in order to move passengers, mail, goods and materials around an isometric map to earn money.[4] Every map in the vanilla game is randomly generated.[5] The game takes place in real-time and can played optionally against a maximum of six computer opponents.[5] A game spans a century with the start in 1930, and finishing in 2030.[6][7] There is the option to continue playing but the game won't keep a score.[8] The main goal of the game is the make the most profit over the course of the game, the game tracks high scores at higher difficulty levels but they don't determine the win-state.[9] The game also features disasters, vehicle crashes and town councils.[5] Players can't construct their own cities,[10] but can rename existing ones.[11] There are a number of difficulty options available that can be modified, including difficulty and speed of the competitors, various terrain generation settings, quantity of towns and industries, subsidy multiplier, disaster occurences and the choice between a steady or cyclical economy.[12][11] Upon starting a new game the player is asked to pick an avatar, name and primary colour for the company.[13]
Routes are created by building stations between two or more locations, with the available transportation options being rail, road, air and maritime.[14] Each type of transport comes with its own advantages and disadantages,[15] and depending on the vehicle can only carry passengers or certain goods.[16] One transport route can utilize several different forms of transport, e.g. truck→ship→train.[17][9] The player's company and the individual stations each have ratings that depend largely on their efficiency at moving goods from one stations to the other. A station with high ratings may attract more goods. Players can terraform the environment per tile or build canals to improve their routes,[18] and buildings like train stations can only build on even ground.[19]
The player starts out by borrowing money to finance construction of transport facilities,[17] and is charged interest until the loan is repaid. As the user plays the game and earns revenue, they have the choice of expanding service along existing routes, or expanding their transportation network.[7] The game features a progression of technology: in any particular year of the game generally only contemporary types of technology are available. For example, railroad signals which allow more than one train to use a section of track are initially semaphores. Later, they are replaced by red and green traffic-light signals. Similarly, in the beginning there are only steam engines, but later diesel and electric engines are introduced. In the game year 1999, monorails become available.[6] These require a separate track system from railroads. If the player remains in business until 2030, the game announces that they have won, allows them to post their name on the "hall of fame" and then continues. At this point, the year stays 2030 and never goes any higher, although the game can continue indefinitely. Playing the entire 100-year campaign takes about 40 hours. The game allows the player to save at any time, and multiple saves of a particular game at any point are possible.
Chart illustrating flow of commodities between industries and towns in Transport Tycoon, and Temperate scenarios in Transport Tycoon Deluxe.
Vehicles in the game must be constructed at corresponding depots, which must be connected to the road or rail networks. Over the course of the game, new models of vehicles are introduced and eventually come to replace older models.[15] Manufacturers can offer prototype designs to the player.[15][10] These new vehicles generally have improved characteristics, but may suffer from reliability issues.[15] Every vehicle comes with its own attributes, that include reliability, maintenance costs, speed, capacity and lifespan.[16] Eventually, vehicles will need replacing as they breakdown more over time and maintenance costs increase.[20]
Towns and cities have their own road networks, but extra roads may be needed to connect them to other towns, or to various resources.[21] The player earns revenue by picking up resources or passengers at a certain station, and delivering them to another station where there is a demand for them.[4] Demand is determined by the area which surrounds the station; for example stations close to towns will demand passengers. The revenues will depend on the delivery time, distance, and quantity delivered. The influence of these factors on revenue varies according to the type of goods being delivered. A product like mail will rapidly fall in value, meaning that it can only be delivered profitably over short distances, or over long distances very fast. In contrast with a resource like coal loses value very slowly, so it retains its value over long distances.
The game features also a system called Local Authority. Each city has a rating for every transport company based on the impact of their transport network. When the rating falls too low, the player will no longer be able to demolish buildings or construct new stations. The rating depends on, among others, the level of service and the deforestation caused by the company.[22] In later stages the largest cities can offer exclusive contracts for a single year.[23] At times, subsidies are offered to the first company to move a particular resource from one place to another.[24]
In the course of a game cities develop and expand according to various economic factors, and new industries (demand) or other resource sites (supply) may appear.[25] Some natural resources can also eventually be exhausted and industries without adequate transport service can shut down.
Transport Tycoon Deluxe
Transport Tycoon Deluxe is an expanded and improved version of the original game. It included many significant changes, such as:
3 new gameplay environments alongside the original Temperate climate. These are: Tropical, Arctic, and Toyland. The new environments introduced different industries and challenges. For example, towns in the Arctic environment do not grow without regular deliveries of food, while those in the Tropical environment require access to fresh water before they will grow.
World Editor included - Allowing the creation of custom maps and scenarios.
Network play, allowing multiplayer games.
Improved railway signals. The original Transport Tycoon only included bi-directional signals, permitting trains to pass in either direction, while the Deluxe version introduced uni-directional signals, to restrict trains to a single direction of travel. This has significant effects on gameplay, as the original bi-directional signals could result in trains trying to travel towards each other on the same section of track. While this would not result in crashes on a properly signalled route, it did require either building extra track, to allow the trains to pass each other, or building a great many tracks in parallel, to avoid the problem. The new uni-directional signals enabled building one-way track systems, giving the player greater control over the operation of their rail network, enabling far more efficient routes, and preventing trains from trying to travel the "wrong way" on a section of track. By utilising both uni- and bi-directional signals, the player could now build effective switching yards, junctions, and other useful designs. It also enabled the building of continental-length railroad systems, by incorporating one-way tracks in both directions, as well as the option to merge other rails with the main line. This became a very popular strategy, allowing for transportation across entire game maps, resulting in larger profits.
Maglev trains and track.
Buy/Sell Shares and take-over rival companies.
Heliports.
Ability to re-fit aircraft and ships to carry alternative cargo types.
Games now begin in 1950 and end in 2050, while the original game covers 1930 to 2030. Accordingly, the Deluxe version loses many of the earlier vehicles from the original game, while adding several new types later on.[26] Moreover, the vehicle names in the original game were based on real-life models, but were replaced with fictional ones in Transport Tycoon Deluxe, due to trademark issues.
The Deluxe version also allowed players to rename their vehicles, stations and towns in-game; this can be useful for identifying services in a network and adding a personal touch.
Remixed music theme for the main menu.
Development
Having been playing Sid Meier's Railroad Tycoon, Populous and SimCity,[27][28] Chris Sawyer began exploring ideas and prototypes for a transport simulation game as early as October 1992,[24][29][28] using his own isometric game engine he had developed in his spare time.[27] For Sawyer, the game, known originally as Chris Sawyer's Transport Game or Interactive Transport Simulation, started off as a way to contend with the monotony of his game conversion work,[30] which he began in 1988 and during this period he worked on various high-profile games like Frontier: Elite II, Goal!, Campaign and Elite Plus.[7] These game conversions allowed him to self-finance development of the game until he would sign a publishing deal.[31]Transport Tycoon would be his first major original computer game,[7] his goal for the project was to try and create a game that would improve upon Railroad Tycoon, which he spent six months playing.[32] During development, Sawyer regarded Railroad Tycoon and A-Train as his main game design influences on the game, with Sim City 2000 and Theme Park providing some inspiration in the latter parts of production.[33]
The game also would allow him to combine his love for open ended simulation games and trains, he began with adding them into the game world alongside other vehicles.[27] Sawyer wanted "little vehicles all going about their business", where both playing and observing the action is enjoyable.[28] Sawyer researched as much as he could about the four types of transportion vehicles in the game as much as time constraints would allow in order to present the vehicles as accurately as possible. Although he admitted in a interview, he did not have enough time to research non-British train and road vehicles extensively.[33] The game was entirely written in x86 assembly language, Sawyer has stated that he prefers to write in a low-level programming language as opposed to a high-level programming language like C as he wants to know what every function does in complete detail and to optimise for efficiency.[30] He claimed that working in assembly code allowed him to add more complexity to game, as it allowed him to optimize the workload on the processor better.[30]
Over the course of development, Sawyer in addition to adding different modes of transport, he implemented various different worlds and a basic economic mechanic to earn money, one that was even more simple than the one in Railroad Tycoon.[27] For simplicity sake he excluded things like stocks and shares as it added too much "unnecessary complexity".[33] The time period was set from 1930 to 2030, as this would according to Sawyer lead to "greatest variety of train and vehicle type" and that 100 years per playthrough felt right. It would give players 30 years of steam trains followed-up by diesel and electric trains, and ending with high-tech monorails.[6] He did consider adding more futuristic instant transportations like a 'Matter Transporter', but came to the conclusion it would probably provide an anti-climatic end to game, by making the old transportation network redundant.[33] Any other time periods that weren't included were saved for future updates or add-ons of the game.[34] Creating a challenging artificial intelligence was of paramount importance for Sawyer. He considered it the most challenging element to program, he would spend hours playing the game on his own figuring out the best strategies a human player would use and then building algorithms that simulate those aforementioned strategies for the opponent companies.[35][33] He wanted the computer opponents to play by the same rules as the human ones did.[32] Due to complexities and detail of the simulation, adding a fast forward option proved unfeasible at the time.[33]
By November 1993, Sawyer had a playable version of the game.[29] Jacqui Lyons, Sawyer's business agent,[36] approached a number of video game publishers with an unfinished version of the game.[27] Sawyer would leverage his preexisting relationship as a work-for-hire programmer with MicroProse, to convince them to take a chance on a game.[28] Following a productive meeting with MicroProse, Sawyer agreed to sign with them to publish the game, as he found the team at MicroProse more supportive. Ultimately, they would publish the game, which included changing the name to Transport Tycoon, where it would sit alongside their Railroad Tycoon franchise. When he signed the contract with MicroProse, the railroad parts were already nearly finished. Originally, a producer at MicroProse set the timetable of two years for the rest of development, but Sawyer managed to get the game in shippable state in 4-5 months, although he had to cut some content and ideas. Some of these were later included in the deluxe edition.[27] MicroProse had very little input on the project itself, most of their suggestions were either unfeasible or ignored. On a suggestion of MicroProse, the game contains a few easter eggs referencing other MicroProse games.[37]
By the time Sawyer had finished up his last game conversion contracts, he had created a full-fledged version of the game in low resolution with his own crudely hand-drawn graphics. He decided to spend all of his time for a couple of months on the project and see how much progress he would make. The low quality bitmaps Sawyer drew were replaced by Simon Foster, an artist he had met around that time. Foster recreated the art of the trains, trucks, buildings and scenery with high-resolution bitmaps. This was made possible by improvements in processing speeds and graphics handling, and the increasing adoption of graphic cards with the ability to output in higher resolutions, which allowed them to render the redone art and sound.[27][38] Within several months the game was almost hundred percent complete and would be shown to MicroProse.[38] In their October 1994 issue, the PC Review preview described the build as being in early beta.[39]
Add-ons and ports
After the release of Transport Tycoon, Sawyer stated in a July 1995 interview that he would create add-ons for the main game, he also began working on an expanded "Deluxe/CD" version and console ports for the ones that had enough processing power. The first add-on was a world editor which allows players to create their own scenarios. The add-on also included a Martian graphics set.[33]
Music
The music in Transport Tycoon are original compositions by John Broomhall.[40] It features old-style blues and jazz tunes.[41]Transport Tycoon was part of Broomhall's early scores as a composer that he created in MIDI, the soundtrack was limited to a nine-note polyphony and was built on a FM soundcard.[40]
Broomhall alongside some of his industry colleagues would in 2014 record a remaster of the original soundtrack in a live environment and employing the latest sound technology. He envisioned them as the definitive version of the originals as he initially had imagined.[42] The new remastered music was included in the Easter update of the mobile port of the game.[43]
Release
A demo of the game was included in various demo discs of video game magazines, including an exclusive 3.5" disk for the October 1994 issue of PC Review,[44] and as part of a PC Gamer's CD-ROM and 3.5" disk demo disc in their January 1995 issue.[45]MicroProse published the full game for DOS on 15 November 1994.[46][7] The game received its first add-on titled with Transport Tycoon Scenario also referred to as World Editor. It contained a Martian tile set, a world editor, that allows the player to create their own maps and scenarios, and modem play.[47] It was released somewhere in Spring 1995 and required the base game.[48][47][49] The expansion that would ultimately become Transport Tycoon Deluxe, was at first reported to be a sequel named Transport Tycoon 2.[50][47]
MicroProse released the updated version Transport Tycoon Deluxe the following year in November 1995.[51]
Ports
A port for the Playstation 1 was announced by MicroProse that was slated for a June 1996 release, and was ported by Digital Amusement. This version of the game included an extra rotational 3-D view feature that allowed players to visit the gameworld upclose.[52][53] It was also compatible with the PlayStation Mouse.[54] The release was delayed multiple times, with the second release date set on March 1997.[53] The game was ultimately published by Ocean Software and MicroProse in September 1997.[55][56] That same year, Japanese publisher Imagineer developed and published a version for the Sega Saturn exclusively for the Japanese market.[57]
On 15 July 2013, Sawyer's 31X Ltd and Origin8 Technologies announced that they were working on a mobile version of Transport Tycoon. At first, Sawyer had set up 31X Ltd as an holding company for the Transport Tycoon IP in 2010, but over time, it evolved to a company that could develop and publish a new port of the game. Sawyer was originally focusing on funding for the game, but ended up overseeing the design and helped with the debugging.[58] The game was released for iOS and Android on 3 October 2013.[59] The game is single player and is primarily based on Chris Sawyer's Locomotion.[60] Unlike what is a common practice in mobile gaming, the release was not free-to-play. Sawyer has stated that he found the revenue model unsuitable for the game.[58]
Upon release Transport Tycoon received significant critical acclaim from contemporary reviewers.[73][14][62]
A reviewer for Next Generation gave the DOS version four out of five stars, commenting, "The best economic sim since Civilization, Microprose's new Transport Tycoon has all the features of Sid Meier's Railroad Tycoon mixed with the look and ease of Maxis' SimCity 2000 and a host of new features ... that give the game a feel that is all its own." He further lauded the game for its graphics, "pleasant" music, sound effects, addictive play, and realistic simulation of the growth of cities and towns.[65]
Next Generation reviewed the Transport Tycoon Scenario, rating it three stars out of five, and stated that "A solid upgrade for a great game."[49]
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 a 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".
It received poor reviews and was deemed a commercial failure on release, but sales through the digital releases are unknown. Regardless, there is an active Locomotion community that continues to produce modifications.
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 complete recreation of Transport Tycoon Deluxe, achieved by reverse engineering the original game.[2][74] It delivers many bug fixes and general enhancements to the game, like making it possible to runTTD on multiple platforms, including Mac, Linux, PSP, and Android. While both games allow new graphic sets for vehicles and terrain to be used, at present, TTDPatch still requires the original TTD graphics, sounds, binary and music files to run. While OpenTTD can still use the original TTD graphics and sounds, it does not need any of the TTD files to run as it has free graphics and sounds.[2]
Perry, Kevin; Chapman, Ted; Kaiafas, Tasos (January 1995). "What about all of the unemployed horses?". Computer Game Review. Vol.4, no.6. Lombard, Illinois: Sendai Publishing.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply. Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.
