[typing] [upbeat music]
All right, so today we have a game.
Well, maybe it's a game.
It's game-like,
and this game-like game that's possibly not a game
is Coaster, published by Walt Freakin' Disney
Computer Software, Inc., in 1993.
Apparently, we are in for quite a wild time,
or at least an experience that merits an agape mouth.
"Coaster. Take the Ultimate Scream Test!"
Not really sure why you would want to,
but basically the back of the box here is telling you
that this piece of software is worth your dollar or fifty
through words that try way too hard to rhyme.
"It's your dream. And your scheme."
"So relax, sit back and screeeeeeam."
Ugh. I could write better rhymes than this
when I'm standing over the toilet taking a piss.
Apparently, the game wasn't actually developed by Disney.
It was programmed by Dan Duncalf
and there was some involvement from people who worked on previous Disney titles like Stunt Island.
The development team called themselves CTG,
which stands for Code To Go.
A bit of an odd name for a game development studio.
Kind of like saying their programming is the equivalent of
carry-out food at a fast food restaurant.
Am I getting McDonald's-quality software here, or what?
Inside the box you get the game
on a single 3.5-inch high-density floppy disk,
a rather lengthy and detailed manual,
with man who never stops screaming on the front once again.
There's also some other crap in here,
notably a slip for the Disney Sound Source.
This is just advertising the availability of the DSS,
one of the sound devices supported by Coaster.
It was essentially a Disney-branded, slightly enhanced Covox Speech Thing
and very few games supported it.
And one more thing to note:
I really had never heard of this game before I happened to see an ad for it
in the catalog of my copy of Stunt Island,
and that's largely to do with the name of the game itself.
I mean, Coaster? Really, just Coaster?
Try searching for a PC game named "Coaster"
and you're gonna get a 100 different results,
and almost none of them are gonna be about this game.
It's just way too generic of a game name to stand out at all.
That'd be like naming Sonic the Hedgehog "Platformer."
Or your movie "Cars."
Oh, ha ha...
Ahhhh...
The game starts off with an intro cinematic
with very overly-bubbly music
that sounds like something out of my nightmares!
[MIDI carnival music]
Overlaid on top of imagery of people
that look like they would never ride roller coasters
riding roller coasters.
And the logo of the game three different times
just in case you forgot what it is you have actually installed
and are currently playing.
Next you've got a menu screen, which is actually nicely drawn
and I guess I should expect no less from a Disney game.
Point at stuff with your mouse
and then see whatever happens to show up on the computer monitor.
That will let you know what you are clicking on.
The tablet on the desktop lets you design a roller coaster.
The window or the door will let you ride a roller coaster.
And the nice-looking clone tower PC to the left
will quit the game and allow you to return
to the always-exciting MS-DOS prompt.
There are some other neat little things just kind of hanging around here,
but they don't do anything at all.
Maybe I've played too many games by Humungous,
but I though clicking on this lamp or the coffee cup
could at least do some cheesy little animation.
Or Mickey Mouse sitting on the trash can or whatever the frick it is over there by the door.
You know, maybe he could do jumping jacks.
Flip me off or something.
That would be cool.
But nothing happens.
Now let's just go into "Design A Coaster,"
which is really the meat of the game...
simulation... program.
This will allow you to either choose a pre-made roller coaster
or create a new one entirely
through a rather CAD-like interface.
And this one of the earliest games I can think of
that allows you to do this with roller coasters.
Yeah, sure there were CAD things where you could create your own 3D roller coasters or whatever,
but this one puts it into an interface which actually kind of makes sense
and allows you to tweak some really interesting things.
Like the acceleration, the upstops, the friction and even the gravity.
There are also two track types to choose from:
steel and magic.
Steel coasters make sense.
I mean, they're coasters made of steel.
And magic ones just basically are the same exact thing
except that they don't have any supports at all.
They just float there. By use of magic.
However, I do not believe in magic
in a young girl's heart
so I choose steel tracks most often.
There are some limitations is steepness and banking
that you can get around by using an external track editor
such as DC-Edit.
Now this program only works in Windows, oddly enough,
so you'll have to exit your DOS environment to do this.
Once you have finished creating or editing your track
to your track-editing heart's content, you can return to the menu
and go to Ride A Coaster mode.
This will greet you with another screen and another short musical ditty,
as well as giving you your first glimpse at the only people to appear in Disney's Coaster,
and that is these six dudes and dudettes,
sporting an impressive lack of facial features
and an impressive selection of early-'90s apparel.
These are your "evaluators," and if you go to the Profiles section,
you can see each person up close
and what it is they're looking for,
their basic personality types.
In theory, this is supposed to let you know
what kind of experience they're going to be looking for
when riding your roller coaster.
Which is interesting because apparently
Disney wants you to go on stereotypes here
and just kind of assume
what each kind of person is going to want to experience.
I guess I shouldn't be too surprised.
I mean, this is Disney after all. You know, stereotypes, that's like
their bread and butter.
Now back at the menu, you can go to the file... menu
and choose to open any roller coaster that happens to be installed on your hard drive.
Now these can be any you have created or edited,
or the ones that come pre-installed with the game,
some of which are based on real roller coasters
like the Matterhorn Screamer, for instance,
or you could just download other people's creations from the Internet.
Choose a roller coaster, choose Ride, and off you go.
[loudspeaker] Hands and arms in the car, please.
Okay, I thought I was in a roller coaster game,
not a recreation of the flight scenes from "Top Gun."
Ah, wait, never mind. This is a Disney roller coaster,
so it's hardcore.
Along the bottom of the screen, from left to right,
you have the brakes,
this green radar thing which shows you your G-forces,
a timer which shows you how long each ride is,
an on and off button,
a speedometer in miles per hour,
and an odometer showing how far you've gone,
and on the right, you have a thrust button.
So, yeah, you get NOS on a roller coaster.
A fact that would normally make me raise an eyebrow,
but then I remembered this is a '90s game
and that's just how it went.
Pressing spacebar starts the roller coaster ride,
and you can just let the coaster do its thing.
But that's not very exciting,
so you can press the right mouse button to activate the THRUST,
which is, uh, very...
[hearty laugh]
Yeah, you can make roller coasters that go like 200 MPH with the thrust enabled.
The speedometer just kind of keeps going around and around,
You are then shown the high score screen of the top eight roller coasters that have been played.
Now these scores come from the evaluators'
overall total score given to that roller coaster ride.
And you can go back into the Evaluation screen and click the rating to see–
OH, GOOD– UGH! What in the world?
What happened to their faces?!
Ew, and you can click on 'em and they twitch and stuff. Gugh!
So clicking on each evaluator will not only make them twitch like a dead corpse,
it will provide their opinion on what they felt during the roller coaster ride.
Which is usually something slightly clever
pertaining to their very one-sided personality.
Really, though, this is a completely pointless part of Disney's Coaster
because all you've really got to do is make your coaster go EXTREMELY FAST
and they'll be happy.
Just make sure that the coaster doesn't fly off the tracks, and you'll be good.
And yes, your coaster can fly off the rails
which is made especially doable if you remove things like brakes and the upstops.
In fact, the evaluators will often choose not to ride the coaster at all
if you remove those, instead opting for a crash test dummy.
I guess that's a way for them to get around showing these people dying,
which really would have added a whole new dimension to the game
and I think would have been very welcome.
I mean, you can do that in Roller Coaster Tycoon and other stuff like that.
It was always great to see the roller coasters fly off the rails
onto the ground and see all the little people splat everywhere.
You've got those other things to screw around with, too,
like the acceleration and the different gravity types.
Moon Gravity, which is less gravity, and Jupiter Gravity, which is a lot more.
But they're not nearly as exciting as they sound.
Most of the time, you're just going to get a super fast roller coaster
that either flies straight off the rails
or looks as fast as any other roller coaster
and makes the evaluators cream their pants in elation.
The only other thing you can really do is go into the Signature menu
to get some more detailed stats of your roller coaster.
I don't really care.
The main attraction here for me is being able to design
and ride roller coasters in a kind of 3D-looking environment,
which technically was very impressive for 1993.
And still, as a curiosity, it's pretty cool today,
just seeing an older DOS game that does this.
But really, there's tons of games that have come out since then
that have done this a whole lot better.
And it's mainly because of this fact that Disney's Coaster comes to a halt.
Sure, it's got some humor here and there with the distorted faces,
but that's really about it.
That's kind of the only thing that sets this apart
from any other roller coaster simulator.
What it does it does well.
There's nothing really wrong with Disney's Coaster.
But there's no real game here.
There's no real substance beyond being able to make a roller coaster.
You can't change the scenery,
there's no amusement park to put it in,
you can't let visitors on there.
All you have is these evaluators which never change.
And sure, maybe it's not supposed to really be a game and have any of these features,
and as a coaster designer, it's not too bad.
But again, it's been surpassed by the NoLimits coaster series and such.
What it comes down to is that nowadays
it's a coffee table game.
It's something you just kind of point out every now and then
and say, "Hey, this was interesting for the time."
But otherwise, you know, whatever.
So, yeah, check out Disney's Coaster if you happen to run across it.
But otherwise, I feel no need
to recommend it past that initial curiosity at all.
MAN: Whoa, boy!
[roller coaster sound]
[man screaming]