> Written by Sawyer in pure, ultra-efficient Intel assembly language — an anomaly by that time
Not mentioned in the article, but this did allow for a port of the game to the OG XBOX (733 MHz PentiumⅢ box) way back in 2003, long before the game's eventual remake as RCT Classic for ARM etc in 2017.
Interesting that the XBOX port is RCT1+expansions even though it came out after RCT2 did on PC, maybe due to lesser requirements or probably just to avoid cannibalizing RCT2 PC sales and to double-dip people who had already paid for RCT1 PC: https://youtu.be/Vtincfkl8KY?t=75
Notably one of the XBOX games that has never been backwards compatible lol https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Xbox_games_compatible_...
RCT1 was one of those games that I spent entire summers playing as a kid (see also: SimCity 3000), entirely offline because tying up the house's single phone line with the modem wasn't allowed during the day. Even though RCT2 was objectively the better game it felt like an aesthetic downgrade, and I actively hated RCT3 and still do. RCT1's vibes are immaculate: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BitorD-HVuQ
I remember FINALLY getting RCT1 from Scholastic Book Club and then a few months later got RCT2 from a cereal box. Was nuts. Easily the best cereal box thing ever.
> but this did allow for a port of the game to the OG XBOX (733 MHz PentiumⅢ box) way back in 2003
Not sure if the clock speed is just for reference or emphasis re: efficiency, but RCT1 will in fact happily run on a Pentium 90 (which is still mind blowing to me given the scope of the game)
Just for disambiguation to emphasize that I'm talking about the Intel-based console, because the naming scheme of the later Microsoft consoles makes it easy to confuse “Xbox One” with the OG one. I spent most of my time playing RCT 1 and 2 on a 400 MHz PⅡ, and their performance was indeed flawless :)
Having cut my teeth writing asm on 386/486 in ms-dos, these comments are kind of hilarious to me because Pentium is well into "you can write most of it in C" territory.
By the P2 era (97-98), especially as consoles show up, assembly's not desirable at all.
Pmode/w was released in 97 which speaks to the demand for a Watcom C/C++ protected mode extender at the time...
I don’t think necessity has anything to do with it being written in assembly in the first place, it’s just Sawyer’s background was in porting others’ titles and it was just what he was used to using
Obligatory link to creator Chris Sawyer's page about RCT fountain's cellular automaton:
https://www.chrissawyergames.com/feature4.htm
I love the disclaimer on the RCT2 Screenshots page: https://www.chrissawyergames.com/feature5.htm
> Click each thumbnail below to view the full 800x600 screenshot image
> (Warning: Each image is between 100KB and 250KB in size and may take a minute or two to download)
Like when screenshot-heavy forum threads would have title suffixes like [56K NO!!]