9 replies to this topic

[hyak.net]

Do any of you play the PC game Ski Park Manager? I bought the game a few years ago and started playing it, but didn't have time to put into it so the game was mothballed until lately. I've recently re-installed it and started playing again. Just curious if anyone else is, or has played it? I have both the 2002 and 2003 versions (not sure if any other versions had come out since).

[spunkyskier01]

yea i play it here and their. its a fun game, the capabilities to expand lift capacities and make a snow making system is allot of fun. It has allot of bugs however.

[rniemi]

In my younger years (high school / college, mid 90's), I was heavily into 3D graphics programming (and skiing!). I made a few graphics demos attempting to model 3D mountain terrain with real-time rendering for a potential game oriented more toward the technical aspects of ski area layout and simulation, rather than most of the Sim/Tycoon-style games where you're attempting to turn a profit and are constrained by budget. In the couple Sim/Tycoon style games I've seen, you can't really get in and tweak lift profiles / tower styles / carriers / terminals, they don't feature accurate rope dynamics to simulate what happens with poorly planned profiles and tower locations, or don't have powerful tools for analyzing slope and fall lines when planning trails. CPU power was too weak at the time, and a pretty rudimentary 3D model of the Sunrise area of Mt. Bachelor including just the old Yan triple version of the Sunrise lift and with limited tree cover was difficult to render at more than a frame or two per second at ridiculously low resolution (VGA, 320x240 x-mode, 256 color).

I occasionally kick around the idea of toying with the concept again now that 3D graphics adapters are more than capable of reasonable rendering throughput. Whenever I encounter a new terminal, carrier or tower style and can get close enough with a tape measure, I've been building 3D solid models in AutoCAD and archiving them for future possible game use.. I likely have a complete enough library of 3D models of Riblet, Yan, Hall and Dopp/CTEC equipment to pull it off, but there aren't a lot of Poma's around southern Oregon so don't have anything there yet.

There was an open-source effort to develop a free game along those lines that recently tanked. Bummer, I was looking forward to that.

-Ryan

[Kicking Horse]

rniemi, on 09 September 2009 - 04:50 PM, said:

There was an open-source effort to develop a free game along those lines that recently tanked. Bummer, I was looking forward to that.

-Ryan

Would you be talking about Mountain Tycoon?

[rniemi]

Kicking Horse, on 10 September 2009 - 01:21 PM, said:

Would you be talking about Mountain Tycoon?

Indeed, that would be the one..

-Ryan

[Bill]

Mountain Tycoon never got off the ground, so no link. The best options you have are Ski Park Manager and Activision's Ski Resort Tycoon Series.

[Kicking Horse]

Dude,

We have already helped you.... Google what was said earlier......