Cornflakes

Nice to see you've found a second forum to be really irritating on. It was never going to be a redo of The Haunted House, it never should've been a redo. Theme Parks by their nature change over time, there is no point to being so rigidly stuck in the past. The original ride was great, it can continue to be great in peoples memories, but a scene for scene redo of a 30 year old ride is not a good idea.

I want you to be right so bad. Would be a TPM moment for the ages

Might be the VR apologist in me speaking but upgrading from the massively outdated Vive’s would really help the ride. Many VR headsets offer in headset tracking rather the old Lighthouse method which would probably help with a lot of the issues. They’ll never spend the money though so what’s the point, absolute worst company to do an attraction that revolves around constantly evolving technology.

An Intamin retrack would likely be significantly more expensive

Aside from the frankly embarrassing problems with the lift hill, I think Th13teen has actually aged quite well, these days it nimbly moves through the outdoor section when it used to crawl through it Not controversial to some people, very controversial to others - still think The Smiler is a very good coaster 🤷‍♀️ Pretty positive for controversial opinions but feel like my criticisms of the place are shared by most people

Despite being marketed as "The UK's most thrilling Theme park" the coaster line up at Thorpe is pretty weak

Nice to see this finally going ahead! Will be interesting to follow construction, personally I'm hoping for some changes to the dreadful queue line and plaza area where you won't get the best view of the ride but I won't hold my breath.

Seeing B&M track at Chessington is a trip, can't wait to see it go up

God I can’t wait to see how this turns out

Long time no see! First visit to Thorpe since 2019 yesterday, have a few thoughts about everyone's favourite ride. Anyone from here who knows me irl (That's 4 or 5 people) knows that I'm a little bit of a Ghost Train apologist, post-2016 and pre-Covid I was generally visiting the park around once a year, and have been lucky enough to avoid some of the catastrophic experiences others on here have had. Obviously, the ride has its faults but I have quite a soft spot for it. Didn't get the new opening spiel that others have mentioned here. capacity was apparently reduced yesterday so this could've been a reason for this, or it could've just been cut entirely. Probably for the best tbh. The first VR section is still good. I've always enjoyed this section, creepy and fun and generally gets people screaming during the big scare moment, however, the already dated in 2016 CG animation is looking especially ropey now, the dog looks like something out of an early generation PS3 game. Luckily a lot of this section is focused on real actors, so it makes it easier to overlook imo. Middle live section now. One thing jumped out to me here, the ride staff is absolutely giving it their all. This section has been cut down massively since 2017, but yesterday's ride was the first time since then where the staff was trying a more scripted sequence as opposed to a generic scare maze section. That being said, this section is still where the story begins to fall apart a bit. In 2016 and 17 this was the introduction of the demon to the storyline after having it foreshadowed by the dialogue in the first VR section, but since 2018 this section has focused more on the infected. Unfortunately, no amount of effort on the part of the team can make up for the fact that this section makes the following VR section kind of nonsensical. A real shame. Second VR section now, still the same campy fun it's been since 2017, but like the first section, it's looking pretty dated. I feel like the good grace of it being significantly better than its 2016 incarnation has well and truly worn off by now, parts of it look really goofy. There's a real tonal imbalance between the first VR section and the 2nd. The first section is genuinely quite creepy, but the second descends into pure B-Movie Schlock, this was more palatable when the middle live-action section built up the demon as the real antagonist, but without this it makes it seem like two different stories colliding with each other. Onto the fake shop - sigh... This section suffers from the demon costume no longer being a thing. Massive props to the actor for trying to make the infected jump scare work, but this makes the story of the ride more disjointed than ever. The plot is as follows - First VR section centres around the infected and does some light foreshadowing of there being something else going on, cool. Middle live-action section... focuses on the infected again, right, okay then. Second VR section now introduces the demon, but this feels like such a big jump from the infected stuff that came before. Now the shop scare is.. oh. It's the infected again. What exactly was the point of the demon then? Don't get me wrong, the plot has been disjointed for longer than this year alone, but the demon scare in the fake shop would kind of help with this because it's reinforcing the idea that the demon is the real antagonist, this not being the case anymore really lets the experience down. All in all, I enjoyed the ride as I always tend to and while this wasn't the worst experience I've had on this ride, it certainly made the least sense. I think this ride just makes me kind of sad. I know a lot of people on here are down on VR, but it's a seriously amazing technology when done well and has evolved so much in the last few years. I fundamentally disagree with the view of some people on here that the use of VR was a bad idea from the get-go, Merlin was the wrong company to attempt a ride based around VR as their reach always exceeds their grasp with things like this. Attempting a ride like this in 2016 was also a mistake, VR has evolved massively since 2016 and the current technology clearly can’t keep up with the demands of the experience. I genuinely believe that a team who cares with a decent budget could turn this into a world-class dark ride, but as it stands it’s just a bit of a mess, what a shame.

wow, lots of people continue to have the wrong opinion about this ride. some of you just can't stop hating a ride designed by a gay man, hmm wonder why? sucks that the demon isn't around hope they bring him back

haters and losers continue to dump on this ride but refuse to acknowledge the cold hard fact that it’s done more for the anti fracking movement than any green party politician living or dead

Haven't made much in the way of proper progress recently, I've been pretty stuck on the steampunk area and yesterday I decided to completely rework the area. I redid the facade of the Spinning Coasters building, I think it looks far more cohesive that it did before, I much prefer it. I also made a Baron 1898 inspired theming element that doubles as support for the lift hill, I built it using the Intamin Giga Coaster track and a variety of different scenery objects, I'm really pleased with how its turned out. I also redid the Spinning Coaster's layout and removed the restaurant, I really didn't like the exterior of the restaurant, it was far too big and bulky. As for the Spinning Coaster my main point of contention was the space of track after the Immelman turn and before the dark section, nothing really happened in it and it just seemed like a poor use of space, I feel it's much better now. As part of redoing the Spinning Coaster's station I tried my hand at using the in game pieces to create something they're not intended for, once again I'm pretty happy with how this turned out, however the station still needs a lot of work. I've also started work on the entrance area for the park, it's inspired by Chessington's North entrance so don't expect it to be filled up like Towers Street when it's finished. I'm not too good at designing entrance area's so I'm keeping it as barebones as possible, the large building at the end is going to be a manor house when it's finished, the park's major gift shop and staff offices will be inside this manor (I may attempt to make an interior for the gift shop, but no promises) The building outline in the corner of the entrance plaza will be a pub/restaurant when it's finished (Think Greedy Goblin at Chessington). I'm at the point at the moment with this park where I'm happy enough with it to leave it alone for a little while, which is great because I have university re submissions that I should be working on instead of playing this game, so yeah, no updates for a little while. As always feedback and suggestions are greatly appreciated, thanks.

rise of the demon is so so good, I loved the original but rise is just such an improvement, the politicians were a laugh as well, even if they killed the mood a little..

hey guys, been working on my park a bunch over the last few weeks, a lot of that time was spent deciding which direction to take the park in. I spent around a week making a new area with a wing coaster and I ended up scrapping it and going waaaaaay back to what I had prior. on my second try I feel like I made something pretty good, so this is the new area I've been working on; it's a steampunk themed area, it contains a screaming swing, spinning coaster, a carousel (none of these rides have names) and my first restaurant (I'm not too proud of the interior so I wont be posting it here) the spinning coaster ends with a short indoor section, the goal was to try and make it feel like a realistic UK ride, one where the rough edges like the walls of the shed are a little exposed and the theming inside is relatively light. (I'm trying to make this park feel real) the steampunk area is still a way from being finished, but I'm pretty pleased with what I have so far. I also went back and redid many parts of the german area; I added some new sections to the elevated pathways, I also redid the autobahn's layout and added a small plaza area beneath the elevated area. the autobahn's station has been relocated as part of its new design, it's now in a far more easy to work with position than it was before (it used to be under the launch track of specter (now eidolon)) I've spent a lot of this evening doing work on eidolon, building its station, redoing its entrance and theming it's queue. I really like how the queue looks at night. here's an overview of the whole park so far, it's still a long way from being finished, the next area I'm going to start is probably going to be the entrance plaza (the beige path at the bottom) once again suggestions (especially names!!) are always welcome

booted up planet coaster today with the intention of just messing around with a roller coaster that interacts with a rapids ride, ended up wasting my entire day pretty much starting a new park and half finishing the first area. this area is themed to germany, an the big rollercoaster that runs through the area is going to have a horror theme when it's finished. I really like the idea of mixing horror elements into an area that isn't entirely horror themed (basically just transylvania at chessington). the roller coaster - specter - is inspired by mack mega coasters the majority of the queue for the rapids winds around itself in the middle of this plaza area. I'm really disappointed by the rapids in the game, having a straight station sucks to begin with, but then not being able to add more boats than the station can hold (like the log flume) is what really ruins it, makes it almost impossible to imitate a turntable station. I tried to do this but it really isn't good, if anyone has any tips on how to do this while still having a functional ride, please let me know. I really like the way specter dives into this barn. does a barn fit in with the germany theme? probably not. (the car ride snaking below the area is called "the autobahn" btw) the giant wooden mess in the middle is to give that long stretch of track some support while adding a theming element (I'm not sure what it's meant to be though) basically the rapids have cut off a crucial support on that long stretch of track, and no amount of poking and prodding can get it back, I really wish you could build your own supports in this game. if anyone has any better ideas for the theming element/support - please let me know.

I'll do it lads

this is the worst topic on the forum.

it had a crap name and logo, now it has a different crap name and logo, nothing of value was lost and nothing of value was gained.

I've only just read this topic today and I'm genuinely amazed to see even some appreciation for post 2005 Bubbleworks, even if you didn't go on the original its easy to see that it's just soulless, corporate crap. How anyone can feel like they have any sort of emotional connection to the ride in it's post 2005 state is beyond me, thank god it's finally gone.

Got 2 rides on Ghost Train yesterday, each time I'm going on it I'm enjoying it more, however that 2nd VR section is still bollocks. Operations towards the end of the day were incredibly poor, our group was held up in the area between the pre show and the ride for about 10 minutes, and by the time we got in the train so many people were put in in one go that the operators struggled to find everyone a seat, it was a bit of a mess. One old guy attempted to sit on the floor as a form of protest but the operators were having none of it as there was definitely a free seat somewhere.

at least it means I dont have to look at the awful logo for skin snatchers anymore.

well golly gee I'm sure glad I got on this attraction before its close

if thorpe produce something thats as good as trick or treat wood then they're onto a winner

Interesting that they seem to be suggesting it'll be open next week, they must have some confidence in that if they're putting it on the website.