Isometric Dreams: The Chris Sawyer Story

Рет қаралды 27,287

Күн бұрын

What did Chris Sawyer do before Transport Tycoon? Why did he disappear from game production? And what allowed his games to be so complex on the slow and simple PCs of their time? Find out all of that and more in this lighthearted but detailed look at his career.
0:00 Intro
0:40 Memotech MTX games
3:30 Early PC conversions
4:40 Transport Tycoon
5:55 Transport Tycoon Deluxe
6:25 Roller Coaster Tycoon
8:13 Roller Coaster Tycoon 2
9:35 Chris Sawyer's Locomotion
11:31 Mobile games
12:32 Legacy
Comments are pre-reviewed to avoid spam. I aim to publish all comments, including dissent, but overly pedantic or negative ones may be moderated. Hearing about different experiences and what things were like in other countries adds a lot to the video! Please try to do so in a positive way while remembering that if I had to explain every minor international difference the video would be 2 hours long and boring, rather than 13 minutes long and boring. Failing that, at least make me laugh.
Third party imagery and clips:
Roller coaster loop by KM L
Atari printer by McCormick/Multicherry
IBM disk drive by Michael Holly
Memotech MTX image by Bilby
PS1 Transport Tycoon screenshot courtesy MobyGames
Alan Sugar image by Damien Everett
RCT1 prototype by Chris Sawyer via Nic's Corner

Пікірлер: 98

@SonOfFurzehatt Жыл бұрын

I always suspected Sawyer was a good egg, but his insistence against microtransactions confirms it.

@liveyourdreammedia Жыл бұрын

Yeah that was a real boss move!

@christianbennett5542 2 жыл бұрын

The style of those games is timeless. The ultimate "escapism" video games right here

@andrewstrycker9374 Жыл бұрын

Chris has been one of the most influential people in my life, and I didn't even know anything about him.

@Retrofire-47 2 ай бұрын

the beauty of art. You need not _say_ a word

@aboriani Жыл бұрын

I remember when I was 11 years old, I saw the box of Transport Tycoon Deluxe (CD version) for the first time... At the time our PC did not have a CD reader. My parents bought the game anyways, after weeks of begging and pestering. I read and re-read the manual so many times, wondering how the game would look like on a screen. I forced myself to learn enough English to understand it and I read that that thing so many times that when I finally was able to install the game, I was expert at it. Now 29 years later, I still play that game thanks to openTTD. Thanks Chris Sawyer, for this wonderful piece of software. BTW, I still have the original box and CD and I treasure it as part of my history.

@victor_TH Жыл бұрын

This story is similar to mine. I played countless hours of the demo that came packaged in the CD of a physical computer magazine of the time 😄 i vividly remember the day my parents left me at home to go shopping and I pestered them while making sure I pronounced the title as plainly as possible in our native language so they would remember lol I lost so many hours of sleep to this game 😂 as yourself, i still play open TTD 😉 These games have something special, just yesterday I was playing a free web based SimCity 1 version. I also spent so many hours playing the monochrome and 4 color versions on my older PCs 🥲

@NickyDekker89 Жыл бұрын

I have spend thousands of hours playing Chris Sawyer's games. Starting from the age of 9 up until now (33 years old). A true legend!

@TimberwolfK Жыл бұрын

I'm glad those games came out before the "hours played" counter existed...

@NickyDekker89 Жыл бұрын

@@TimberwolfK Haha for sure.

@captainsmith3972 2 жыл бұрын

I have to say, I really like Locomotion, despite all its shortcomings. Maybe because I'm a train enthusiast who adored RCT 1&2. The modding done by the community also helped give it a bit of longevity. At the moment I'm playing Open Loco, they've already made some really good improvements and additional features. I'm excited to see if they are able to get anywhere near Open TTD or Open RCT and realise the potential the original game had.

@TimberwolfK 2 жыл бұрын

I'm annoyed I don't still have my saves from when I first got it - I went all-in, including creating my own animated avatar (which I think was an officially supported option, you could create a sequence of pictures named in a certain way) I think the big problem was people like me who wanted a "bigger" game than Transport Tycoon, whereas a typical Lomo game ended up with fewer trains and shorter (to scale) distances. If the OpenLoco team can streamline track building and make managing large numbers of vehicles easier, I think there's a great game under there.

@johndalenino 2 жыл бұрын

I still play OpenLoco (since og loco was no longer working on newer computers properly). Probably my lifetime fave games, RCT2 + Locomotion :)

@MukyuMyonNyanMimi 11 ай бұрын

@@johndaleninoStill play it? I play OpenLoco.

@HamsterWheelGaming Жыл бұрын

I spent so much time playing Transport Tycoon as a kid, I'm forever grateful by what Chris Sawyer made.

@griffinrails 2 жыл бұрын

Locomotion is definitely my favourite game of all time, it's so addictive!

@alucardwingates447 Жыл бұрын

yeah.. for me, the harddest map is the one you can't use airplane..

@bigeteum 2 жыл бұрын

Never played his games back in the day , but man, openttd got me hooked good.

@WhatHoSnorkers Жыл бұрын

Well, that was a lovely tour of Mr Sawyer's career (and musical taste!).

@Gertofius1 2 жыл бұрын

I remember getting Locomotion and reading that Chris hoped that people still played it 10 years later in the manual. I still enjoy it to this day, with the added support of Open Loco. Naturally I am enjoying his other classics in their own Open versions too.

@Mentox2 Жыл бұрын

Chris Sawyer is legendary, I still remember spending many hours on my old PC building immense rollercoasters. Itw as one of the formative aspects of my life and, to this day, I still love amnagement-type games (even though I mostly suck at them).

@TimberwolfK Жыл бұрын

I have the problem that I'm a lot better at Sawyer-style games than I am at other management games! I've always enjoyed them because they're relaxing; you don't have to play a perfect game, you can play around and experiment without having to restart the scenario because you'll miss an objective if you don't play it exactly the way the game wants.

@Mentox2 Жыл бұрын

@@TimberwolfK Yeah, iǘe been playing OpenTTD recently. Its incredibly fun.

@quixmith Жыл бұрын

29 years later, and I still play TTD. Only it's Open TTD now :) Still one of the best games ever made for RTS. Thank you Chris Sawyer for creating this, in my opinion, greatest game ever created

@matoflynn Жыл бұрын

Only realizing now why I love isometric drawings so much. Chris Sawyer is a legend.

@nxthanj 2 жыл бұрын

it pleases me to see that people to this day still recognise the masterpieces that chris sawyer has created. But he hasnt just created masterpieces, he created childhoods like my own. RCT1, RCT2 and Locomotion were by far my favourite games as a child. I love the themes that they presented and the complexity it brought, especially for a game during its time. I still play RCT2 on an open source version and Locomotion to this day, and having recently found out about OpenLoco, i might see what that has in store. Amazing video by the way, thank you for sharing this

@thib_frcs 2 жыл бұрын

that's solid content you deserve more views, thank you for your work and bringing me so many memories

@JasperNLxD 2 жыл бұрын

You did very well telling Chris' story :) Very nice video, thanks!

@idb2b 2 жыл бұрын

Really enjoyed this, very well made! Made my podcasting research very easy, appreciate it! 🙌🍺

@MickanMansRCTStation 2 жыл бұрын

A really great watch, informative and a good dose of humour in there too. If there's one person I need to buy a beer for, it's Mr Sawyer!

@keithmichael112 Жыл бұрын

you deserve more subscribers, this was interesting. thanks!

@ReadyToHarvest 2 жыл бұрын

Great work. I hope you get more subscribers! I loved RCT and also Locomotion.

@MichaelPohoreski Жыл бұрын

9:50 Minor correction: OOP is a *programming paradigm.* Robotron (1982) was written in _assembly_ and used OOP a year before cfront (1983), the first C++ compiler, was released.

@bubblecar2172 2 жыл бұрын

I've been playing RCT since I was a kid. I got a copy of RCT Deluxe from a yard sale when I was a small kid, and played it for years and years. I loved RCT, Zoo Tycoon, Command and Conquer, and so many other top down, RTS games as a kid. I picked up RCT Deluxe and Locomotion on steam a couple years ago, and just got back into these wonderful games. This was a super cool video, giving a glimpse into the developer who shaped a lot of my childhood PC gaming. Cheers to you Mr. Chris Sawyer, and thanks for the great video Mr. Timberwolf. :)

@PocketC00KIE Жыл бұрын

When Qogo played the Merry-Go Round song, I screamed

@sjan111 2 жыл бұрын

extremely underrated video, good job

@Crash-Rest-Yummy 2 жыл бұрын

Thanks for sharing, Transport tycoon checked all the right boxes, even with non curved rails, how amazing is that if u think about it :)

@Gazzell82 Жыл бұрын

Amazing games! I have played these from day 1 and continue to play these games. Transport Tycoon is my favourite game of all time. Thank you Chris Sawyer.

@miccrhaafetl5101 Жыл бұрын

My love of cargo/goods management games started with Transport Tycoon Deluxe. Chris Sawyer and Sid Meier influence so much of my gaming habits.

@TimberwolfK Жыл бұрын

Sid Meier's autobiography (Memoir!) is an interesting read if you've not picked it up yet. Talks a lot about how in those days they'd iterate on ideas until they found a really fun core gameplay loop, and then build out from that.

@pokedude104 Жыл бұрын

OpenTTD and OpenRCT2 are the two games I find myself going back to the most of all the other games I own. If I don't know what I want to play I never go wrong with either one. Its the same deal with civilization. I grew up watching my dad play civ 2 and I've basically been playing it on and off for 20 years now... Some games are truly timeless

@Dexter037S4 3 ай бұрын

OpenLoco is brilliant too.

@sanderbos4243 Жыл бұрын

Excellent video, thank you for teaching me so much about him!

@TimberwolfK Жыл бұрын

It was interesting to research, I'd had almost no idea about the MTX games (other than a friend mentioning the Qogo music connection)

@sanderbos4243 Жыл бұрын

@@TimberwolfK I love your channel, I'm watching your "Why aren't there more open-source recreations of classic games?" video right now, keep it up! :-)

@freakoffer Жыл бұрын

It's kind of funny that Project Zomboid's graphics people always make fun of saying it's like Roller Coaster Tycoon or the original Sims and I scratch my head and wonder why that is an insult I like that style but I guess i'd be the niche market it geared towards... Either way great video Timberwolf!

@superclass4744 2 жыл бұрын

Well said my friend, well said!

@philipmurphy2 4 ай бұрын

Chris Sawyer is a true legend of gaming for sure

@MammothChats 2 жыл бұрын

Really interesting video, I’m a big fan of Transport Tycoon for the ps1 at the moment

@hsjun7142 Жыл бұрын

I would rather say Chris Sawyer created an universe instead of an empire. Chris Sawyer, Simon Foster, and Allister Brimble have allowed every player around the world to build their own park, castle, empire in their universe. Sometimes calming and peaceful, sometimes vibrant and joyful, their universe is a pure virtual nostalgia.

@TimberwolfK Жыл бұрын

Don't forget John Broomhall with his collection of Herbie Hancock records! (I swear there's some King Curtis influence in places on the Transport Tycoon soundtrack, too.)

@jjc2896 8 ай бұрын

The day that Locomotion/OpenLoco gains a properly functioning signal system (that allows complex rail networks to be built) will be the day that I stop playing other games. There is so much potential there!

@Skawagon Жыл бұрын

As a spiritual sucessor to Transport Tycoon I would also mention the Jan Zeleny´s Mashinky - if for no other reason than the factthat Jan Zeleny did most of the coding, asets and graphics for the game himself.

@TimberwolfK Жыл бұрын

I need to find the time to play Mashinky! Been enjoying Railway Empire a bit of late - has a few frustrations and rough edges, and I could do without the "characters", but an interesting spiritual successor to Sid Meier's Railroad Tycoon.

@vaakdemandante8772 Жыл бұрын

It's too expensive for what it offers and has no demo, so it's hard to get a feel for the game before buying. Certainly looks nice.

@travisrauh 9 ай бұрын

Chris Sawyer is a legend

@BatRado 2 жыл бұрын

Mark Evans Back in my day, we coded in assembly, 6 CPUs running in the same address space with a custom real time OS. Burned the code into 12 EEPROMs. Was awesome!

@Yash-Gaikwad Жыл бұрын

"He might have good contacts who taught him or was very rich to get necessary resources" Above statement is to make myself feel smart again...

@cristitanase6130 9 ай бұрын

Transpprt Tycoon Deluxe is right there on my top 5 games, and if not for UFO 1 would have been the number one. Amazing jib for a single developer. Trylly incrrdible.

@NuStiuFrate Жыл бұрын

Man i was so let down by locomotion. It felt like an old game, even on day one. Rollercoaster Tycoon felt like its own game, separated from Transport Tycoon. Locomotion felt like i was playing a weird combination of both games, Like Sawyer just didn't know what to do anymore. And yeah, the colors were so dull.

@TimberwolfK Жыл бұрын

Similar, to use words I'm sure Chris has in an interview, "the world moved on and I didn't". I played a decent amount of it when it was new, and even worked out how to add myself as a custom face, but it's not endured in the same way as the recognised classics for me.

@NuStiuFrate Жыл бұрын

@@TimberwolfK Ah that explains it. I was expecting the next big thing to blow my mind, like the previous two series did but...nothing, the magic was gone. Oh well, i'll always be grateful to him for his classics, that are part of my childhood.

@N00N01 2 жыл бұрын

Hope most new-comers see this, to know and maybe even respect the legacy more

@karltownsend2615 2 жыл бұрын

Good Watch!

@Pugragger Жыл бұрын

i've played these games for countless hours, I could of mastered many musical instruments but instead i can quickly complete scenarios in pretty much any of his games... is that still talent?

@ashleyhamman 10 ай бұрын

I was never very into the RCT games, but Locomotion came to me at that point in my childhood where I was old enough to understand the main systems and have fun with it, while still being very young and impressionable. I had already experienced a few 3D games at that point, but the sorta cute isometric style with its soundtrack that takes you through the eras really grabbed me, much more so than Railroad Tycoon 2 or Sim City 3000 Unlimited which came into my life within a couple years of Locomotion. My main disappointment with Locomotion as an adult is that it lacks the fine depth (signalling mainly) that I could find in it's significantly less charming predecessor-opensource-remake, OpenTTD.

@TimberwolfK 10 ай бұрын

I did play through quite a lot of it, it's a shame I didn't keep the save files (although I think this is in my "I'll just put the hard drive in a drawer, it's not like the bearings will seize up from lack of use" era). What got me in the end is just how *fiddly* it is to maintain a big network, especially if you play without a "vehicles never get old" mod. It's a shame because I do like the chunky models and more options for track layout.

@latbat58 Жыл бұрын

Interesting

@daniel69 2 ай бұрын

Chris Sawyer - GOAT

@CentralJerseyRailfan 2 жыл бұрын

0:55 mfw when the merry go round music comes on🗿🥸

@Bittamin Жыл бұрын

So I really enjoy the voice you have going on AND the audio quality is phenomenal, but I have to know is it voice acting? I’m impressed by everything going on here regardless but I had to ask. Big into voice acting, even if this comes naturally to it you should audition for things. Very David Attenborough type vibes

@TimberwolfK Жыл бұрын

It's sort of half-and-half; it's based on my natural speaking voice but "pushed" if that makes sense, rolling a little more into the sounds and giving it more of an obvious accent. There's surprisingly little to the sound. I use an SM58 with a FetHead, through a FocusRite Solo, and then just basic compressor/limiter/noise gate. Sometimes do a little cleanup in RX8 if there's anything obviously wrong (too much background or mouth noise) but that's about all.

@Bittamin Жыл бұрын

@@TimberwolfK it turns out great dude!!

@nanoblast5748 2 жыл бұрын

chris "the legend" sawyer

@ADR69 8 ай бұрын

Chris is a national treasure

@thepaintjobber 3 ай бұрын

I heard a rumor that Chris Sawyer used a big portion of his royalties from TTD to travel the USA and visit amusement parks before making RCT, is that true?

@TimberwolfK 3 ай бұрын

He definitely talks about visiting theme parks and "falling in love" with roller coasters during the development of what was originally supposed to be a Transport Tycoon sequel and became RCT as he became fascinated by how roller coasters worked and the physics algorithms behind them. How much that cost is off the record as far as I know!

@Jkauppa Жыл бұрын

appearances to the heck

@Jkauppa Жыл бұрын

8-bit gpu's dont have to slow

@Jkauppa Жыл бұрын

rip old mate

@SevenDeMagnus 7 ай бұрын

Genius

@ParDeRuz Жыл бұрын

thank you narrator from stanley parable for making this video

@TimberwolfK Жыл бұрын

One day I should figure out how to give you lot the outtake where one of the dogs comes and interrupts recording and I (entirely by accident) slip into a pitch-perfect impersonation of Kevan Brighting. Apparently third-person narration is the missing final step in the transformation.

@ParDeRuz Жыл бұрын

@@TimberwolfK Brighting narrates over Stanley in the third person!!!! :OOOOOO

@NNokia-jz6jb 3 ай бұрын

All the best games were on the c64.

@victor_TH Жыл бұрын

I refuse to believe that our fountain of ideas just dries up as we get older, maybe complacency? I never had any success like Chris but I used to have plenty of breaking ideas and that seems long gone though

@TimberwolfK Жыл бұрын

Jeff Minter has an interesting counterpoint to Sawyer's "games have become too complex with big teams" view, which is that while you can't make a top-flight commercial game as a lone developer any more there's nothing to stop you making indie games and continuing to implement whatever ideas can be built by one or two people working alone. (Admittedly, Sawyer exited game development a few years before indie titles really started breaking through thanks to digital distribution and indie-focused storefronts)

@victor_TH Жыл бұрын

@@TimberwolfK Very good points, totally agree. I started mobile development back in the old J2ME days, I think it shared many similarities with early game dev. I am now getting started on VR as I also think it is now in such a stage. Just good mechanics/gameplay/fun element is all that's needed for a solo or small team to compete against bigger players, specially on "emerging" tech where their presence is still small.

@luk3z517 2 жыл бұрын

For me Locomotion is too mixed with RT. Successor of TTD should be TTD2 not Locomotion. Anyway best ideas for games come form '80 & '90. Some isometric games are better than 3D and TTD is a good example.

@djcb4190 2 жыл бұрын

We're taking 3 dimensions.

@HyperBlueWolf 2 жыл бұрын

Dino Dini It's pronounced "Dino" as in Ferrari, NOT "Dino" as in Pterodactyl ... Otherwise, great video :)

@TimberwolfK 2 жыл бұрын

Aargh! I think I even saw an out-take from Digitiser: The Show with exactly the same mistake, and then didn't think about it when I recorded the voiceover track for this...

@NNokia-jz6jb 3 ай бұрын

TTC looks like a-train. Same style title graphics also.

@matsv201 Жыл бұрын

Its not like 100% of RTC was written in assembly, while it was a majority of runtime, it wasnt really the case for code. For RTC2 most of the code was compiled with mostly drawing algoritm in asseblmey. There was a lot of code replaced between rct1 and 2. That is why rct2 runs much bettwr on modern computers

@TimberwolfK Жыл бұрын

I'm going with what both Chris Sawyer and the OpenRCT2 project state.

@matsv201 Жыл бұрын

@@TimberwolfK the stats its self is not wrong, it how it was presented. Take doom as a typcal game of the era. Ot was 10% assembler in code, but 90% in runtime. This is typical for all games in the era. That dont imply that 99% of then written code is assembler, its always messured two ways

@killer1479 Жыл бұрын

then his legacy came to a train wreck of an end, with the shit show known as, rollercoaster tycoon world :|

@TimberwolfK Жыл бұрын

In the few interviews he's done Chris has been diplomatic but also noticeably careful to never express an opinion on what Atari have done to the franchise since 3. The Eurogamer interview he did back in 2016 is... uh... carefully worded, to say the least. There was some talk a little while ago they weren't going to extend the agreement for Atari to use the RCT name beyond 2022, although Atari's recent financial statement claims both parties are looking to renew when the current deal expires in September.