But you can build something that looks a lot like it in Roller Coaster Tycoon, a strategy simulation that puts you at the helm of a virtual amusement park. You're still laying track and regulating traffic. But this time you're an entertainer, and you have to give hundreds of Lilliputian visitors all the rides, theme scenery, junk food, soft drinks and souvenirs they can enjoy and afford. Instead of locomotives or light manufacturing, your economy is based on entertainment architecture, instant gratification and throwaway consumption. Novelty attracts new visitors.
New visitors pay for the next round of construction.
It costs money to fill an amusement park with people-moving machines. This is a game about engineering, starting with the rides. But the game also embraces modern materials and engineering, in the form of steel coasters that turn corkscrews or hang upside down or drop for hundreds of feet. You can spend countless hours just designing new and bizarre rides with the custom roller coaster construction kit. But as with any toy train set, the soul of the experience is the world you build around it.