Roller Coaster Tycoon 2 Scenario Guide - Dusty Greens Tips & Walkthrough

By far the easiest scenario in the game. Simply achieve $5000 in monthly ride income, which you’ll be able to do with about 400 guests and a few good coasters.

First, remove at least one of the mini-putts, preferably both. They take up a ton of space and make money very slowly. Simply add all of the best money-making rides in the smallest space possible – this park is very small so you can’t waste space.

There’s plenty of good thrill rides already available to you, and you also start off with good compact coasters, namely the Virginia Reel, Junior and Looping coasters. Focus on these cheap small coasters and fit in as many as you can. With two Virginia Reel coasters, Mango Muncher and a small Looping coaster on top of a few thrill rides I was able to get $7000 ride income in May of the first year.

Final Dusty Greens Tips:

>This scenario teaches the importance of maximizing the amount of profit you make per square. Instead of this mini-putt which was making a couple hundred dollars a month, I was able to fit in two coasters, which were making a couple THOUSAND dollars a month EACH.

>Two most important things in maximizing the profit per ride: capacity, and excitement rating. Obviously the more guests that can be on the ride at a time is important, and excitement rating affects how much you can charge each of these guests.

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Roller Coaster Tycoon 2 Scenario Guide - Bumbly Bazaar Tips & Walkthrough

A very easy Challenging Park, easily beatable in less than a year. The goal is to achieve over $1000 profit from shops and stalls.

First, I’d recommend removing everything from the little bazaar they’ve build for you, as well as the unnecessary paths around it. Place your favourite food and drink stalls on each side of the park, either 2 or 3 each spaced out between the park, at the corner of paths. You may want to invest in some garbage cans to almost eliminate the need for handymen. An information kiosk at each entrance is also worth having.

Now you can build some rides. You don’t have much in terms of gentle or thrill rides, but build a couple to bring guests into your park. To help you achieve the goal you’ll definitely want some rides with on-ride photos. Lucky for you, you have three great options at the start. Mine Mania, Splash Mine and King Rapids. Feel free to borrow a few thousand to get all three of these right away, to speed things up a little. Note that Mine Mania only has one piece of straight track that can be replaced with a photo booth – you might want to hide scenery and supports when doing construction to find it.

Once you build these, you should find where your busiest paths are. Stick some souvenir type shops at the end of these. That’s about all you can do. Most of the things you’ll research aren’t much good to you, although you’ll get Wooden Coasters as your second coaster, which can help for shop sales.

Keep slowly building as you can, to keep people coming to your park. You should achieve the objective around the end of the first year.

Bumbly Bazaar - as easy as that!

Final Bumbly Bazaar Tips:

>On-ride photos count as shop profit, but restrooms count as ride income.

>Guests will only purchase one food, drink and souvenir at a time – don’t stick two food stalls right next to each other.

>Long walks across the desert make people thirsty. Have cold drink shops at the end of long paths.

>You can charge up to $1.50 for the good food stalls, and $1.40 for drinks.

>On-ride photos can be sold for between $2 and $2.50.

>Have an information kiosk or a souvenir shop near the busiest areas of your park. Set the price of an umbrella to around $9, and when it rains you’ll have the shop profit fly in.

>Most souvenirs like hats, t-shirts and cuddly toys can be sold for between $2 and $2.50 profit.

Next: Dusty Greens

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Roller Coaster Tycoon 2 Scenario Guide - Botany Breakers Tips & Walkthrough

The goal this time is to achieve $10,000 monthly income from ride tickets. Keep in mind that on-ride photos count as shop sales, so they won’t count. $10,000 may sound like a lot, but it’s really not that bad. The main thing you need to worry about is making sure you’re staying profitable; building rides is not easy on this awkwardly small and bumpy island, and you’re paying a pretty high interest of 10% on your loan.

Keep your park closed, and figure out how you want to design your park. Some people will build a path around the outside of the island, however I find it easier to just build coasters on top of the island – particularly coasters with long exit paths which can be connected to other rides and coasters.

Not pretty but it works!

Unfortunately you don’t start with a cash machine, and it’s pretty deep down in the research tree. You can do the objective without it; you’ll need about 800 people in your park with good coasters. Either set your funding to only shops and stalls right away, or get a few good rides first. The very first coaster you get are really small and compact, cheap, and they can make a lot profit, so this might be worth going for first.

Build a few small rides, an information kiosk, and choose the coaster you want to start out with. It might be a good idea to save before you build this coaster; if you choose wrong and it doesn't make you money fast enough, you could be in trouble. Dingy slides are cool but each raft only seats one person, which isn't great money. Feel free to borrow a couple thousand more dollars to pay for this first coaster, but don’t go crazy. Pay off this loan whenever you can, and then borrow more when you’re ready to buy a new coaster or something. It’ll save a good amount of money.

Final Botany Breakers Tips:

>Try to avoid drowning people. It’s bad for business.

>I underestimated this park - I'm sure I could have done it a lot faster and easier if I planned out the basic layout of my paths first.

>Coasters are still going to be the best money makers for you to complete the goal - build a lot of cheap coasters that seat a lot of people.

Next: Bumbly Bazaar

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Roller Coaster Tycoon 2 Scenario Guide - Amity Airfield Tips & Walkthrough

Welcoming you to the challenging parks is Amity Airfield – and what a challenge it is. You need a massive 3000 guests in your park by year four. This is arguably the hardest challenge in the game – if you’re just getting back into the game I’d recommend saving this park until later when you have a little more experience.

Start off by pausing the game, to decide what you’re going to do. You’re going to have to use the pause button a lot, as you’re going to need all the time you can get building this park to 3000 guests. Any time not spent expanding, building new rides, making coasters or managing your guests is time wasted. You’ll also need to make good use of the save button. Make sure you save really often, and make multiple files. Any time I thought I could have done slightly better since the last save I made a new file, or re-loaded my last save.

The first thing you’ll want to do is pay off your loan since the 10% rate is really high. Remove shops and scenery from your research and start removing paths and all the scenery you can – I’d actually recommend removing every path you’re given. You’ll have more than enough money from doing this to start building your park without digging into your loan. Note that to remove paths quicker you can open the paths window, select the icon that allows you to build from a point you select (the one that gives you the yellow arrow), click on the end of your path, then repeatedly clicking the delete paths button. I’d also recommend starting to build a few rides before you delete absolutely everything, so people can start entering your park ASAP.

How I Completed Amity Airfield

You’ll want to design your paths basically so that people won’t leave, and so that people will be spread out to all areas of your park – crowding will be a big issue with a few thousand guests. I wanted to make guests flow away from the entrance, so I started by building a path to the very edge of one side of the park. I made a little loop to fill in with rides and shops, then made it lead the guests even deeper. I kept this path going, and made another loop, again leading deeper. I made sure that at no point in the loop, people would naturally flow back towards the entrance, i.e. making sure all paths leading backwards had a turn to keep guests moving in a loop. I also made a transport ride moving people away from the entrance, to one of the deeper areas.

Fill in all these loops with rides, and have shops at the end of the busiest paths to make some money. You’re going to have to use each rides multiple times. Once you have some people coming in to your park, make a coaster, preferably one with an on-ride photo to make some money back. You can build some pre-built coasters, but these are generally quite expensive, and money is definitely going to be an issue in Amity Airfield. Try to build your own when possible, with a few trains, a ride length of 30 seconds to a minute, and ratings between 4 and 9. Saving before attempting to build any coaster is a good idea.

Lots of little loops and paths for your guests to walk - never stop expanding!

Just keep expanding, filling areas in with rides, building coasters, and hiring handymen. Managing your handymen well is going to be very important, as you’ll need to keep clean paths and a high park rating to keep the guests coming in.

By the end of my second year I had a good number of guests that wanted to leave, so I had to keep building to connect the deepest areas of my park to the exit. These guests that want to leave definitely aren't worth keeping – they’ll kill your park rating. Benches and garbage cans are also good for your park rating, but if you’re too crowded these will be destroyed really fast.

By the start of the third year you should hopefully have around 1500 guests. This is when advertising can be useful, however I’d recommend spending more on expanding over advertising if you have to choose. Some people recommend doing the cheap advertisements throughout the entire 4 years; see what works for you.

My final tip is on making money. Make sure you have lots of shops, making $1.30-1.40 profit from drinks and $1.50 for the good food stalls. Hats can make $2.50. Information kiosks should be put at the busiest intersection, as umbrellas can make over $7 profit; you’re going to love it when it rains. Don’t be afraid to borrow money, but make sure you pay it off whenever you get a chance. Build as many coasters with on-ride photo booths as you can.

Every good coaster you can add you can charge about $5 more for park entrance. I wouldn't ever charge more than $40 or $45 though, or else some people won’t be able to afford to get in. Once you get to these higher prices make sure you have a few cash machines.

Keep going, and pray you’re close to the 3000 guest mark when you’re in the fourth year. You’re going to need all the help you can get.

Final Amity Airfield Tips

>Never stop expanding. Try to have the green arrow next to the guest number for the majority of the time, by always adding more paths and rides, advertising, and keeping your paths clean.

>Your handymen’s and mechanic’s patrol area can and should be set while the game is paused.

>Try to borrow as little as possible until the fourth year. During this year feel free to go crazy with your loan, building as many coasters and advertising as much as you can to reach 3000 guests.

>Never go more than a month without expanding your paths or adding a new ride

>Save a LOT. If your park rating slips or you don’t add many guests since you last saved, re-load your last save and fix what went wrong.

>You’ll want to eventually use every corner of the park for paths to help with the crowding problem, but make sure you don’t expand too quickly – handymen cost quite a lot, and you don’t want to be paying thousands for your staff over the entire 4 years.

Next: Botany Breakers

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Roller Coaster Tycoon 2 Scenario Guide – Factory Capers Tips & Walkthrough

Factory Capers is a little different – you can’t charge admission for rides, your main source of money will be from charging admission to your park!

I personally hate the layout of this park. So many unnecessary paths, which lead in the air. You can’t fit rides in the air! This is why I deleted pretty much everything in the park, except for the paths around the entrance. I placed an information kiosk right in the middle of this area.

Start building all the good gentle and thrill rides, as well as any bigger rides that you can make money off of in the form of on-ride photo booths. This includes most Wooden coasters, Splash Mine, Mine Mania, Looping and Corkscrew coasters, and more. Just make sure there’s a straight piece of path that you can replace.

Once you have your smaller rides, one or two coasters and a few shops, you can open the park and all your rides. You can start out charging about $25 for admission if you have this many rides in your park. Any time you add a coaster or a few smaller rides, you can up this price by 5 or 10 dollars, up to $48 once you have a really big park. Why $48? That’s the least amount of money guests will have in this scenario, and you don’t want to be turning away people when the goal is number of guests. Make sure you have a cash machine at the entrance to the park, so they have money to spend once they get in.

This is pretty much it – just keep track of everything and the goal shouldn't be a problem! Pay off your loan if you have any extra money to save on interest, and watch the years pass, and the money flow in.

Final Factory Capers Tips:

>You can delete paths faster by opening the paths editor window, choosing the option to create paths from a point (the option that gives you the yellow arrow), selecting the end of the path you want to remove and repeatedly clicking delete.

>3D Cinemas can show different movies, giving you very different ratings. Switch up the movies every once in a while or guests will get bored.

>Information kiosks are going to be the best way for you to make money once you have guests in your park. I only like to make $0.90 on park maps, but you can charge a leg for umbrellas. I usually aim to make between $7 and $7.50 profit off of an umbrella. No one will buy one until it rains, but when it does, you’ll have money flying in!

>Factory Capers has land which you do not own, but you can still construct rides above the ground. This can be useful to fit in one or two more coasters.

>When selecting roller coasters, avoid the ones that only have one train, or the ones that can’t have an on-ride photo constructed on them. Also try to get the highest excitement rating you can, without having an intensity or nausea rating that’s too high.

>Whenever you spend a lot of money on rides, make sure you can either charge more on admission, or you're able to build more shops or photo-booths so that you'll still be making a profit

>See that funny looking looping coaster in my park? These things are great, especially in admission parks like Factory Capers. Build a Looping or Corkscrew coaster, with a loop on each end and an on-ride photo. Guests actually love these rides and you can charge them for a photo off of a 5 second ride! 

Next: Amity Airfield

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Roller Coaster Tycoon 2 Scenario Guide - Electric Fields Tips & Walkthrough 

Just like the previous park, I’d recommend gutting most of the area. There’s a lot of unnecessary paths you can remove as well as buildings to delete for an easy few thousand dollars. Setting the research to only shops and stalls isn't quite as necessary in this park, but I still would recommend it as it’ll make things easier, since again the cash machine will prevent guests from leaving when they run out of money. You may want to get a thrill ride first though, as you don’t start with many good ones, and the next two coasters you research are pretty useful as well.

Again, lower intensity rides up front, higher priced more intense rides in the back. I kept everything as close to the entrance as I could, and used no entry signs to block off the paths until I wanted to use them. The row boats you’re given won’t make you a lot of money, they can be removed or replaced with Swans, which seat twice as many people.

Splash Mine and the Mine coaster are still great, and you start out with them. I also love Mango Muncher, the junior coaster. The only drawback is you’ll need to dedicate a handyman just to keep its exit path clean.

This is how I designed the beginning of my Electric Fields - lots of empty space to build into later

I’d recommend removing the balloon stall, and placing something you can charge a little more for somewhere a little more intelligently placed. As you can see, I placed a hat stall at the end of my busiest path, charged $2.50 each, and it was great money up front. No entry signs blocked off most of the park, so I could have my guests spending their money as fast as possible.

This scenario really is quite easy, you should get it no problem. Keep building rides to bring in the people, and keep track of guests’ thoughts and make sure your paths are clean to maintain your park rating.

Keep building and you should beat Electric Fields in no time!

Final Electric Fields Tips:

>A lot of the tracked gentle rides are not worth it - they cost a lot, only seat a few people and you can't charge much. Make your own track instead if you have to build one of these.

>Using more paths around your park can bring in more people since it'll be less crowded, however it's costly - more staff will be needed and your guests will spend time walking, instead of paying for rides/shops

Next: Factory Capers

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Roller Coaster Tycoon 2 Scenario Guide & Walkthrough

I'm re-visiting RCT2,  my long lost love from years ago playing on my Windows 98 desktop. I was going through each scenario and I noticed that most of the information out there about the game hasn't been updated since these Windows 98 days! I'm going to fix that.

If you don't already have the game, I'd definitely recommend giving it a try. You can download it for free from many torrents, but they can give you a lot of bugs, even for those experienced with torrents and game cracks. You can also download the game for about $10 through Steam, or you can even buy a physical copy for pretty cheap off of Amazon! Take a look if you're interested.

I've been playing this game for years, and I have to say I've learned a lot of the tricks. This, along with my Accounting knowledge make this a great game for me. A lot of my guide will be passing on my collection of knowledge, with a lot of hints and tips to make you the best roller coaster capitalist you can be!

I'm currently working on guides for the main game, but I'm going to to make walkthroughs for the Wacky Worlds and Time Twister expansion scenarios, included in the Triple Thrill Pack version.

List of Roller Coaster Tycoon 2 Scenario Guides:

Beginner Parks

Crazy Castle

Electric Fields

Factory Capers

Challenging Parks

Amity Airfield
Botany Breakers
Bumbly Bazaar
Dusty Greens


As you can see this is still a work in progress - the rest of the scenario guides will be available shortly!

Roller Coaster Tycoon 2 Scenario Guide - Crazy Castle Tips & Walkthrough

The first beginner park you’ll find in Roller Coaster Tycoon 2 is Crazy Castle, a large empty castle given to you to exploit and turn into an amusement park. Capitalism!

Before you do anything, you should change your research. (Go to rides, then the right most symbol, then research). Uncheck everything except shops, and set funding to maximum. Don’t worry, you’ll be able to afford it. You’ll need the cash machine to be able to keep guests in your park to complete the goal. After you get the cash machine (around the start of the second year) you can start researching gentle rides, thrill rides, and roller coasters.

The first thing you’ll notice is the large walls, with paths along them. There will already be people walking along these paths, complaining that they’re lost and that they want to go home. This is a problem. Your first move should be to clear all of the castle walls, and the paths that lead up to them. Also delete the large square of path tiles, and the extra width of path along the main trail leading into your park if you wish. This should get you an extra $10,000 or so.

Time to start building. Before you start, you should know that you probably don’t want to use the entire area of the park just yet. Only build near the entrance, and use no-entry signs to block off the rest of the park. Gentle rides are a necessity, although they won’t make you a ton of money. Guests often need to try out a couple gentle or thrill rides to get the confidence to ride one of your big coasters.  These rides also help bring guests into your park.

I made a small area and crammed in all the gentle rides at close as possible as I could, right by the entrance to the park. I left one side open for a small roller coaster that I find makes very good money, Texas Tubs. Thrill rides should be next, I fit a couple along the path leading up towards the main area.

Now the fun starts - build some coasters. My first purchase is often Splash Mine, the water ride. 92 people can ride it at once, you can charge $6 with no problems, and you can fit a photo booth on it to make even more money per customer. This things amazing. My next favouite is Mine Mania, it’s cheap, and there’s also one flat piece of track where you can stick an on-ride photo section. With these two rides alone you should never have to worry about money in this park again.

You can basically coast from here. Make sure you have a good amount of handymen, bathrooms, food and drink shops throughout, and an info kiosk or two, especially at the entrance. Build rides as they become available to keep people coming to your park, and advertise if you need to make sure you hit your objective.

Scenery deleted, rides built, no entry signs used, money rolling in.

You should get in the habit of checking your profit for all your rides and shops every few months to see how you’re doing. Also sort your guests’ thoughts to see if there’s anything you need to fix; disgusting paths, rides too cheap or expensive, people getting lost, etc.

My final park - I didn't do anything for the last 2 years other than cram coasters wherever I could.

It’s a long 4 years to wait out, if you’re trying to pass the time check out this collection of RCT2 Hints and Tips.

Final Crazy Castle Tips:

>In this scenario, and all others, spending money to research scenery and even transport rides is usually a waste of money and time.

>This scenario shows you how counter-productive a lot of unnecessary paths are; lost guests hurt your park rating and won’t make you any money.

>Get in the habit of occasionally checking the profit of all of your rides and stalls. Also often check your guest’s thoughts, to see if there’s anything you need to improve.

>Twist is a terrible Thrill Ride - it can only seat 4 guests and they puke everywhere.

>Spiral Slide is a great gentle ride – it takes up very little space, you can change the settings so it seats 5 people (who ride for only a couple seconds) and there’s no need for a queue line.

>To find the straight piece of track that can be replaced with an on-ride photo booth, selecting invisible scenery and supports can make things a lot easier.

Next: Electric Fields

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