Wonder World...The Story Begins

Once upon a time, a young theme park enthusiast, who also enjoyed model building, decided to combine his two passions by designing and creating a model of his own theme park. He created a base of styrofoam and matboard, roughly 2 x 3 feet. And out of cheap materials such as cardboard (cut from old cereal boxes), cardstock toothpicks, paper mache, plaster of paris, tempera paint, and lichen (used to make trees and shrubs for model railroad kits), he began to build a model of a small theme park that would come to be known as Wonder World.

After about six months time, the model was "finished". It was shown to the public, briefly, at a college art show. Now you might think that this was the folly of a young art student, and that the model would be stored away, and soon forgotten. But that, of course, was not the case. The model would continue to grow, as new areas and lands were added, meticulously built in sections that all fit together like one big jigsaw puzzle. Over the next few years, Wonder World nearly tripled in size, and was still not complete. But the artist's interests began to shift to computers and more specifically, computer gaming. The pieces of Wonder World were carefully boxed, and stored away in the garage. As time went by, it seemed that Wonder World would remain forever hidden away in storage.

Then, one day in 1999, a computer game called Rollercoaster Tycoon was released. Developed by Chis Sawyer and MicroProse, this theme park management simulation game allowed players to build virtual theme parks on their computers. Well I was instantly hooked. Oh yes... I am that crazy guy who spent hours upon countless hours, designing and building a miniature theme park simply for the shear pleasure that it gave me. And now, I could do the same thing, without all the mess, on my computer. Soon, a sequel to Rollercoaster Tycoon was released, followed by a third. And it was with Rollercoaster Tycoon 3 (RCT3), that I really fell in love. With this installment, including two expansion packs, you could build nearly anything that you could dream of. And you could ride the rides and experience your parks in a fully three dimensional setting. And then I got the idea...I would build Wonder World with RCT3!

The original Wonder World model.

I began building Wonder World in RCT3 before the ability to create custom scenery was unlocked. And while the game included a large assortment of scenery pieces to choose from, it was still somewhat limited. It wasn't until I was nearly finished with the four main lands that made up Wonder World, that custom scenery became available. Once I learned how to create and import custom scenery into the game, that's when Wonder World really began to shine. I updated and practically redesigned most of the original work I had done. But I will show you that version of the park in later articles. This first article will show what Wonder World looked like without custom scenery.And compared to what can be done with RCT3 today, the majority of it was not very pretty.

The entrance to Wonder World is also the gateway to the first land, Expo 3000. The Space Port towers over the entrance, in a huge, elevated concrete building.

The pathway to the rest of the park led underneath the massive Expo 3000 Space Port.

The Expo 3000 Space Port featured an indoor roller coaster housed inside the huge building. 

Here is a video of the first version of the Expo 3000 Space Port attraction. I have to admit, it was pretty horrible.

 Expo 3000 was themed similarly to a World's Fair in a retro-style futuristic setting.

Aside from the flowers, the futuristic-themed Waterfront Restaurant is not too pretty without the use of custom scenery.

The not very futuristic, Auto Raceway.

The second themed land was Circus Center. As RCT3 did not come with any circus-themed sets, canopies and circus tents were impossible to create. The land suffered because of this.

One of the main attractions was Prof. Fate's House of Fun. 

Inside Prof. Fate's Manor, guests rode in giant hand-shaped vehicles through a fun-house type attraction.

Here's the original Prof. Fate's House of Fun attraction before it was enhanced with custom scenery. A short back story precedes the ride.

In the center of the land is the carousel, unrecognizable by the blocky blue and purple covering. At the far side is the Center Ring Loop Coaster.

The Center Ring Loop Coaster is based off the Schwarzkopt shuttle loop, steel launched coaster. This was always one of my favorite pictures from the original Wonder World.

The first disaster hits Wonder World as the train flies off the track over the seemingly oblivious guests milling about in Circus Center.

One of the early pastimes of RCT3 players was causing deliberate coaster crashes... and I was no exception. ;)

The third land was Alpine Village, a small mountain town, featuring Swiss, German, and Bavarian architecture. The Seven Seas Boat Cruise takes guests on a journey through areas from around the world. When I first built the Wonder World model, the original idea for this attraction was a trip through the many worlds created by the Brothers Grimm fairy tales, called the Boat Ride to Storybook Village. But that would have been impossible to build in RCT3, thus the change.

Here's a video of the original Seven Seas Boat Cruise.

Towering over the village is the mysterious, Wizard's Castle.

The Wizard's Castle is perched atop "mountain" that looks more desolate than alpine-themed.

Guests ride spinning pumpkins through an indoor coaster-fun house.

This is a video of the Haunted Castle ride.
Unfortunately, this was never upgraded with custom scenery.

The third major attraction in Alpine Village was the Rumbling Ridge Boblseds, a family-style coaster through mountainous valleys and dark caverns.

An aerial shot of Alpine Village on the left and the fourth land, Catfish Cove, on the right

In this aerial shot, the Southern Plantation Restaurant is on the far left and Rocky River Rowboats can be seen along the bottom. Towards the top of the photo is Crawfish Island.

This old rustic building houses the Shooting Gallery.

Catfish Cove is a small bayou town somewhere in the heart of the deep south. A Muskrat Marsh excursion boat takes guests on a scenic tour of the waterways surrounding the land.

A view from the other side of Crawfish Island. The Haunted Shack can be seen in the bottom right corner.

Here's a video tour of the original Catfish Cove, before it was completely re-done with custom scenery. The canoes were only a temporary attraction and weren't even featured in the original model. They would later be replaced by the Muskrat Marsh Boat Cruise.

A straight-down aerial view of Wonder World. The only thing missing from this shot is the Expo 3000 Space Port, which would be in the bottom right corner.

Another aerial shot, with the Rumbling Ridge Bobsleds in the forefront and the seemingly isolated Space Port in the top right corner. This would change as new additions to the park were later added.

And now I bring you back to the model. It was never completed, as you can see from the large, unfinished areas. There are now six sections that fit together to form the entire park. Expo 3000 and Circus Center both doubled in size, and these new additions were also built in RCT3 once I began to rebuild the park with custom scenery. Three additional lands were never finished and never got built in RCT3...International Street (bottom left), Cascade Canyon (top left), and Far Winds Valley (top right).

If you'd like to see more detailed and close-up photos, you can visit shyguy's World, where more than 60 photos of the Wonder World model are on display, along with some of my other modelling work.

So this ends the first article on Wonder World. But this was only a brief introduction to this classic park. With the advent of custom scenery, the majority of the park was completely re-done, along with new areas and attractions added. The next series of articles will give you a more in-depth tour of the park upon its completion.