May 16May 16 An open source re-implementation of RollerCoaster Tycoon 3.The project is open-source on GitHub.How You Can HelpPlease feel free to share your ideas with us here, on Reddit, or on the forum.Check out and comment on the Roadmap below, open new discussion on the official forum, buy us a coffee, or simply just voice your enthusiasm. Every bit of your support helps us make this dream (some say pipe-dream) a reality!RoadmapThe rough plan is:Phase 1: Design, Prototyping, and Engine Scaffolding✔ Create a website and community✔Render a flat, textured planeRender a flat, empty parkRender terrainRender sceneryRender attractions, including rides and roller coastersIterate!Phase 2: GameplayBase Game, thenWild!Soaked!Phase 3: PluginsUI and Quality of Life Enhancements:Freeform, off-grid scenery placementGUI EnhancementsResizable GUI Windows, including:Query search for Structures and SceneryFilterable lists for Parks, Attractions, Structures, and Sceneryetc.Procedural TracksFuture: Open GraphicsPlayers won't require an existing copy of RCT3. Edited Tuesday at 12:37 PM4 days by Chance Snow Update roadmap Lead engineer on 🎢 OpenRCT3.
May 18May 18 I'm very excited about this, we all know RCT3 desperately needs something like this! ParkCrafters already holds a large variety of information and deep dives into RCT3, but feel free to ask us if you need anything! there's this illusion of the reality, but it's not really really real, like it's beside and inside and inside and beside, but never on top.. nevermind, just kidding but not really
May 22May 22 Author On 5/18/2026 at 4:06 PM, wolfpaw said:[...] ParkCrafters already holds a large variety of information and deep dives into RCT3, but feel free to ask us if you need anything!Thank you for the heads up; I've done some digging this week and found quite a trove of invaluable info.Speaking of things I need help with: I've been struggling for a couple of weeks to adapt the OG OVL library (and its "next-gen" cousin) to modern C#.The new OpenCobra implementation’s OVL parser can currently list all resources in an OVL pair (common.ovl and unique.ovl files are pairs), including extracting flexi-textures and text files. There's also a janky sound effect player in the new Dumper app. You can see the results of this effort in the rendered nullbmp above, albeit not perfectly.However, enhancing the new library to extract "Flic" textures (including bitmap tables and tex texture resources) has proved very challenging. All of the game's textures, i.e. those that are not flexibly recolorable by the player, are archived this way. See my countless branches on GitHub, if you're curious.Specifically, the "relocation" shenanigans in OVL archives are quite confusing. With the help of AI (😓), I've surmised from the reference implementation that a relocation is a kind of offset (relative or not, I'm not quite sure) into the data section of an OVL. The new library can ingest relocation tables, but using the table to actually follow relocations is challenging.The great Jonathan Wilson, of RCT3 Importer fame, has joined the project's subreddit, but I am not sure how available he is to pair on this project. Is anyone here free to help me solve this problem? Lead engineer on 🎢 OpenRCT3.
May 22May 22 There have been some folks on here who have dabbled into OVL files, I'm not one of those since I focus primarily on design instead of development, but hopefully someone on here can help you! there's this illusion of the reality, but it's not really really real, like it's beside and inside and inside and beside, but never on top.. nevermind, just kidding but not really
21 hours ago21 hr I'm very excited for this and have a lot of ideas that could improve the game development. It being so early in development though I'll probably wait for those suggestions lolThe only thing I have questions about, is the fact the players won't be required to have a copy of the game. If my memory serves correctly, part of the reason OpenRCT2 requires players to have a copy of the game, is not only because it uses files from the game itself — but to also avoid issues with copyright. Atari can't make any legal claims as long as they are still making money anytime someone wants to use OpenRCT2. I personally don't care, but I wouldn't want anyone to get in any legal trouble.
1 hour ago1 hr Author 19 hours ago, Wilhelm1407 said:[...][Players] won't be required to have a copy of the game. If my memory serves correctly, part of the reason OpenRCT2 requires players to have a copy of the game, is not only because it uses files from the game itself — but to also avoid issues with copyright. Atari can't make any legal claims as long as they are still making money anytime someone wants to use OpenRCT2. I personally don't care, but I wouldn't want anyone to get in any legal trouble.The Open Graphics milestone is a complete pipe dream at this point, so I'm not as worried about the copyright issue wrt. that.I appreciate the advice, regardless!I, too, am worried about the copyright issues. See the project's Disclaimers and my risk assessment. Lead engineer on 🎢 OpenRCT3.
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