What type of fads do you guys remember from the good ol' days.

• "Box" coasters

• Mario-themed parks (predating Universal's real attempt)

• Death coaster/slide/parks

• LONGEST ROLLERCOASTER/WATERSLIDE

• Coasters themed to brands

Not sure about the park building/coaster building side of the community since I was mainly on the pyro side but the pyro people definitely had their fads.. a few that come to mind:

• Waterscreens.. waterscreens everywhere - at one point everyone was including waterscreens once World of Color debuted into their shows with some video overlayed on top of it, got old real quick, haha

• CASTLE SHOWS - I know this one has never really died, but everyone and the mother would create a Disney-themed firework show using the castle as a set and post it everywhere. So. many. castle. shows.

• Baba Yetu - this song was everywhere at one point in the pyro community. So many people created a fountain show to this song!

• 360 shows - This isn't exactly a fad, but there was a point where everyone was creating a 360 show (a show that can be viewed from any angle with a moving/rotating camera) with a minimal set design. You can thank this show for starting this.

• Realistic effects - The AFE in RCT3 is a hell of a tool that can create literally anything you can think up, but for such a long time, everyone was so fixated on realistic effects. If your show didn't have realistic effects, it was usually criticized and not viewed highly. This fad has changed since those days, and we now see more fantasy and experimental effects - yay!

• Calling yourself a production or company - This is one I'm guilty o,f and one that doesn't necessarily only affect the pyro community. At one point, everyone was 'branding' themselves and all their work as a studio or company production. "ErnieG014 Productions" was mine that I'm 100% guilty of 😅

I'm sure there are tons more that I can't think up of but these are some that I've witnessed on the pyro-side of the community!

Speaking for myself:

• I used to make a giant flat rounded raised terrain mesa for my Test Track ride buildings.

  • Used the in-game automobile cars that were on a coaster track and launched them at max speed around the main turn.

• Dig my lakes all the way down to the maximum depth.

• Tower Of Terror would be the launched freefall.

• Mountain-based Disney attractions would use the mountain terrain.

• Spamming the same tree (or two), douglas fir and sugar pines were my go-to trees.

• In-game fountains (enough said).

• Max powered lasers (enough said).

I remember the story-based theme park posts people used to do like Bridgeton Sands or Charleston Gardens... those parks were really good with the story and the overall growth of each park.

5 hours ago, NicoToonZ said:

I remember the story-based theme park posts people used to do like Bridgeton Sands or Charleston Gardens... those parks were really good with the story and the overall growth of each park.

Story-based projects are difficult. Those examples were incredible and will always be remembered. It seemed as if the creators were 5 steps ahead in what they had planned for the stories, which is a challenging task to do while creating a park project.

On 10/15/2025 at 10:36 PM, wolfpaw said:

Not sure about the park building/coaster building side of the community since I was mainly on the pyro side but the pyro people definitely had their fads.. a few that come to mind:

• Waterscreens.. waterscreens everywhere - at one point everyone was including waterscreens once World of Color debuted into their shows with some video overlayed on top of it, got old real quick, haha

• CASTLE SHOWS - I know this one has never really died, but everyone and the mother would create a Disney-themed firework show using the castle as a set and post it everywhere. So. many. castle. shows.

• Baba Yetu - this song was everywhere at one point in the pyro community. So many people created a fountain show to this song!

• 360 shows - This isn't exactly a fad, but there was a point where everyone was creating a 360 show (a show that can be viewed from any angle with a moving/rotating camera) with a minimal set design. You can thank this show for starting this.

• Realistic effects - The AFE in RCT3 is a hell of a tool that can create literally anything you can think up, but for such a long time, everyone was so fixated on realistic effects. If your show didn't have realistic effects, it was usually criticized and not viewed highly. This fad has changed since those days, and we now see more fantasy and experimental effects - yay!

• Calling yourself a production or company - This is one I'm guilty o,f and one that doesn't necessarily only affect the pyro community. At one point, everyone was 'branding' themselves and all their work as a studio or company production. "ErnieG014 Productions" was mine that I'm 100% guilty of 😅

I'm sure there are tons more that I can't think up of but these are some that I've witnessed on the pyro-side of the community!

I remember all of these! Especially the realistic effects fixation really peeved me back in the day, I always wanted to go really maximalist with the fireworks but people were treating it like art school haha. Also remember the times when everyone was trying to brand themselves. I think we used to have a lil group called Starshard productions or something like that, wonder how my co-creators are doing these days.

On 1/14/2026 at 4:43 PM, Star said:

I remember all of these! Especially the realistic effects fixation really peeved me back in the day, I always wanted to go really maximalist with the fireworks but people were treating it like art school haha. Also remember the times when everyone was trying to brand themselves. I think we used to have a lil group called Starshard productions or something like that, wonder how my co-creators are doing these days.

Were you a member on vPyro or just the old Atari forums/rct-pyro before it became vPyro?

On 10/15/2025 at 4:36 PM, wolfpaw said:

• CASTLE SHOWS - I know this one has never really died, but everyone and the mother would create a Disney-themed firework show using the castle as a set and post it everywhere. So. many. castle. shows.

….That. Was. Rude…

7 hours ago, Bookworm91 said:

….That. Was. Rude…

Except for your castle shows!! They are so pretty!! Please don't stop making them 🤣

But you can't deny it was definitely a fad, vPyro used to get like a minimum of 5 castle shows posted a year, haha - everyone loved to make Disney shows! (I'm guilty of that one too)

On 1/27/2026 at 4:12 PM, wolfpaw said:

Were you a member on vPyro or just the old Atari forums/rct-pyro before it became vPyro?

I think I may have been on vPyro for a blue monday. Wouldn't remember my username though

For those who were more-so on the Atari site and shyguy's, you might remember OSUDenny.

It wasn't really a 'fad', but Denny was a prolific maker of CSO - custom scenery. 'Prolific' as in dozens of items a week... They had to number on the hundreds, if not near a thousand. Perhaps many of them others likely would never use, but Denny loved making them, and digging through his offerings most of us found an item or two or more that DID fill our needs.

One thing that often seemed a bit of a 'fad' was whenever Fisherman released a project, there likely would be a half dozen or more different, but similar, ones with the same theme.People got inspired to try their hand at each theme.

Speaking of Fisherman, you remember those motion simulator rides they used to have at malls?

One of the possible selections offered in many of them was actually Fisherman's "Ghost Mine: Legend of Ghastly Gulch" the video that they set the movements to. If you've never seen this park, here's a link to the video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HkIGrMM9kvg

There is also in Planet Coaster ride "Ghost Mine: The Legend Lives" (a reworking of his original RTC3 version...)https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W6yp9wyD1ig

Edited February 12Feb 12 by Wabigbear
update links

3 hours ago, Wabigbear said:

Speaking of Fisherman, you remember those motion simulator rides they used to have at malls?

One of the possible selections offered in many of them was actually Fisherman's "Ghost Mine: Legend of Ghastly Gulch" the video that they set the movements to. If you've never seen this park, here's a link to the video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HkIGrMM9kvg

Are you saying Fisherman's RCT3 youtube video was actually featured in one of those mall simulator rides? How'd that come to be?

1 hour ago, shyguy said:

Are you saying Fisherman's RCT3 youtube video was actually featured in one of those mall simulator rides? How'd that come to be?

Yep. I think Derek said one of the guys with the company that either owned them or provided the videos and software wrote and asked him if he was interested in having his video used. Derek gave him permission. I don't think he got paid for it that I recall.

Someone had a photo (maybe Old Spice?) of one of the simulators in a mall in Florida that had Ghost Mine Ride as one of the selections with a poster outside of the ride. I don't know where it was shown or how many offered Ghost Mine as one of their selections, I think some had 3-4 videos to choose from.

I had the photo saved, but I'll have to go hunt it up. It was one of this type in the photo: