Chris Sawyer, an elusive Scottish programmer, built one of the most iconic management simulations in history almost entirely alone, writing about 99 percent of RollerCoaster Tycoon in x86 assembly language. This episode traces his path from Virus, Xenomorph and the Frontier ports through Transport Tycoon in 1994 to the 1999 release of RollerCoaster Tycoon, and explains why coding so close to the bare metal let a low-powered late-90s PC simulate thousands of park guests at once.

We dig into the behavioral simulator at the heart of the game, where physics-derived intensity and nausea ratings, hunger, thirst, cash on hand and disgust chain together into vomit on the footpath, janitor patrol routes and collapsing park ratings. We then follow the franchise drift after Sawyer stepped back: RollerCoaster Tycoon 3 in 2004 with Frontier Developments ...