Everything about Chris Sawyer totally explained
Chris Sawyer is a
Scottish computer game developer who is best-known for
designing and
programming RollerCoaster Tycoon,
RollerCoaster Tycoon 2, and
Transport Tycoon.
He entered the games industry in 1983, writing games in Z80 machine code on the
Memotech MTX home computer, and then the
Amstrad CPC series home computer. Some of these were published by
Ariolasoft,
Sepulcri Scelerati and
Ziggurat. The former was a rare instance of a game being accepted by a publisher when it was already nearing completion.
From 1988 to 1993, Chris Sawyer worked on PC conversions of Amiga games and was involved in many projects, including
Virus,
Campaign, Birds of Prey, Dino Dini's Goal, and . He also contributed to
Elite Plus for the
IBM PC.
Sawyer's first management simulation game,
Transport Tycoon, was released through
Microprose in 1994 and became a classic of the
tycoon series of games. A year later he improved and extended the game, giving it the title
Transport Tycoon Deluxe. Sawyer immediately sought to create a sequel. However, while still working on the basic
game engine, Sawyer developed an interest in
roller coasters, and changed the project into what would become
RollerCoaster Tycoon, originally called
White Knuckle before release. After creating
RollerCoaster Tycoon, he resumed work on the sequel for
Transport Tycoon but again postponed it to create
RollerCoaster Tycoon 2. He completed the
Transport Tycoon sequel for and released it as
Chris Sawyer's Locomotion in
2004.
In 2003 a group of third party developers reverse-engineered
Transport Tycoon Deluxe and converted it to an open-source project named
OpenTTD where many people are still expanding and improving it.
It was rumored that he participated in the creation of the
mobile title
Train Tycoon. However, this rumor was spread by
Redboss, while the actual game was developed and released by
LifeWeb Interactive.
Sawyer also served as a consultant for Atari in the development of
RollerCoaster Tycoon 3.
In November 2005 Sawyer sued
Atari, claiming that they'd failed to pay him certain royalties.
Since Locomotion, many fans have become concerned that Chris Sawyer has retired from game development. His company website hasn't been updated in over a year and he's remained silent from participating in any public interviews since his last project. This could be due to Chris Sawyer's primary focus on 2D Isometic game models with most new games being based around 3D engines. Some fans have proposed Chris Sawyer work on new game ideas such as a clone of
Mall Tycoon or
Zoo Tycoon, considering his huge success with Rollercoaster Tycoon against
Bullfrog's earlier and less successful
Theme Park.
Sawyer designed and programmed most of his games entirely by himself, using only the services of a freelance artist (
Simon Foster) and a musician. He currently lives in
Dunblane,
Scotland.
Further Information
Get more info on 'Chris Sawyer'.
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