Everybody has different tastes, so there are no scenarios that will please everyone. But there are a few things that link all the good scenarios together. These elements are playability, surprise, story, balance, challenge, unique gaming, asthetics, and play testing, not neccessarily in any order.

Playability is why a person would want to play your scenario. Some people will like challenging scenarios, while others will want to just kick back and build at his own leisurely pace, without any cares or worries. You should pick out which audience you are selling to and build the scenario accordingly. Also you need to tell how difficult the scenario is otherwise the player won't know if he wants to download it because he doesn't have the required information about the scenario.

Surprise your players. Surprise them by making your park unique and different. This will delight your players and make them want to keep playing to find any more surprises.

Give your scenario a story. Whether you say what the story is or you let your park tell the story, the story will help sell the scenario. The story can be anything from a myth, legend or fantasy to just something that fits the surrounding terrain. Good examples of scenarios with stories are Amity Airfield and Ghost Town. Their story is present in the scenery and the written explanation of the scenario and gives the park life that you just want to keep in the park.

Everything should balance, like the initial selection of rides/attractions, game objectives, park size, research tree and the difficulty level you intend to have your scenario at. There is a larger section on how to achieve balance below.

A scenario should challenge the player, yet not frustrate them to the point of giving up. If the player gets frustrated, your scenario will quickly become hated. Rainbow Valley is an example of this. Remember this scenario from the original RCT. It prohibited landscape changes and tree removal, and it had tons of trees. A lot of people got frustrated with this scenario. If you feel the need to prohibit tree removal, don't put in so many trees.

Your scenario should have a different feel to it. It shouldn't be the "same old thing." There are few elements in the game that control the experience: style of peeps, objective, landscape, initial rides and various settings in the game. Even with this limited number, it's quite possible to make a unique combination that can change the way a player approaches the park. If you can do that, great!

Give the park some asthetic value. A player doesn't tend to have much time or money to spend making the park more appealing, so help them out and make the park pretty. You can save the player lots of effort and make the scenario more fun to play at the same time.

Play testing is probably the most important aspect to making good scenarios. If you test the scenario, you can find any bugs or problems that may arise and you can go in and fix them before any players have a chance to complain. Some of the best scenarios were tested multiple times and were given to friends to test, unlike some of the scenarios included in the game. If you can test your scenario and get other people's opinions too, you can make a very enjoyable scenario. Also getting a second opinion can give you a better idea of the dificulty level that your scenario is at. The second opinion will also give you more unbiased feedback.

How to Achieve Balance

Degrees of Freedom

A scenario is made more challenging by limiting what a player can do by taking away or giving more freedoms. These limitations are a big issue in developing a scenario. Some freedoms and limitations include:

Park Size
Ride Selection
Building Limitations
Financial Limitations

The size of the park can really limit what a player can build and will really challenge a player. A lot of the parks from the original RCT used this as the main limitation. Look at Dinky Park. That place was tiny, and man did it suck to build a park there until you buy land across the road. My point is, limiting space can really challenge a player.

The selection of rides can change the difficulty of a scenario quite easily. If you only give a player small and gentle rides, they don't have a lot of opportunity to make some happy guests. Gravity Gardens did just the opposite by only allowing to build roller coasters. By limiting what rides the player can use, you can greatly affect the difficulty of your scenario.

A Building limitation can be any of a few things: height building restrictions, preservation orders and landscaping and tree removal prohibitions. Each limitation reduces a player's freedom and raises the difficulty of the scenario.

A financial limitation can kill a person. If you don't have any money, you can't expand your park and bring more guests in, which can be a real hassle. Not having money is my least favorite limitation to experience. The maximum loan size can control the money or you can completely remove money, making the game easier.

There are other miscellaneous limitations such as hilly terrain, too much or too little water or a strange park shape. These are also ways to limit your players' freedoms.

There are also limitations that are created by the mind and aren't actually limits. A psychological limit that is overused in the standard scenarios is an excessive and useless path system. The paths can just be destroyed, but if they are left to show their ugly face, they can cause cramping in your park design or make your guests get lost or confused. This is a good example of a psychological limitation. Another example would be Extreme Heights. All of those hills scare you, but they can be flattened for free and give you the freedom you need to build. Pre-existing rides can also scare someone but that fear isn't neccessary unless there is a preservation order on the ride. The final mind caused limit is scenery. If it looks good, you want to keep it and you make the scenario harder on yourself. But the scenery tends to dissappear when time is almost up because winning is more important than a pretty park.

If you want the player to keep the scenery, you should make a larger park so that the player has more room to build around it. You can also build the scenery outside of the building area where the player can't touch it.

How much should you limit a player. Well,if you want an easy scenario, obviously you should add fewer constraints, althought there is no general rule stating how many limits you should include for each difficulty. The best way to know the limits for the scenario is to practice and gain experience in building scenarios.

A good scenario tries to balance challenges and victory conditions. Victory conditions can be harder as the limitations are reduced.

A park should give adequate space to complete the conditions, although you don't want to have tons of extra space left over when you have completed the conditions. The player should be able to make a nicely-built park without needing to overbuild. You don't want to see an empty park when you are finished with the scenario.

The victory condition should not frustrate the person because it is too difficult to achieve or because it takes too long. Extreme Heights is a good example. How long does it take to get 4500 guests in your park? Do you want to wait that long? But a scenario should take at least a year to complete. Dusty Greens can be beaten within a few months by just throwing down some prebuilt rides. The scenario should take much longer than that. Just so you know, you can research approximately 8 items/year if research is set at maximum. Plan the invention list around that fact. Try to figure out how long your scenario should take and adjust the inventions list.

Good Luck with your next scenario. I hope that this Tutorial helped you understand the basics of scenario design and will help you with the building of you next scenario.