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Part 1: Introduction
Transport Tycoon? What the heck is that?
Transport Tycoon (abbreviated TT) is a strategy game where the goal is to make money, make money, make money, and make more money! You have to construct train, road, ship, and air routes to transport goods and passengers from place to place -- while overcoming breakdowns, disasters, cranky Local Authorities, and dull-witted computer AI opponents.
TT is a nice change of pace from the violent, shoot-'em-up games that make up most of today's game market. The graphics are beautiful (even for a game designed in 1994) and the level of simulated detail is fabulous. TT ranks up there with Civilization and SimCity as my all time favorite games. (why else would I be maintaining a website about it?).
Chris Sawyer is the primary author of TT. He conceived of the idea (using Sid Meier's Railroad Tycoon as a base) and did most of the programming (in assembly language!). More recently, Sawyer produced RollerCoaster Tycoon, which has a similar interface to TT.
Chris Sawyer's official website is at chrissawyer.com, however he is no longer directly reachable by email. The maintainers of the chrissawyer.com domain are not able to forward email correspondence to Chris, which seems rather odd.
The TTD manual lists the following credits:
| Game Design and Programming | Chris Sawyer |
| Graphics and Animation | Simon Foster |
| Original Music | John Broomhall |
| Sound Design and Programming | Andrew Parton |
| Quality Assurance | Andrew Luckett Daniel Luton Phil McDonnell Jason Sampson Darren Kirby Don Witcombe Craig Lear |
| Manual Author | Rik Haslam |
| Managing Editor | Alkis Alkiviades |
| Packaging | Sarah Warburton |
| Manual Design & Layout | Sarah Kerr |
| Producer | Mike Rudderham |
| Publishers | Rob Davies Pete Moreland |
What different versions of TT are available?
TT exists in several versions including TT Original, an updated TT Original, TT Original plus World Editor, and TT Deluxe. It has also been ported to Sony Playstation and Macintosh platforms.
This was the very first published version of TT. It contains several nasty bugs (some of which haven't been fixed) and incompatibilities with some video and sound cards. Even with its rich graphics and fancy interface, TT only takes up about 4 MB of space. It was originally distributed on floppy disks.
This is an update available from MicroProse that fixes some of the bugs and incompatibilities of the first version. This update is merely a replacement TYCOON.EXE file, so it has no effect on the graphics or sound.
This new version incorporates a World Editor, allowing the player to manipulate the map and place cities, industries, and roads. It also features an alternate graphics pack of a Martian environment dubbed "Steam Punk". This graphics set, however, is not a new climate -- the same vehicles and cargoes are used (exactly how many trees are there on Mars?) as the temperate climate. This version also introduces some minor revisions, including the ability to close all the windows at once by hitting the DEL key.
With the new graphics, this TT+WE is larger than its predecessors: about 5.2 MB.
This final DOS-based version features three new climates, maglev trains, heliports, more vehicles, the ability to build more vehicles and stations, one-way signals (more important than you might think), corporate takeovers, some bugfixes, and other minor changes. Saved games and scenarios from TTD and not compatible with those created with TT. TTD comes on CD-ROM, and if everything is loaded on to the hard drive, it occupies about 13 MB.
System requirements, as stated in the manual, are:
Digital Amusement, Ltd. converted Chris Sawyer's assembly language code into portable C source code. TT Original was then ported to the PSX platform and distributed by Ocean. This version was slightly stripped down so it could be used with the included mouse. One feature it does have that TTD doesn't is a fully rendered 3D landscape -- the player can view the map from any height or angle.
TT doesn't quite fit into the world of fast-paced, shut-em-up, kill-kill-kill, die-die-die, blood-n-guts games common on PlayStation. The reviews reflect this -- they are less enthusiastic than the reviews for the PC versions.
Digital Amusement, Ltd. says that a Mac version is (was?) distributed by Itochu(?) in Japan and the US. Other than that I don't know anything about this version.
A native Windows 9x version using DirectX infrastructure is included in the "Tycoon Collection" distributed by Hasbro (MicroProse's parent company). This anthology was at first only available in the UK, but can now be found elsewhere. Other than the use of DirectX, this port is virtually the same as the DOS version. However, it does have heftier system requirements: a Pentium-class machine is required.
Richard Kinser sent in a screenshot of the About box from this version which reveals that the Win95 conversion was made back in 1996. It shows a 1995 copyright by Chris Sawyer and a 1996 copyright by FISH Technology Group UK on Win95-specific code. Evidently this version was actually produced about a year after TT Deluxe, but MicroProse/Hasbro sat on it and refused to sell it until 1999.
Where can I get TT?
The most frequently asked question
Copies of both the original and Deluxe versions have been surprisingly hard to find during the past few years. No new copies were being distributed, so you had to buy them second-hand (or at the bottom of a "bargain bin" at computer stores that didn't know what they had). MicroProse did release a "Conquer the World" collection (see below), but it only featured the original version plus World Editor. Thankfully, the Pointy Haired Bosses over at Hasbro (now MicroProse's parent company) have gotten around to releasing another anthology, this time with the Deluxe version.
Tycoon Collection
This recently released anthology features Transport Tycoon Deluxe for Windows 95, Railroad Tycoon II, and RollerCoaster Tycoon (Chris Sawyer's other game). For some time rumors were going around that MicroProse/Hasbro had ported TTD to Windows 95, which as we now know were true. You can purchase Tycoon Collection at Chips & Bits, which the Semi-FAQ is an affiliate of (hint, hint).
Conquer the World collection
MicroProse did release a compilation of four "classic" strategy games under the Conquer the World name. It included Colonization, Pirates! Gold, Railroad Tycoon Deluxe, and Transport Tycoon plus World Editor, but not the Deluxe version. TT Deluxe is superior to the original version, but RRT Deluxe is generally regarded as inferior to its original version -- so what was MicroProse thinking? This collection might still be available in some places, although the new Tycoon Collection is a better deal (unless you don't use Windows 95).
Auction sites
If you want to acquire the standalone original or Deluxe versions (for DOS), you might be able to find some second-hand copies on auction sites such as eBay by searching for "Transport Tycoon". They generally sell for a reasonable price.
This site does present answers to Frequently Asked Questions about Transport Tycoon. However, they aren't necessarily in Question and Answer format. Therefore, this is a Semi-FAQ. It's almost a FAQ, but not quite. Besides, the name "Transport Tycoon FAQ" is already taken.
Where did the screenshots come from?
TTD allows you to take 640x480 screenshots by pressing the CTRL-S keys. It will be saved in .PCX format, usable in most graphics programs. You can also take a giant screenshot (9 screens) by pressing CTRL-G. TT Original, unfortunately, doesn't have the ability to make screenshots.
For this Semi-FAQ, I took the screenshots, and then cropped and edited them with a couple different graphics programs. I converted the graphics to JPG format to preserve the colors.
There might be a of copyright conflict in using these screenshots. But if MicroProse or Chris Sawyer are real picky about this, why did they include the screenshot option in the first place?
Who is the author of this FAQ?
The author of this FAQ is James S. Baughn, some 19 year old who is addicted to Transport Tycoon, Linux, Microsoft bashing, and website designing.
These pages are © Copyright 1997-2000, James S. Baughn. All rights reserved. The usual legal jargon and disclaimers apply.
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