Ah, the off-season.

For those of you not living in tropical climates, the “off-season” is that long stretch of time when amusement parks are closed for winter. When I lived in southern Texas, the off-season was only about 2 months long. The parks were open from early March thru New Year’s Day. Now that I live in Canada, my home park opens near the end of May and closes for the season in early October. Usually. Sometimes, that short season is even shorter if the early- or late-season weekends get too much snow.

“I know it’s almost June, but the park is closed for snow, eh? Moose out front should’ve told ya.”

So how can you get your coaster fix in the long, cold winter - or even between visits to the nearest park? Well, you’ve got options.

Early on, there was RollerCoaster Tycoon. This computer-based simulation allowed (I should probably say “allows,” present-tense, because the game is still available on several platforms both desktop and mobile) you to build a whole park and manage all the stuff that happens, from building rides to opening shops and even naming the peeps that visit.

screenshot courtesy of Marc Lacombe at Park Vault

If you loved RollerCoaster Tycoon, but don’t love the fact that newer types of rides aren’t included, then Parkitect is your groove. It’s basically the same kind of gameplay as RCT, but with updated rides (yes, even RMC single-rail coasters!), better coaster building systems, and a killer sandbox mode. Since it’s on Steam, you’ve also got thousands of content creators sharing their stuff (which you can put in your own parks).

You can micro-manage every tiny detail in your park.

Planet Coaster is available on Steam as well as consoles such as PlayStation and Xbox

If you don’t care about managing the whole park and you just want to build and “ride” a coaster, then No Limits 2 is your best friend. This is the most realistic coaster sim out there - so realistic, in fact, that a good number of the preview videos you see from parks when they’re promoting an upcoming coaster were made in No Limits 2.

You can “ride” the coasters, operate the controls manually, and do pretty much anything you want.

All of the above are fun, all of them have massive fan bases, and all of them can take your mind off not being able to ride in real life. But what if virtual coasters aren’t enough? Maybe you want to build something you can touch. You could build a coaster in your back yard if you have lots of money, lots of space, good carpentry skills, some tools, and neighbors who aren’t too complain-y. Or, if you don’t have those things (or don’t have a back yard), you can go small-scale.
CoasterDynamix offers gorgeous, working models made of wood. They’re quite the challenge to build, requiring a lot of patience and display space (this “Lightning” model is more than 8ft long).

If you’d rather get something that can be built, then disassembled and rebuilt differently, K*Nex offers several models. They aren’t very realistic, and they still can take up quite a bit of space.

LEGO, after many years of begging from fans, finally released a coaster set. It’s fun to build, but since the track pieces are not flexible, your ability to build a custom layout is seriously limited. LEGO sets have a limited run, usually just 3-5 years, so if you want a set you should get it before it retires. Sets increase in price drastically once they are no longer sold in stores, and it’s not uncommon to see a retired set (even used ones) sell for twice or three times the original price.

Typical of LEGO, there are a lot of fun, whimsical details to discover in this set. (photo from Lego.com)

There’s another option for building a brick-based coaster, and that’s CDX Blocks. CDX is a division of CoasterDynamix, a small company specializing in coaster models. Their LEGO-compatible set went on sale in 2017 and changed the game. It’s less expensive than the LEGO set and infinitely more customizable. The Cyclone set came out first, and is the largest set (as of this writing).

Later, more sets were added to the lineup, all at a smaller size and price point than the Cyclone. One of them, the “Little Dipper” is small enough to sit on your desk.

Be aware, though, that the compatibility with LEGO (and many other building block sets) makes it entirely possible to completely go overboard with expanding your CDX sets… Layouts can easily take over a living space if you aren’t careful!

So if the off-season has you down, grab your computer or clear off your table and start building out your fantasy coasters. The parks will re-open soon enough.

you know you want to build your own coaster