news | June 19, 2026

What happened to Chris Sawyer?

Besides the odd infrequent update to his homepage (usually about trains), Sawyer had vanished. Now, almost ten years on from his last game, he’s returned to the industry he left behind, making a new version of Transport Tycoon for mobile devices.

Who owns RollerCoaster Tycoon?

Chris Sawyer

RollerCoaster Tycoon
Publisher(s)Hasbro Interactive (1999–2001) Infogrames (2001–2003) Atari (2003–present) Frontier Developments/Frontier Foundry (2015, 2020)
Creator(s)Chris Sawyer
Platform(s)Microsoft Windows, Xbox, macOS, iOS, Nintendo 3DS, Nintendo Switch, Android
First releaseRollerCoaster Tycoon

Who invented RollerCoaster Tycoon?

RollerCoaster Tycoon/Designers

Chris Sawyer: Back in the late 1990s I created the first RollerCoaster Tycoon game completely independently, so it was almost complete before any publishers even saw it.

Why was RollerCoaster Tycoon written in assembly?

Chris wrote in assembly language for performance reasons — back when he was writing Transport Tycoon (1993), the just released Pentium-class CPU’s only ran at around 66 MHz — two orders of magnitude slower than today’s machines. Plus there were no GPU accelerators.

What language is RollerCoaster Tycoon?

Sawyer wrote 99% of the code for RollerCoaster Tycoon in x86 assembly language, with the remaining one percent written in C. The graphics were designed by artist Simon Foster using several 3D modeling, rendering, and paint programs.

Is RollerCoaster Tycoon 32 bit?

It is part from simulation category and is licensed as shareware for Windows 32-bit and 64-bit platform and can be used as a free trial until the trial period will end. The Roller Coaster Tycoon 2 demo is available to all software users as a free download with potential restrictions compared with the full version.

What did Chris Sawyer do for a living?

After a period away from the games industry in the late 2000s, Sawyer founded 31X, a mobile game development company. Sawyer was born in Scotland, and was fascinated with computers and programming from an early age, writing simple scripts in BASIC on a ZX81 at a local store.

What kind of games did Chris Sawyer make?

He is best known for creating Transport Tycoon, which has been considered “one of the most important simulation games ever made”, and the bestseller RollerCoaster Tycoon series. After a period away from the games industry in the late 2000s, Sawyer founded 31X, a mobile game development company.

Who is Craig Sawyer and who is Sawman?

Craig Randall “Sawman” Sawyer (born October 5th, 1963) is a Marine veteran, former Navy SEAL, sniper, combat instructor.

How did Chris Sawyer come up with Transport Tycoon?

Inspired by Sid Meier’s Railroad Tycoon, Sawyer began to develop his own title which made use of an isometric gameworld system he had been designing as a personal project. His management simulation game Transport Tycoon was released by MicroProse in 1994 and became a classic of the “tycoon” series of games.

He is best known for creating Transport Tycoon, which has been considered “one of the most important simulation games ever made”, and the bestseller RollerCoaster Tycoon series. After a period away from the games industry in the late 2000s, Sawyer founded 31X, a mobile game development company.

After a period away from the games industry in the late 2000s, Sawyer founded 31X, a mobile game development company. Sawyer was born in Scotland, and was fascinated with computers and programming from an early age, writing simple scripts in BASIC on a ZX81 at a local store.

Who is Chris Sawyer in RollerCoaster Tycoon 2?

Chris Sawyer is the head of Chris Sawyer Software Development and was the creator, designer, and programmer of RollerCoaster Tycoon and RollerCoaster Tycoon 2. He was also the Executive producer of RollerCoaster Tycoon 3, along with David Braben .

Craig Randall “Sawman” Sawyer (born October 5th, 1963) is a Marine veteran, former Navy SEAL, sniper, combat instructor.