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Show HN: Build your own theme park

28 pointsby thealexanderleeyesterday at 4:40 PM17 commentsview on HN

I built an agent that helps you build Rollercoaster Tycoon-influenced theme parks. You can prompt something like “Build me a cool theme park” and it’ll build a cohesive theme park with multiple worlds and connected with paths and rides.

The weird part is that I built it using the same ideas we use to make AI-generated websites follow a company’s design system.

I work as an engineer at Magic Patterns, focused on building our Design System Agent, aimed to use your existing brand, components, and conventions instead of producing something that looks like generic AI-generated UI.

By default, models tend to converge on similar-looking designs. This is part of that “vibe coded slop” feeling: the same typography treatments, shadows, cards, icons, animations, etc… My job is to figure out the right context and guardrails so that when you prompt “Build me a dashboard,” the result actually looks like your existing product.

At some point I realized those same ideas could be applied to RCT.

While in web, you might have rules about which typography, colors, spacing, and components should be used together.

In a theme park, you need rules like: rollercoasters need complete tracks, rides need entrances connected to paths, paths need to connect different areas of the park, and a pirate-themed world should actually use pirate-themed scenery.

It was interesting seeing how closely the problem of building a coherent theme park resembled the problem of building a coherent product UI. Similarly with web design, simply giving the model the right components wasn't enough.

I ended up building an eval loop where Magic Patterns would generate a park, another agent would grade it against a rubric, and then the agent would update its rules and skill files before trying again.

The rubric checked things like whether rollercoasters formed valid tracks with at least one drop, whether rides were accessible by paths, whether each world used the appropriate themed scenery, and whether the park worked as a whole.

After a lot of iterations, you can now prompt something as simple as “Build me a cool theme park.” and you should get back a fully functioning park with guests, rides, paths, rollercoasters, and themed worlds.

Best yet, you can also follow the guests, listen to their thoughts, and watch them ride the rides in RCT fashion.

Happy to answer any questions, but would love to see the parks you all create!


Comments

addandsubtractyesterday at 9:55 PM

I asked for a theme park in space with aliens, but it just loaded a generic(?) park, with 5 different themed "islands", but none of them are space themed. Do I need an account to actually create a prompt?

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readdityesterday at 10:30 PM

Actually pretty cool. One idea would be to take a theme park map, like what they give you at the entrance. And recreate the park using that image.

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raajgyesterday at 10:01 PM

Great to see the interest in RCT . also https://labs.ramp.com/rct

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nurymkayesterday at 10:53 PM

made a lemon theme park, pretty cool

https://www.magicpatterns.com/c/om3xhmzcahq41gbk6l9qhk/previ...

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empressplaytoday at 12:32 AM

I specified mountainous terrain but it can only seem to create a flat park, which is a little boring and more like Theme Park World than Roller Coaster Tycoon.

But it's still pretty cool nevertheless.

mlfreemanyesterday at 10:16 PM

No special Bender easter egg if you request a theme park with blackjack and hookers?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ubPWaDWcOLU

jcgryesterday at 10:36 PM

Love Magic Patterns, happy user here

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gverrillayesterday at 10:06 PM

“Build me a cool theme park” is not a very exciting prompt.

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