Planet Coaster

The players are visiting a theme park with eight different BIG rides! But all the queue lines are so long that it'll take some strategising to have the best day. Each ride is worth a different amount of Fun, and has a different queue length. Each ride will have its queue length lengthen and shorten at different points over the course of the day! The players will spend 6 hours in the park, starting at the entrance space, and they must plan their days to maximise Fun! Players score Fun by riding rides - different rides are worth different amounts, but riding the same ride multiple times gets less and less fun. Players also have to make sure to get some time to rest, as well as staying hydrated and not too hungry, as well as going to the bathroom, to have a truly great day!

Park Layout

The rides are spaced in a ring, with each ride being 5 minutes away from the next ride in the ring. Riding each ride takes 5 minutes, and there are two places to buy food and drinks each in the park, as well as four bathrooms. All eight rides are connected to a central, rest spot - moving through here takes 30 minutes, but is very relaxing.

Queues

Spending time in a queue line is the opposite of having fun, and so each player will be trying to minimise the amount of time spent in a queue. Each player will be randomly assigned one ride, and be told all of the queue length fluctuations for that ride alone. The initial queue length of each ride will also be announced for all players.

Rider Capacity

Rider Capacity reflects how our eight contestants might make queues longer! As the players are required to ride with their The Genius I camera crew, each time a player joins a queue, it gets longer for a short period of time! Specifically, when a player enters a queue, the queue becomes 5 minutes longer for the next 20 minutes. If multiple players attempt to enter the ride simultaneously, they will all extend the queue for each other. So, if nobody has chosen to ride a given ride, and then three players opt to all ride it simultaneously, they will all have 10 minutes more of queues due to the other two players.

This queue time is added to the posted time, and becomes the amount of time spent queueing. There is no way to reduce this time once it has been committed, but there is one way to avoid long queues: The Priority Pass.

Priority Pass

Each player may acquire one priority pass during the game. To do this, visit a ride, and choose to acquire the pass, which takes 5 minutes. If that player enters the queue line for that ride within a twenty minute window centred on the point two hours after receiving the Pass (so if the Pass is received at 1:30pm, it is valid between 3:20 and 3:40pm), the queue line is reduced to 5 minutes, no matter what. This player still affects Rider Capacity for everyone else, but is unaffected by it.

Fun

The primary method of generating Fun is by riding rides. Repeatedly riding the same ride will halve the Fun from that ride for each subsequent ride. Further, there are increasing fun bonuses for riding 6, 7, and 8 unique rides during the day. Furthermore, if a player is at the starting space at the end of the six hours they will receive a substantial fun boost from the fireworks display at the end of the day.

However, Fun is deducted through three different methods:

• Spending too long being active without resting.
• Not eating or drinking often enough.
• Failing to visit the bathroom.

The mechanics for these are explained below:

Resting and Weariness

The primary method of resting is by passing through the centre space. This takes 30 minutes, but resets your Weariness level to 0. Weariness is accumulated over time in a queue, at a rate of 1 Weariness per 5 minutes in a queue. Furthermore, each time a player travels without going through the centre area, they will accumulate 2 Weariness.

When you obtain 10 points of Weariness, you will lose Fun equal to 1/5th of your Weariness. So, once you reach 10 Weariness, you lose 2 Fun. If you then go up to 20 Weariness, that will cost 4 more Fun, 30 Weariness will cost 6 Fun, etc.

Note that time in a bathroom, eating, drinking, or on a ride will not generate Weariness.

Eating and Drinking

There are two Food carts, and two Drinks carts in the park. It takes 5 minutes to purchase Food or Drinks, and it can either be consumed immediately (for no time penalty), or carried around to be consumed later (which will take 5 minutes). These two items will refresh a player's Hunger and Thirst, respectively to 100%. Each of these begin at 100%, and reduce by 3% every 5 minutes. If both of these statistics reaches 40% simultaneously, all Fun gains will be halved until the situation is ameliorated. If one of these statistics drops below 20%, then this effect will apply regardless of the situation of the other. If one of these statistics drops to 10%, the player will immediately lose 15 Fun. If both do simultaneously, the player will lose all banked Fun.

The Bathrooms

You will need to visit the bathrooms occasionally during your time in the park. 30 minutes after consuming Food or Drink, the player's Bathroom stat will fill up by 25%, and will continue filling up by 5% every five minutes for the next 30 minutes. If Food and Drink are both consumed in quick succession, their impact on the Bathroom stat will be additive. Once a player reaches 90%, they cannot gain Fun until the situation is ameliorated. If a player reaches 100%, they will lose 50 x N fun, where N is equal to the number of players in that section of the park at that time. Using a Bathroom will reduce your Bathroom stat to 0%.

Available Actions and Submissions

When submitting, submit a list of actions, sequentially. The first action will be evaluated as occurring at 12:00pm, with each action being evaluated as occurring immediately after the previous. If an action is for some reason impossible to perform (i.e. requesting to consume Food or Drink before Food or Drink has been acquired), it will be disregarded. Once six hours have elapsed, i.e. at 6:00pm, all uncompleted actions will not occurred. Further, if a player is in a queue line at 5:55pm, they will leave the queue line as their final action. If a player completes all of their actions before 6:00pm, they will stand still in their final location, still accumulating Weariness.

The available actions are:

1. Travel - This can a 5 minute action, taking you to an adjacent segment of the park, or a 30 minute action, taking you to any segment of the park and also resetting Weariness to 0.

1. Acquire a Priority Pass - This is a 5 minute action, that gives you the Priority Pass for the ride in that segment. If you already have a Priority Pass, this will fail.

1. Ride a ride - This action will take 5 minutes longer than the final, calculated, queue time. If you possess a valid Priority Pass, this action will always take 10 minutes.

1. Interact with a building - This action will take 5 minutes. It will either award you a Food or Drink item, which can be consumed as a part of this action, or reset a player's Bathroom stat to 0.

1. Consume Food or Drink - If Food or Drink was acquired and not consumed, they can be consumed at any time, taking 5 minutes to do so. This will refresh a player's Hunger or Thirst, respectively, to 100%.

Garnets

By default, each player may only acquire 1 Priority Pass during the game. However, for the sum of 5 Garnets, you may acquire a second Priority Pass. You may not hold both Priority Passes simultaneously.

Conclusion

At the end of the six simulated hours, the player with the highest Fun will be declared the Winner, while the player with the least Fun will be declared the Loser.

Your submissions are due at 8:00pm EST on October 17th.

Ride Information:

Ride 1 - Initial Queue 20 Minutes, Fun: 10

Ride 2 - Initial Queue 15 Minutes, Fun: 15

Ride 3 - Initial Queue 50 Minutes, Fun: 20

Ride 4 - Initial Queue 20 Minutes, Fun: 15

Ride 5 - Initial Queue 10 Minutes, Fun: 10

Ride 6 - Initial Queue 20 Minutes, Fun: 15

Ride 7 - Initial Queue 30 Minutes, Fun: 20

Ride 8 - Initial Queue 15 Minutes, Fun: 15

Ride Bonus: 20/40/60 Fun for 6/7/8 Unique Rides

Fireworks: 30 Fun for seeing the Fireworks