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tthealexanderlee about 7 hours ago 14 commentsRead Article on magicpatterns.com

ZH version is available. Content is displayed in original English for accuracy.

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!

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Discussion (14 Comments)Read Original on HackerNews

addandsubtractabout 2 hours ago
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?
thealexanderleeabout 1 hour ago
Hi! Thanks for trying it! Sometimes the agent can get tripped up if it doesn't have a component that matches the theme. For example, I can tell you I don't have a rocketship asset or alien asset, so it might default to something to generic in replacement. And also we have lots of pirate assets, so then it might lean toward a pirate-theme if it sees the word "island."

That said - I just noticed a bug making them overly generic. Fixing right now!

mmargenot22 minutes ago
not a lot of horror assets either unfortunately. i wanted ghosts and ghouls and zombie tiki with my pirates but got industrial wasteland and candyland.
thealexanderlee16 minutes ago
You should be able to prompt to create your own horror assets, but it might take some time for them to build though!
elicashabout 1 hour ago
Same happened to me (with my very different prompt).
nurymka34 minutes ago
mlfreemanabout 1 hour ago
No special Bender easter egg if you request a theme park with blackjack and hookers?

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

readditabout 1 hour ago
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.
thealexanderlee44 minutes ago
oooh! Fun idea. I think this might actually work... if you upload an image + prompt it to make a theme park referencing the map.
raajgabout 1 hour ago
Great to see the interest in RCT . also https://labs.ramp.com/rct
jcgrabout 1 hour ago
Love Magic Patterns, happy user here
thealexanderleeabout 1 hour ago
that's kind of you to write, thanks for reading. Do you like RollerCoaster Tycoon too?! Anything we can make better?
gverrillaabout 1 hour ago
“Build me a cool theme park” is not a very exciting prompt.
thealexanderlee43 minutes ago
that's fair. Thanks for your feedback!

Perhaps more exciting: build a chocolate factory slide and river with a hot fudge river... haha