Rollercoaster Tycoon wasn’t the most fashionable computer game out there in 1999. Chris Sawyer, the game’s sole developer, wrote the whole thing in assembly. To build a complex computer game from assembly is like weaving a tapestry from shedded cat fur. Sawyer could avoid them by doing his own thing in x86 assembly, the lingua franca of Intel chips. Before turning to roller coasters, Sawyer had written another game in assembly, Transport Tycoon.