How to be king of the coaster - a beginner's guide to Coaster Crazy

In Coaster Crazy - a new free to play build-'em-up from Frontier - you've got to travel across the world and construct wild coasters that force eager customers to go weak at the knees.

If they vomit, that's an added bonus.

Anyway. You can build coasters of all different shapes and sizes, use loops and fast bends to make them exciting, and spruce up your contraptions with a variety of scenery items.

Just don't expect your job to be a walk in the themepark (oh yes, I just said that).

The basics

It's extremely easy to build a new white-knuckle attraction in Coaster Crazy.

To begin, simply tap on a section of pre-existing broken track to bring up the three arrow-shaped symbols that you can see in the cropped screenshot above.

Hold your finger down on the middle symbol (with the four arrows) and trace your finger along your device's screen to lay new pieces of track and create a full circuit.

Do the same with the left-most and right-most symbols to twist your track and create interesting angled sections, and alter its height.

There are two different forms of currency to worry about in Coaster Crazy: Cash and Gems - both of which are available via in-app purchases.

Cash is this game's common currency, and it's used to purchase a wide variety of items, including land deeds and special sick-inducing pieces of track.

Y'know, loops and inversions, and that sort of thing.

You earn Cash every time you complete in-game challenges (more on those later) and at random intervals from your completed attractions.

Gems, on the other hand, are extremely rare. Like in most freemium games, this premium currency is used to speed up processes and purchase über-rare items.

You can buy three different packs of Gems using real-world moolah: a pack of 30 Gems for 69p / 99c, and pack of 100 Gems for £1.99 / $2.99, and a pack of 500 Gems for £7.99 / $11.99.

Before you can open a new roller coaster to the public, it must first be put through its paces by a team of brave testers.

Said testers will, ahem, test that a cart full of punters can make it around your creation in one piece without barreling off the track and smashing into the concrete below it.

They'll also make sure that your coaster meets three or more requirements (called 'challenges') that you're given every time you decide to build a new ride.

For those of you who're yet to play Coaster Crazy, these challenges usually involve adding a set number of loops or other special pieces to your track, and making your coaster a certain length (in metres).

Just tap the green 'launch' button at the bottom of your screen to begin the testing process. If it's successful, you'll be rewarded with some Cash and some XP, which will help you to level-up.

Level headed

Levelling-up is important in Coaster Crazy.

Why? Well, because as your level increases, you gain access to new areas of the world, new items (like special track pieces and fresh scenery objects), and even new coaster types.

Now, building coasters is an expensive business, and you'll find that you quickly run out of Cash. Without Cash, you won't progress very far.

It's crucial, then, that you revisit some of your older contraptions when you level-up in order to give them a fresh lick of paint.

Perhaps you could add a newly unlocked special piece of track or a few decorations, too. The latter ups your punters' excitement and fear ratings and also grants other bonuses.

General tips

- Make sure your coasters don't have any extremely sharp turns. It may be fun to watch your testers plummet to an early death, but it's hardly business savvy. Plus, the health and safety department hate it.

- A roller coaster doesn't have to be long to be good. Don't use more track than you have to.

- If you place a large uphill section of track directly after a straight, the cart your punters are riding in probably won't have enough momentum to travel up it. Keep this in mind.