Amusement Park Building Games

[Acrux]

@Jordy's post on mouse-only games made me think about this.

There's really only two contenders here:

Roller Coaster Tycoon (and preferably Open RCT2 ) and Parkitect.

I still play RCT regularly. Parkitect was hard for me to get into, as the hits to visitor happiness if they see any of the "behind the scenes" stuff was too much, and unrealistic to my simulationist self.

Any others? I know there are some roller coaster only games, but I'd rather have the full amusement park experience.

[Jordy]

It's not difficult to hide the unsightly stuff. Just means you have to plan ahead bit.

You can create some crazy stuff in Planet Coaster but I feel that it's more of a design sim.

[A Chinese opium den]

@Jordy's post on mouse-only games made me think about this.

There's really only two contenders here:

Roller Coaster Tycoon (and preferably Open RCT2 ) and Parkitect.

I still play RCT regularly. Parkitect was hard for me to get into, as the hits to visitor happiness if they see any of the "behind the scenes" stuff was too much, and unrealistic to my simulationist self.

Any others? I know there are some roller coaster only games, but I'd rather have the full amusement park experience.

I remember playing thrillville and liking it, don't know how it would hold up though.

[rusty_shackleford]

The jurassic world evolution games are adjacent to this, and they actually have a story/campaign modes.
Same guys also make the Planet Zoo game(quite similar) and Planet Coaster game(genre you're looking for), but I haven't played either and therefore can't comment.

[asf]

theme park

[Ratcatcher]

Planet Zoo

It's decent altho heavily milked for DLC. Most of the autism comes from the world-building and editing tools which are fairly robust and allow you to go as in-depth as you want, I easily managed to build tunnels and underground areas with glass panels as to create underwater observation spots, just to give an example. You can build quite complex habitats for the animals, (high roads, poles and such for monke, for example) and the system works pretty well.

There's a bit of a grind to get animals with decent genetics, most of which require you to interact with their auction system, all is obtained via in-game currency but since you need eco-points instead of vulgar munny to buy prized specimens, you're encouraged to have at least a secondary 'breeding' zoo that cares little for profit (altho it CAN be made profitable, money is never an issue tho) and maximizes the production of cheap rare species for nature release and auctioning yourself.

All in all, I enjoyed it but I got it as a gift from ex-wymmin (her fav game) and I more or less forgot about it after I forgot about wymmin.

[Mondain]

Planet Zoo

It's decent altho heavily milked for DLC. Most of the autism comes from the world-building and editing tools which are fairly robust and allow you to go as in-depth as you want, I easily managed to build tunnels and underground areas with glass panels as to create underwater observation spots, just to give an example. You can build quite complex habitats for the animals, (high roads, poles and such for monke, for example) and the system works pretty well.

There's a bit of a grind to get animals with decent genetics, most of which require you to interact with their auction system, all is obtained via in-game currency but since you need eco-points instead of vulgar munny to buy prized specimens, you're encouraged to have at least a secondary 'breeding' zoo that cares little for profit (altho it CAN be made profitable, money is never an issue tho) and maximizes the production of cheap rare species for nature release and auctioning yourself.

All in all, I enjoyed it but I got it as a gift from ex-wymmin (her fav game) and I more or less forgot about it after I forgot about wymmin.

Is she a man now?

[Ratcatcher]

Is she a man now?

Are you gay? I have a new wymmin.

[SpellSword]

I don't know if anyone else here will have heard of this one, and I'm not sure how it'd hold up now, but it was fun to mess around with when it came out. In the game DinoPark Tycoon, you have to build a theme park that is more like a large zoo and stock it with living dinosaurs.

[1998]

The jurassic world evolution games are adjacent to this, and they actually have a story/campaign modes.
Same guys also make the Planet Zoo game(quite similar) and Planet Coaster game(genre you're looking for), but I haven't played either and therefore can't comment.

They are actually quite different. It's all about breeding pretty dinosaurs. There is almost no guest management, very few attractions outside exhibits, basically no decoration or other build modes.

[1998]

theme park

Is there actually a way now to play it properly on modern machines without throttling your PC? Even on Win7 it was essentially unplayable.