Theme Park by Ocean/Bullfrog Author: DJ Tigresa and MC Pantera Email: djtigresa@classicgaming.com, mcpantera@classicgaming.com An old FAQ from mid 90s ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- INTRODUCTION ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- The latest release from Bullfrog is quite a good game, if not as shamelessly addictive as Populous or Syndicate. Maybe it’s because the gameplay is a tad on the difficult side. Maybe it’s because the Theme Park manual assumes that the game will equal the success of Bullfrog’s previous top-selling hits by saying to “get ready for Bullfrog’s fifth number one”— and we all know what happens when we assume, don’t we? But now it’s time for us to make an assumption of our own—that you’ll enjoy reading the following Theme Park hints and tips. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Customers ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- The simulated people in Theme Park are remarkably like real people: extremely hard to please, yet the smallest thing makes them unhappy in no time at all. It’s extremely impor tant to watch the thought balloons to see what the customers want. If several people in the same area keep thinking about food, build a food stall nearby. If several people are grum bling about the cost or prizes of a stall, lower the price or raise the prize value. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Rides ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Here’s a simple formula: More rides = more people = more money.The most popular (and most financially successful) parks almost invariably have more rides than the competition. People prefer one each of a wide variety of rides over three or four of only a few rides.This doesn’t mean that you should only have one of each ride in the park, just that you should always choose to build a new and different ride over an existing ride. As rides get older, they don’t run as long as they should before needing repair.When a ride starts breaking down frequently, consider selling the ride and replacing it with an upgraded one. This frees up the Mechanics for more important tasks and also keeps your customers happy. New rides are extremely important, so you should always have some money invested in research. This also helps you to earn the Most Advanced Park award. When placing rides, keep in mind that you might want to move the entrances and exits later on. Whenever you add a new ride to the park, immediately jack up the admission price. The more rides there are in the park, the more moola you can charge. Always try to buy new rides as they become available. Always try to have at least one of every ride in the park. If you have more than one of the same type of ride, position them as far apart as you can. Make sure that your queue lengths are long enough to support all the people who want to go on the ride. People won’t line up in a full queue, and will therefore skip the ride. Large-capacity rides need larger queuing areas, since they take more people to fill up. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Shops and Stalls ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Shops and stalls are easy ways to make your customers happy and make you money. Naturally, there are a few drawbacks. The first problem with shops is that they produce litter. Too much litter gives your park a bad reputation - "Yeah, once you get past the stench of rotting garbage and vomit, you’ll have a great time" — and drives people away from the park. Some shops don’t produce any litter, but they don’t satisfy the people as well as the shops that do. (For example, the Coffee Shop doesn’t produce litter, but Pokey Cola is better at quenching thirst.) There are two solutions for excessive litter: hire more Handymen or raise the prices of the food and drink so that fewer people can afford to buy them. (The lat ter method is preferred.) The second problem with shops is making sure that you always have an adequate stock of sup plies.A shop without product to sell is a waste of space and a loss of profit. Keep a constant eye on the shops to ensure that they have sufficient stocks, and if they don’t, order some immediately. (You can always delay the arrival of unneeded stock by reordering.) Try to get a feel for when the shops need restocking so that you aren’t constantly scanning the entire map. If the Advisor tells you that a shop is running low on product, and you haven’t placed an order for the shop yet, do it immediately to reduce the time that the shop is closed. Stalls can upset the customers if they think that they’re getting ripped off. Match the cost of each game to the chance of winning and the prize for doing so. A stall with a small cost and prize and a moderate chance of winning makes more money than a high-cost, big-prize, tiny-chance stall. Stalls entertain customers (although not as much as rides) and don’t create litter.They’re also small er than rides, which means more of them can be squeezed into the same area. Customers tend not to visit the same stall more than once, so, as with the rides, variety is the key to success. Always position any spare Handymen directly outside shops to sweep up litter as fast as it’s produced. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Features ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Features are the least important components of a park, but they still serve several purposes. They impress new visitors to the park; they make your park aesthetically pleasing (i.e., it looks cool); and they liven up certain rides. For example, a roller coaster is more exciting when it curves and dips through trees. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Staff ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Handymen have a tendency to get lost and miss large areas of the park. Use the Zone Route to assign the Handymen to a specific area around food shops. Mechanics spend most of their time eating sandwiches instead of maintaining rides, so you need to keep them busy. Mechanics usually get to a ride before it blows up completely, but if there’s more than one ride in trouble, you should send the Mechanic to fix one of them and shut the other one down (or hire another Mechanic),A good rule of thumb: one Mechanic can maintain three or four rides. Another Mechanic-related tactic is to slow down the speed of a damaged ride while the Mechanic is busy This usually prevents the ride from exploding before the Mechanic can get to it. This tactic also saves you money, since you have less Mechanics, and it keeps the customers happy, since they always have rides to go on. Entertainers should be placed near long queues to ease the stress and boredom of waiting in line. You should also always have at least one Entertainer at the park entrance to give umbrellas to the people entering the park if it starts to rain. Guards only need to be hired if and when Thugs start appearing in the park. Thugs beat up your Entertainers and cause the rides to break down much faster than normal. It’s extremely important to deal with Thugs as soon as they appear, because of the drastically negative effect they have on the park. Hire Guards and move your Entertainers away from problem areas. Guards only kick Thugs out of the park when they see them doing something naughty so you have to shuffle the Guards around frequently to make sure they catch Thugs in the act. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Park Layout ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Open the park immediately at the start of the game.You might get one or two customers. Turn the game speed down when you’re starting outThis gives you more time to place rides and to react to the various game situations. Don’t try to construct a massive park right away. Keep your initial attempts small and easily man ageable. If you build too big too fast, you’ll find the park going to hell all around you and find your self hopelessly confused. Don’t be reluctant to remove rides that are placed improperly. It’s better to lose the money wasted on the one ride than to distract your Mechanics from repairing your most popular rides. People have fun when they’re going on rides and playing at stalls, so you want to minimize the amount of time they spend walking around and getting bored. (These damn MTV-genera tion kids and their short attention spans....) Here’s one method of crowd control. Build a straight path with rides on both sides. Each ride is placed directly against the path, with the entrance on the back side and the exit leading directly onto the path. A short queue links the path to each entrance. Stagger the rides on either side of the path, so that the exit from one ride points directly at the queue for the next ride. This way, the customers stumble from one ride to the next with barely enough time to puke, much less get bored.The only flaw with this method is that it takes up plenty of room and leaves little space for features. A second park design method is the “one-way” method, where the park’s paths are organized to force the people into walking around the park in an orderly manner. The advantage to this method is that you always have a good idea of what the people want at any particular time and location, and can build whatever is required to satisfy them. You also have little need for signposts since there aren’t any junctions to confuse people. The flaw with the one-way method arises when too many people enter the park. Queues fill up quickly, and people aren’t able to go on all the rides, since they can’t return to rides that they missed earlier. If your park has a complex series of paths, with rides and stalls scattered about, you have to place signposts to guide your customers around. If a person sees a sign pointing the way toward a ride, he feels happier than he would by just walking around aimlessly. Signposts also help unhappy cus tomers find the exit and leave the park faster. Unhappy people don’t go on rides or buy items from shops, so they just clutter up the park and bring down the percentage of happy customers. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Awards ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- At the end of each year, you’re presented with various charts on how well your park is doing in six categories. If your park is doing especial ly well in certain categories, you win awards. These awards are important for three reasons: 1) the ego boost; 2) the hefty sum of money given to you with each award; 3) awards give you an idea of how your park is doing com pared to your competition. For example, if you keep winning the Good Technology awards, then your rides are far more advanced than your competitors’ attractions! Concentrate on winning a single award at a time. The money you earn from this award can then be used to win the others. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Stock Market ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- It’s always beneficial to buy your own shares of stock. This prevents your park from being bought out from under you, and if the value of the stock increases, you have extra cash on hand.