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By Brad Cook Life not treating you right? There’s a place where you can trade the ups and downs of reality for a roller coaster ride of another sort: Sim Theme Park, Feral Interactive’s latest entry in the Sim franchise. Here’s your chance to create your own theme park and control every detail of its existence, from ticket prices to the amount of salt on the French fries sold at the concession stands. You can even take part in the action, wandering around the park and having fun on the rides from the same perspective as your customers.  There are four amusement parks to create in Sim Theme Park: Lost Kingdom, Halloween World, Wonder Land and Space Zone. You start out with access to Lost Kingdom and Halloween World and gain entry to the other parks by earning keys.
You get keys by collecting golden tickets, which are granted every time you reach certain milestones, such as having 100 people visit your park or making a certain number of patrons happy. A Game By Any Other Name… Sim Theme Park actually began life as a European game called Theme Park, which Bullfrog released in 1994. It was a success, as was another game called Theme Hospital. When it came time to update Theme Park with 3D graphics, what was published as Theme Park World in Europe became Sim Theme Park in America. “We worked with Maxis during development to ensure that the game would work just as well as part of the Sim range [of games] as the Theme range,” explains lead designer Karl Fitzhugh, who helped develop the game at Bullfrog in England. Calling All Micromanagers When you first play Sim Theme Park, you can enter either Lost Kingdom or Halloween World and begin building your park. You get to decide where the paths lead, where you should locate the rides, shops, restrooms, food stands, and various landscape decorations, and how many janitors, security guards, entertainers, and researchers you should hire.  If you enjoy micromanagement, you’ll love the fact that every building and employee has a set of attributes that you can tweak to your liking. Want to increase the number of riders that the Crazy Ape can handle at one time? Want to fire an employee or change the part of the park that he patrols? Want to alter the mix of food offered at the stands? You can do all that and more.
The downside, though, is that shoehorning more riders on a ride will affect its performance and cause it to break down more often, which will increase how much you spend on mechanics. And if you want to fiddle with the food, don’t forget that adding more salt to the fries will increase the demand for drinks and offering more candy will lead to more troublesome patrons.  The goal is to juggle all the variables as you grow your fledgling business into a successful amusement park. There are multiple ways to check out customer satisfaction, from the general happiness meter to the attributes of each park attendee, including their thoughts on the park and how much money they’re spending.
As you play, a guide who looks like a bowling ball pops up every so often to let you know when rides are about to break down or when one of the customers has played a prank on your staff, among other things. |
 Available from Feral Interactive
Playing With Toys While the game is a simulation, the emphasis is on managing your park, not on the rides themselves, even though you can go for a spin on them if you want. “We decided that, rather than simply simulate real rides,” explains Fitzhugh, “we wanted to create fantastic new ones, even if they wouldn’t be practical in the real world.”  Not only can you ride your rides, but you get to design the ones with tracks, such as the flumes, roller coasters and go-carts. They’re simple rides when first installed, but your researchers can create jumps, loops, and tunnels that you can add on later.
“Building roller coasters is my favorite [aspect of the game],” says Fitzhugh. “There’s a real satisfaction in building a coaster, riding it, and tuning it up to give the best possible experience. And, of course, being able to publish your parks (and, therefore, your coasters) to the web site means that players all over the world can ride your creation too.”* Everyone Loves a Theme Park Sim Theme Park comes on the heels of the wildly successful game The Sims. If you’ve ever been to an amusement park and enjoyed the experience, you’re sure to have some fun with this game. “I love theme parks,” says Fitzhugh. “In fact, I think everyone does, which is one of the reasons the game appeals to so many people. We are really proud of it.” Think you have what it takes to become an amusement park tycoon? Sim Theme Park is available now at the online Apple Store, an Apple retail store, or a certified Apple reseller location near you.
* Parks created in Windows are compatible with the Macintosh version of the game. |
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