GoG has the game in its “preservation” feature which means it should be guaranteed to run on modern hardware. It does run fine..for a few minutes before crashing. I tried the suggested config and it just runs slow or crashes anyway. Luckily, there was a used copy for the Nintendo DS version in my local CEX, so I played that instead. I originally played this game on the Playstation, then did play this on the Nintendo DS, and now I am revisiting it on the DS once more. I have a lot of nostalgia for this game.
The graphics are suitable for the DS, and the interface works well with touch screens and buttons. The interface has been redesigned for the DS, so the research screen is simple number spinners rather than the liquid tanks as seen in the original. When viewing your park, the scrolling is smooth with the D-pad and the clicking is accurate for what you need to do.
The original game had scrolling text of your chosen name on your park entrance, but for the DS version it is static text that says Theme Park. The original had a 3D mode where you could pan around your park and even view the rides. This is cut for obvious reasons.
The DS version also switches out some of the rides/amenities depending on your country. So the Coffee Shop is a London Bus when in the UK.
There’s a basic tutorial to show you how to place rides with a suitable queue, and places paths so your customers can get where they need to go. However, it’s a bit of a learning curve to make progress from there really.
In terms of staff, you have mascots like Bear, Chicken, Squid, Shark, Rhino, Strongman which attempt to make people happy. Handymen pick up litter and clean toilets. Mechanics fix your broken rides. Guard to keep ruffians out that sabotage the rides.
Customers entering the park pay your ticket price, but they have plenty of extra money to spend while they are in the park. You also need to make them happy by allowing them to have fun, and have food and drink.
Spending money on research is key, but it costs a lot, and you have to invest in the rides, amenities, and warehouse/bus capacity to make good progress.
Not all the shops require ordering stock, but the main ones do, so you need to keep going into the menu and ordering more. Shortly after your order arrives, you need to place a new order to keep stock high, otherwise you won’t earn much money when there’s no stock! Increasing warehouse capacity reduces the tedium and keeps a steady stream of extra income.
Rides break easy, so you need to invest in the ride upgrades. Investing in staff will eventually boost the janitor and mechanic, but it seems to increase your entertainers first. The constant breaking down of rides is annoying, especially when older rides can explode if they aren’t fixed in time, and the resulting explosion leaves behind a mess that you cannot clean up and therefore can’t build over it. When the mechanic starts fixing a ride, all the people that were queuing are supposed to return to the paths and carry on walking around your park but they often walk on the grass and get a little lost.
The pathfinding behaviour is limited and they can generally just get stuck in random squares. This is also annoying when it happens to your mechanics and they run around in circles, or get trapped in a ride. You can pick up and drop your staff though, but your customers can only be freed by deleting paths/queues, or the more expensive option; the ride itself. Stuck people can be very problematic because it reduces their happiness and general happiness level has an effect on the number of new people visiting your park. Sometimes it can look like only one person is stuck but they end up stacking on the same square.
I thought it was confusing how to complete a level. When you select one, it does tell you the target value and bank balance you need to clear. However, it does not remind you of this in the game.
Some of the ride's attributes don’t really make sense. The snake slide has very low reliability but why would a slide break down? I’d expect it to be one of the most durable rides. When new rides unlock, they don’t necessarily seem better than the ones you already have, or might not seem worth the price. I guess the thing that matters is the number of unique rides. Every time you place one, it seems acceptable to increase the price by at least 10 without it impacting visitors.
The amenities like Duck Hunt can be tweaked for percentage win, prize cost, and cost to play. It’s kind of trial and error to see what people like. Sometimes you see them moaning that the prize isn’t pricey enough but the jump in value between the options means it won’t be profitable to increase it. Sometimes I thought it was best to increase the price and the chance of winning but actually reduce the value of the prize to the lowest. They seem to like paying 300 for a 50% chance to win a 400 prize. So then you get more profit and keep them happy.
Every so often, you have to negotiate staff or goods rises. There’s two hands on the bottom of the screen and you control one of them. You basically tease the hands to move so make a large jump forward, a small movement backwards. It seems partially random but you can often end up negotiating a cut rather than a rise. Cuts seem to just affect new staff, although you can manually reduce the wage of current employees. Lower goods prices mean you get more profit but your visitors seem to moan when the profit margin is too high so they seem to know how much you pay for it.
The core concept of the game is great, it has a lot of charm, and loads of nostalgia for me personally. However, the bugs and some usability problems means it is a bit dated and might not appeal too much to modern gamers when there’s more advanced theme park simulators available.