Hands-on with Adventure Park
Roller coasters and cost management analysis may not exactly go together like cookies and cream, but Adventure Park promises to blend these disparate disciplines into a sprawling, detailed theme park simulator that lets you control everything from the cost of admission to the G-forces generated by your rides - all in the name of generating excitement for your customers and a profit for yourself.I was advised to play through (and actually pay attention to) the tutorial before leaping into the action in Adventure Park, and it's fortunate that I did, because the game actually has quite a bit going on, and failure to pay attention to the details can be costly. I began the first of five different scenarios with an under-developed island, purchased on the cheap from a park operator looking to get out of the business. The bare-bones basics of the park - an entrance gate, a broken-down ride, and some paths - were already in place, but I was never going to get rich with those. Thus, step one: hire some people to clean it up and get things working."Hiring employees offers the first hint that you'll be doing more in this game than just placing rides and rolling in the dough. Gardeners and cleaners are straightforward enough, but there are five levels of technicians, and more complex equipment requires more highly-trained repairmen. Each worker can be placed in a specific location, and then relocated if it becomes necessary; they also have specific work areas that you can expand or shrink as you see fit.