This may sound crazy, but Theme Park World at the time it was released was one of my most wanted games of the day! I am a massive fan of the original Theme Park; it is probably my favorite sim building game of all time and this was the sequel to that game. They tried to “modernize” the game, but truth be told apart from the visuals and presentation, not a great deal had been changed in all honesty.
They Call Me Walt
The goal of the game is what you would expect and that is to build the most awesome theme park in the world. Actually, there is more to it than that, building your park is a huge aspect of Theme Park World as it was in the original game. However, you also have to maintain your park, keep it up to date, keep the customers happy, ensure your staff are cool and always be looking for the next big thing. Not a great deal has changed in the aim of the game and I am fine with that. I do feel that they could have put a bit more “story” here as that is something I do feel was missing.
Theme Park In 3D
Planet Coaster, RollerCoaster Tycoon 3: Platinum, and Parkitect are probably your best bets out of the 10 options considered. 'Powerful building creator' is the primary reason people pick Planet Coaster over the competition. This page is powered by a knowledgeable community that helps you make an informed decision. This game works perfectly on my windows 7 computer- but you need to install an update patch first or it wont work. The update is available freely on the internet. This game is just as I remembered from my childhood! You get to build a theme park and manage every aspect from the rides, the prices and how many toilets you put in.
I know that some people will look at what this game claims is 3D graphics and laugh, but at the time I was blown away by the visuals of this game. they let you get in and see the action super close and you can also go on the rides as well. This was something I thought was freaking awesome at the time… even though if the character models do look like cardboard cutouts! I know that Theme Park World has not aged gracefully, actually, I feel that the original holds up better than this one does.
Drink A 12 Dollar Soda!
The core gameplay that is on offer here is pretty much the same as what we had with the original game and that is fine by me. You have to hire people to work in your park and you also have to keep them happy. You do this by making sure you have bathrooms and that they are treated well and paid right. You also need to keep on top of the latest rides and make sure that new stuff is getting added to your park all the time.
For me, when I play this game it is all about the mark up on stuff like merchandise and food and drinks! You can make huge leaps in your park’s future by ensuring you have plenty of funds. You can do all kinds of research as well (including a new scientist) that help you progress in the game. The PlayStation version of the game actually has cool mini-games, but these were not on the PC.
Theme Park World may not have been a game-changer in comparison to what the original game offered. However, I still think that this is a fun time, I do prefer the original, but at the time I thought this game was the greatest thing ever! I do feel that the visuals have aged a bit poorly, but the rest of the game is still a lot of fun to play. Newer games may offer more in terms of the “sim” approach, but I think this one here is more about having fun.
Final Score
Pros:
- Lots of awesome rides!
- I liked the fun personality the game offers
- You can go on the rides which is cool
- Playing the game is a very fun and relaxing experience
- You can have different styles of parks
Cons:
- The visuals have not aged all that gracefully
- It may be a tad simple for some people
- > >
- Sim Theme Park
Description of Sim Theme Park Windows
Read Full ReviewI remember going to Alton Towers when I was five. The log-flume had just opened and we queued for hours to get on it. All the waiting and the excitement...and I hated it. Fast forward 18 years, and now I'm the first one in line for all the rollercoasters, complaining if they don't do enough loops, don't go fast enough...but I still hate that log flume. So naturally, in games like Theme Park World, the log flume is always the most daring and exciting ride in my park.
Theme Park World is the sequel to Theme Park (surprise) and is the latest game to be released by EA's Bullfrog. I couldn't help but compare the title to Hasbro's Rollercoaster Tycoon, and let me tell you, it measures up quite well. Whilst there are some problems / annoying little asides with the game, there are some great ideas too.
OK, basic premise is you have to create a theme park. You do this by building rides, sideshows, shops and features (plants, toilets, bins etc), some of which have already been designed and some of which can be researched by your scientists - should you employ any.
There are four theme parks that can be built, but you can only access two of them to start with. The others are dependent on you gaining a certain number of golden keys (which you earn by building impressive rides and attracting so many visitors to your park etc). Although the parks take a while to complete, I think that four is a rather small number for the game to ship with (compared with 21 in RollerCoaster Tycoon). EA are, however, planning add-ons to increase this number. Each park is set around a certain theme, Lost World, Haunted House, WonderLand and Space, and the rides and features all correspond to this theme. For example, there is a standard 'bouncy castle' ride in each park; in the Lost World, it is a bouncy dinosaur and in the Haunted House, it is a bouncy brain.
There doesn't seem to be any real aim in building the parks. Whereas in RCT you had to attract so many visitors or earn so much money, here you are left without a specific purpose. Your overall aim is to earn golden tickets, which you can exchange for new rides (that wouldn't have been researched by your scientists) and golden keys. In turn, these golden keys allow you access to the two parks unavailable at the beginning of the game. However, there is no clear route to winning the tickets. Every so often, you'll be informed that you are close to winning one, if you can just squeeze in a few more visitors (a fire hazard, surely), but apart from that, the tickets appear sporadically and without warning. I won two in five minutes for earning so much money in a certain space of time, but I had no idea that I had been attempting this.
In order to develop and run your park, you need to employ some staff. Each category is important, the cleaners, mechanics, entertainers and security all make sure people are happy in the park, and the scientists research new rides, sideshows etc. However, the staff have to be kept happy too, if you pay for some training they will be more efficient at their work and unless you build them a staffroom, so they can have a break, they might go on strike. There are other managerial elements to the game that I'll get back to later.
The actual hands-on building of the park is a lot of fun, but marred by a few problems. The main problem is that rides can't be turned round, they all face one way, which is a little constricting in the whole designing process. However, laying out paths is very straightforward, click where you want one end of the path to be and then where you want the other, and a straight path will be drawn between the two points. This is much easier than in RCT, where each section of path had to be laid down individually. Designing your own rides is pretty easy too, things like rollercoasters, log flumes and rapids have to be designed individually (a couple of ready-made coasters wouldn't have gone amiss), here you lay out the basic track (same principle as the paths) and then add the height and banking tracks etc afterwards.
The attractions in the park can all be customised, you can change the rides' names, how fast they go, how many people they can carry etc, food prices can be changed as can fat content, quality of goods etc. In fact, the only thing that you don't seem to be able to do is change the paintwork, which isn't a problem.
But back to those managerial elements. The main factor here is money. You have so much to start with, and if you spend it all and go into the red for six months than you can be declared bankrupt. If you are close to going bankrupt (or if you need more money to build rides) you can take out a loan. Here you have a choice: different banks lend different amounts with different rates of interest, if you don't need too much money it doesn't make sense to get a large loan with more to pay back. Other financial matters involve the cost of entry to your park, and the amount of money you want to spend on training your staff, the more you spend, the more efficient they become.
There is a lot to manage at once, but you do have help. The onscreen advisor is always present with hints and advice about pretty much everything. The first time you open any window, he will give you a basic run-through of what you can do there, and if there are any other messages (if there are any areas of excessive litter, if people need more drinks stands, if new rides have been developed etc) he'll let you know about them too. Unfortunately, he keeps coming out with the same phrases, which get annoying, and I haven't found any way of removing him from the screen. Another problem with this is that, although most of the messages are relayed on the screen, there is the odd one that isn't, so if you want to turn your speakers down to avoid the advisor, you might miss the odd message too.
Your visitors are hard to keep track of. Unlike RCT, you can't click on them to find out what they are thinking, or what they have bought. Instead, you have to go to the 'all-visitors pop-up screen' where you'll find out visitor moods, how long they've spent in the park and how much money they have remaining. You also have a handy map, which lets you know the hotspots for litter, vandalism and enjoyment; all this will help you decide what you should be doing in order to keep your visitors happy and in the park. If only these screens were easier to find in the first place - I spent ages looking round for them.
The best aspect of the whole game though, is the camcorder mode, the ability to wander round the park and have a go on the rides. By doing this, you get to experience the park first-hand and consequently know what is missing (do you need more flowers, more shops) and how the rides feel to ride (are they too slow, too high). I've never come across such a feature before and it really is a great addition. You can also take pictures of your park and send them as e-postcards to your friends. This is only part of what EA are hoping for though. They also plan to set up a community for Theme Park World owners, which will allow members to visit each other's parks and have a go on the rides. Which should be wonderful if it works out.
Theme Park World benefits from some great innovative ideas, the camcorder mode is inspired, and the ease of creating rides is a godsend. However, there are a couple of niggly little problems which let the side down, there are only four parks included, that onscreen advisor did become far too annoying and occasionally the interface did prove difficult to navigate. There are a lot of sim games around, and, although Theme Park World is not a bad game, it needs to do more to be my preferred theme park title.
Review By GamesDomain
External links
How to play Sim Theme Park Windows
The game has been difficult to run since Win 2000 / XP. Adam Hearn released a fix, available on this, and full instructions are available here: http://www.adamhearn.co.uk/games/themeparkworld/tpwwin2kfix.html. You may also need the NoCD exe.
Big patches are available for Windows Vista / 7 and 8 / 10.
Captures and Snapshots
Screenshots from MobyGames.com
Comments and reviews
Vukling2020-10-210 point
Ah man. Tried it - managed to launch it, installed all the available patches and updates. When I want to start the first park, though, nothing happens. :/ Dead in the water.
Brandon2020-04-030 point
This is Theme Park World, not the American version Sim Theme Park. The two are almost identical except for the assistant which has a UK accent
Lee2020-01-21-1 point
Has something changed, im been asked for a 30 digit serial code.
DebitCardInfo2019-12-112 points
For anyone trying to get the game to run, try using this: https://github.com/The-Buzzy-Project/Golden-Ticket/releases . It's a 'launcher' for the game which tries to apply fixes and make it run on our modern computers. I've used it on 3 separate computers without issue, but it seems like some people on the subreddit (https://reddit.com/r/simthemepark) have hit or miss success with it. It's on Github though, so maybe someone can figure it out fully one day. Hope this helps :)
Foxy2019-11-071 point
Does this come with Gold Edition content?
sxx2019-10-13-7 points
What is the deal with this site. All these free games and it is all good. How do you get away with this?
nik2019-09-11-10 points
the page says fix for vista/win 8/10, 231 mb,
why is the patch not implemented in the zip, no one uses iso anymore...
unless you will be paying the people who fix it...
i wont download...it has a low probability of running on my system.
if youre going to do this, stop wasting peoples time.
DONATION2018-12-14-11 points
how to download this game
Bester2018-06-224 points
Hey AB, it never asked me for a 30 digit serial code. Are you sure you downloaded the correct file?
hooch2017-05-31-5 points
how do I get the game to install and run on windows 8 ?
AB2017-05-21-21 points
After I download the game, it asks me for a 30 digit serial code for installation. I obviously don't have one because I'm downloading from this site. Has anyone run into this issue before? Was anyone able to solve it? I would appreciate any help you can provide. Thank you!
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