Parkitect

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DjchunKfunK
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Parkitect

Post by DjchunKfunK » Tue Nov 13, 2018 9:29 am

As the name suggest this is a theme park simulator that hues closely to Rollercoaster Tycoon. It focuses a lot more on the management side of things than Planet Coaster does as well as allowing you to design rides. I've had it on my wishlist for a while and it's finally leaving Early Access at the end of the month. You can grab it now for £15.49, it goes up to £23 just before it's official launch.


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Re: Parkitect

Post by Sly Boots » Tue Nov 13, 2018 9:34 am

Interesting. I never bought Planet Coaster as although the original Bullfrog Theme Park was one of my favourites for a long time I always had more interest in laying out and managing a park rather than spending hours micro-designing roller coasters, just don't have the patience for it. Might take a look.

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Re: Parkitect

Post by DjchunKfunK » Tue Nov 13, 2018 9:47 am

Yeah it definitely sounds a lot more like the old theme park management games.

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Re: Parkitect

Post by Sly Boots » Sat Nov 17, 2018 6:49 pm

Caved to pressure from the eldest and bought the EA version before its full release at the end of the month. Took me a bit of time to figure out how things worked due to lack of tutorials (being the EA version), but once I'd found my feet it was a lot of fun. Very nearly went bankrupt but with only a few days of solvency remaining was able to turn things round and now the money is flowing in.

Recommended.

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Re: Parkitect

Post by Sly Boots » Wed Dec 05, 2018 5:56 pm

Full version was released a week or so ago, and it's very good fun.

RPS liked it a lot too:

https://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2018/1 ... ct-review/

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Re: Parkitect

Post by Raid » Thu Dec 06, 2018 12:34 pm

I somewhat regret not buying this when it was on offer. I suspect it may come down in price again when the christmas sale starts so I'll wait for that. I never quite gelled with Planet Coaster because it was really more of an exercise in design than management, but this is reviewing extremely well and it sounds like your decisions really matter.

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Re: Parkitect

Post by Sly Boots » Thu Dec 06, 2018 12:53 pm

Raid wrote:
Thu Dec 06, 2018 12:34 pm
I somewhat regret not buying this when it was on offer. I suspect it may come down in price again when the christmas sale starts so I'll wait for that. I never quite gelled with Planet Coaster because it was really more of an exercise in design than management, but this is reviewing extremely well and it sounds like your decisions really matter.
Yeah, I went into more detail in the 'games I'm playing' thread, but really it's a spiritual successor to my old favourite, Bullfrog's Theme Park from way back when. It's really easy to plonk stuff down in a park to get it up and running, and the tools are there to create elaborate coasters but it's not essential to take so much care (mine are cursory at best)... but the challenge comes in making it work, getting the balance of rides right to attract punters, examining the feedback to get shops and rides priced just right for maximum profits.

It was actually quite challenging to make money the first time I played it... I was literally within a few game days of going bust and game over, when I took the gamble of a high loan (which I had no way of making the repayments for), to fund a new coaster, which suddenly led to a flood of new people coming into the park and made it self-sustaining.

It's not stressful in that sense once you've got a grasp of the fundamentals, but neither is money ever so easy to come by that you can just construct everything you want willy-nilly from the get-go. I think it's paced really well.

One nice feature is that if you want a nice looking ride but don't have the patience to spend hours crafting one yourself, on the toolbar at the bottom is a button that gives you access to some of the cool designs other players have created, which can be dropped straight in like a normal ride. I don't do a lot of that, but if you want a bit of a centrepiece it's nice to do on occasion. It does show the tools are there if you have the desire to build something spectacular (I don't).

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Strudel
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Re: Parkitect

Post by Strudel » Thu Dec 06, 2018 2:56 pm

This does sound good. I'll have to add it to my list.

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Re: Parkitect

Post by Snowy » Thu Dec 06, 2018 4:46 pm

Sly Boots wrote:
Thu Dec 06, 2018 12:53 pm
Raid wrote:
Thu Dec 06, 2018 12:34 pm
I somewhat regret not buying this when it was on offer. I suspect it may come down in price again when the christmas sale starts so I'll wait for that. I never quite gelled with Planet Coaster because it was really more of an exercise in design than management, but this is reviewing extremely well and it sounds like your decisions really matter.
Yeah, I went into more detail in the 'games I'm playing' thread, but really it's a spiritual successor to my old favourite, Bullfrog's Theme Park from way back when. It's really easy to plonk stuff down in a park to get it up and running, and the tools are there to create elaborate coasters but it's not essential to take so much care (mine are cursory at best)... but the challenge comes in making it work, getting the balance of rides right to attract punters, examining the feedback to get shops and rides priced just right for maximum profits.

It was actually quite challenging to make money the first time I played it... I was literally within a few game days of going bust and game over, when I took the gamble of a high loan (which I had no way of making the repayments for), to fund a new coaster, which suddenly led to a flood of new people coming into the park and made it self-sustaining.

It's not stressful in that sense once you've got a grasp of the fundamentals, but neither is money ever so easy to come by that you can just construct everything you want willy-nilly from the get-go. I think it's paced really well.

One nice feature is that if you want a nice looking ride but don't have the patience to spend hours crafting one yourself, on the toolbar at the bottom is a button that gives you access to some of the cool designs other players have created, which can be dropped straight in like a normal ride. I don't do a lot of that, but if you want a bit of a centrepiece it's nice to do on occasion. It does show the tools are there if you have the desire to build something spectacular (I don't).
What he said.

Plus a very nice touch that I don't think I have seen before - if you, like Sly and me, don't have the creativity, time, patience, skill or whatever else to make your own spectacular creations, you can grab them from the Steam workshop. As soon as you have subscribed, you get a little message in-game that your new blueprint is available and you can plonk it down there and then, no need to restart or anything like that. A little touch, but one that tells you something about the game, it is made to be a nice friendly experience throughout.

Oh and watch out for little fuckers wearing bandanas - they be vandals, and should be ejected forthwith!
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Re: Parkitect

Post by Raid » Thu Dec 06, 2018 4:48 pm

Yeah, so I spent some of the afternoon watching Parkitect videos on Youtube and decided to just buy it. ¬_¬

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Re: Parkitect

Post by The Jackal » Thu Dec 06, 2018 10:17 pm

Sly Boots wrote:
Tue Nov 13, 2018 9:34 am
Interesting. I never bought Planet Coaster as although the original Bullfrog Theme Park was one of my favourites for a long time I always had more interest in laying out and managing a park rather than spending hours micro-designing roller coasters, just don't have the patience for it. Might take a look.
This - although in my first year at uni, one of our pastimes was sat around our resident Rollercoaster Tycoon obsessive's monitor, watching him avoid corporate manslaughter with his virtual parkgoers.
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Re: Parkitect

Post by Medicine Man » Fri Dec 07, 2018 11:46 am


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Strudel
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Re: Parkitect

Post by Strudel » Sun Dec 09, 2018 2:02 pm

Okay, I think I'm going to have to take the plunge.

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Re: Parkitect

Post by Raid » Sun Dec 09, 2018 5:26 pm

So far I think it's worth the full asking price. I'm ashamed to say I judged this far too early, back when there were three new theme park sim games on the horizon (this, Planet Coaster and the execrable Rollercoaster Tycoon World) and this just looked like little more than RCT3 in a slightly better looking engine. The much more impressive visuals of Planet Coaster wowed me more and I bought into that instead, but was left with a relatively shallow theme park design game. This is a much better management sim than PC was.

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Re: Parkitect

Post by Strudel » Mon Dec 10, 2018 9:22 am

I was basically holding off buying this because I bought Planet Coaster and didn't really get into it, but I've seen enough people say "I bounced off Planet Coaster but this is great" that I feel it's worth taking a punt on. So much for not spending anything unnecessarily this month ¬_¬

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