Simulation and management games can be seen as one of the biggest pluses of choosing a PC as the main gaming platform. This is the situation Park Beyonda game developed by Limbic Entertainment and published by Bandai Namco, which promises to bring many hours of fun to those who dream of owning their own amusement park.
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Newbie on the field
Park Beyond begins in a very creative way. In order to test your engineering “skills”, a young woman asks you to build a roller coaster that connects her apartment window to the garden next door. Then, through a straightforward and simple tutorial, you will learn basic building commands within the game.
Arriving at Tempesnuvem Park, the owner, Phil, offers him a great opportunity: to build new attractions and manage the parks scattered around the world. While the idea is fun, you discover Phil’s company is practically bankrupt due to bad investments, and you’ll be one of the ones responsible for turning those problems into profit.
To help with this financial part, Phil hires Izzy, a serious executive who provides tracks for the player. Through the meetings, you must come to a consensus with the Tempesnuvem administration to choose the best course to take in building new parks.
With a simple selection system, I had to choose between three themes to use in my garden: Western, “Candy World” or Sci-Fi. I chose a cowboy theme, so I received a set of props, games, and booths that reflected the American Wild West theme. I also needed to determine the target audience for my garden, which varied between teens, adults, and families.
All of these choices reflect on your park’s popularity and potential profits, as you, as the manager, need to create specific attractions to attract the right kind of audience. After finalizing the decision, I was free to build whatever I wanted. Phil gave me the keys to an abandoned building, and it was my job to turn that place into the greatest amusement park the world had ever seen.
Unleash creativity
I started with the basics that every public place needs: restrooms, food stands, and places to rest. First, it paved a path for future visitors to walk on, and communicated with essential services throughout the park. Then, I started adding the main games that caught my target audience: teens.
In the game, teenagers prefer more radical and violent games, while they are not interested in light games with a little adrenaline. I added a giant human slingshot, put some spinning rides around the park, and then started building the roller coaster.
During the creation of the roller coaster, it is possible to set “goals” that generate different interests and values of attraction. These objectives consist of small tasks that need to be accomplished in the game assembly, and can vary from reaching a top speed of 120 km/h or creating a track that travels more than 1000 meters in length.
The editor has provided you with many interesting tools to let your creativity go, including rings, cannons, rails that go underground and even car splitters in the middle of the game. I spent a lot of time building and testing different modules and it was always a pleasure to see my project work after seeing it crash a few times.
Creating a garden is fun, but the game doesn’t end there… After all, you still have to manage it, making sure that no visitors leave in frustration. You need to hire staff to ensure park maintenance, monitor ride profitability to ensure profits are turned, and make critical decisions to keep the park running. The game gives you a lot of freedom to play things as you see fit, and this was most evident when you managed to increase the value of food and drink in the park due to the good old law of supply and demand.
Conclusion
Park Beyond seems to be a management game that knows what you want. The building mechanics, while complex, are not difficult to learn, and this can open an avenue for a casual audience unfamiliar with this type of game. Park management is also not complicated, but it can be a bit confusing due to some items hidden in the player’s HUD.
In the end, I had a great time playing Park Beyond. I spent many hours letting my creativity flow, and was very happy with the outcome of my garden. The game has huge potential, and I can’t wait for it to be released later this year.
Park Beyond arrives June 15th for PC, PlayStation 5, and Xbox Series X/S.
*This test was conducted on PC, in the closed beta version of Park Beyond.
Source: GameOn
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