Build your perfect amusement park in Planet Coaster.

Once upon a time I played simulation (sim) games.  Mostly SimCity and SimCity 2000, but there were others as well.  As time progressed I found them getting more complex and more realistic, taking on more management and less lighthearted fun.  My interest in sims waned in favor of more action orientated games, but I still had fond memories.  Now I have been given Planet Coaster for review.  Will it have me feeling mired in a bureaucracy or bring back the amusement?

"Life is like a roller coaster, live it, be happy, enjoy life." - Avril Lavigne

Well, where do I start this review?  Like starting any sim style game I guess the best place to start is the tutorials.  While effectively you could dive into the main game, since the gameplay tips are never too far away, but I like to have a good understanding of the tools I have at my disposal.  The tutorials for Planet Coaster link you to a set of four YouTube videos.  These have the development team walking you through the basics of placement all the way up to advanced management.  A little different than most tutorials I’ve encountered, but they got their points across.  I was up and running in no time.

As I said the gameplay tips are never too far way in the game itself.  A quick click on the question mark brings up keyboard and mouse commands.  This came in handy after Christmas when I had been distracted by real life and came back to play Planet Coaster.  I was able to get a quick refresher then pick up where I left off with minimal frustration.

"Just when I thought I was out... they pull me back in" Michael Corleone, The Godfather, Part III

Just like other sim games Planet Coaster’s basic gameplay motto is “build it right, manage it right, and they will come.”  There are three modes for Planet Coaster: Career, Sandbox, and Challenge.

Career mode gives you pre-set parks that require specific goals in order to level up and unlock harder challenges.  For example in the Beginner scenario at the Bronze Star level, you need to attract 800 customers and build 2 rides.  Simple enough.  At the Silver Star level attract 900 guests and build 4 rides.  And finally at the Gold Star level attract 1100 guests and acquire $15,000.00.  Interestingly I managed to meet the Bronze and Gold Star levels before the Silver Star level.  The Sandbox mode is just that, pick a themed plot of land and with unlimited funds, build the park of your dreams.  Enjoy your sandbox how you want.  Challenge mode is like Sandbox mode, you get to pick a themed empty plot of land, but you are very limited on the funding you start with.  Wise management can build something from nothing.

That is the great thing about this game (and most sim games in general), you can play it however you want!  My seat of the pants plan was just to build and add things as demanded by the park guests.  Once I started seeing some patterns I adjusted.  For example, when I placed new snack stand I would not only need to place more garbage bins near the stand itself but around the park as a whole.

"I'm not sure I always feel like I'm in the seat. Sometimes I'm only holding on by one hand and flying out behind the roller coaster. I don't know anybody who doesn't feel that way." - David Morse

Another amusing thing is that you can "ride" the rides if you want.  Planet Coaster gives you a choice of three cameras on your ride: Cinematic, Seat, and Interest.  Cinematic doesn't really put you in the ride.  Instead, it gives you angles to watch the ride progress.  Seat puts you front and center on the ride and you can "experience" it from the riders point of view.  You can even select which seat to sit in, so you can ride in the front, middle, rear, or somewhere in between.  Interest turns the seat camera around and points it at the riders.  With this camera, you can see if the riders are actually enjoying themselves, bored, or scared witless.

The management side of the game let you make all sorts of decisions: research new rides and other attractions, train employees to better handle their duties and what to pay them, where to advertise and who to target, and even right down to how much to charge for snacks.  If things get out of hand you can take out loans, but remember they still have to be paid back.

Overall

Planet Coaster is a call back to more enjoyable sim games for me.  I can play around with building and managing until things seem to be going well, and then get down in around the people to see how they enjoy the park.  Developer, Frontier Developments has nicely included Steam Workshop for the modding community to build on.  This allows others, like my friend CWKnight, to build new themed buildings and rides for the game giving it a replay value that will go well beyond what Frontier Developments plan for it.

I have lost time while playing Planet Coaster and fully expect to lose more.  I still have many challenges left in the career mode to master and park themes to sort through.  I give Planet Coaster a 4.75 out of 5.

For more information about Planet Coaster see their official website.