Back to the park

Rides

Nineteen rides, from a bouncy castle to a looping coaster. Every one of them carries four ratings, costs money to run, and hands you the dials that decide how it behaves.

How a ride works

Four steps from an empty patch of grass to a queue out of the door.

1

Place it

Pick a ride, turn it with R and drop it on clear grass. The bigger the footprint, the bigger the bill.

2

It fences its own plot

A fence goes up around the ride with an entrance arch and an exit, and you can move either door anywhere along the perimeter.

3

Paint a queue

Draw a queue line from the entrance to a road. Until it connects, the entrance marker stays red and nobody comes.

4

They ride

Guests pay to board, sit through the cycle and come out the exit - a little more tired and, if you got it right, a lot happier.

Thrill levels and ratings

Every ride carries four ratings from 0 to 10. They are what guests judge it on, and they pull in different directions.

Thrill

How wild the ride is. Thrill seekers hunt for it, families avoid it, and every ride costs a guest energy when they board - the wilder it is, the more it takes.

Family

Who it suits. A park of nothing but extreme rides has a lot of guests wandering about with nothing they want to go on.

Scenery

How good it looks in the park. A high scenery ride earns its keep from everyone who walks past it, not just from the people on it.

Prestige

What it does for the park's reputation, and so for how many guests turn up at the gates tomorrow.

The four thrill bands

Gentle 0-2

Everybody rides these. Balloons, carousels, a slow lap of the lake.

Family 3-5

The workhorses of a park - fun for most guests, frightening for none.

Thrilling 6-8

Long queues from the guests who came for exactly this, and empty seats from the ones who did not.

Extreme 9-10

The headline rides. Expensive, exhausting, and the reason a park gets talked about.


Some rides are a rest

A ride that is both gentle and sat down gives energy back, second by second, for as long as the guest is on it. The sky ride, the mini ferris wheel and the boat ride are the three, and a long lap of a big boat circuit can take a worn-out guest all the way back to full. A bench is quicker and free, but it only tops them up partway.

Thrills on a full stomach

Guests who go straight from a hot dog onto something wild bring it back up, and a puddle of sick upsets everyone who walks past it. Toilets and a cleaner or two are part of running a thrill park - so is thinking about where you put the snack bar.

Every ride

Ratings, prices and research tiers as they stand in the current build. Everything here is still being tuned.

Bouncy castle in Amusement Factory

Bouncy castle

Gentle

The cheapest ride in the game and the one every small guest heads for first. Nobody sits down - they bounce about inside it for the whole cycle.

Thrill1
Family10
Scenery2
Prestige1
€ 70,000 Available from the start
Mini ferris wheel in Amusement Factory

Mini ferris wheel

Gentle

A little wheel that anybody will queue for. Gentle and sat down, so guests come off it rested rather than worn out.

Thrill1
Family10
Scenery6
Prestige2
€ 100,000 Restful
Sky ride in Amusement Factory

Sky ride

Gentle

The best looking thing you can put in a park - a perfect 10 for scenery - and a proper rest for whoever is riding it.

Thrill1
Family4
Scenery10
Prestige5
€ 250,000 Restful
Boat ride in Amusement Factory

Boat ride

Gentle

The one ride whose track you design yourself. A jetty, a fleet of up to six boats, and a circuit you paint on the water. See below.

Thrill1
Family9
Scenery8
Prestige5
€ 240,000 Restful
Pirate ship (museum) in Amusement Factory

Pirate ship (museum)

Gentle

A ship you walk rather than ride. Guests wander the deck for the whole cycle, stop at the rail, then file off again.

Thrill1
Family7
Scenery8
Prestige4
€ 180,000 Research tier 2
Balloon ride in Amusement Factory

Balloon ride

Gentle

Cheap, pretty and popular with everyone. A good first ride while the park is still finding its feet.

Thrill2
Family10
Scenery7
Prestige2
€ 90,000 Available from the start
Merry-go-round in Amusement Factory

Merry-go-round

Gentle

The classic. Lit up under its canopy after dark, and one of the friendliest rides in the park.

Thrill2
Family10
Scenery7
Prestige4
€ 150,000 Available from the start
Plane carousel in Amusement Factory

Plane carousel

Gentle

Little planes on arms. Barely more exciting than a carousel and just as widely loved.

Thrill2
Family9
Scenery4
Prestige3
€ 130,000 Available from the start
Teacups in Amusement Factory

Teacups

Family

Spinning cups on a spinning floor. Cheap to buy, cheap to run and a reliable earner while the park is small.

Thrill3
Family8
Scenery5
Prestige3
€ 120,000 Available from the start
Ferris wheel in Amusement Factory

Ferris wheel

Family

High ratings almost everywhere, and a landmark visible from the other end of the park. Each gondola hangs off the turning wheel and levels itself as it goes round.

Thrill3
Family9
Scenery9
Prestige6
€ 300,000 Research tier 2
Bumper cars in Amusement Factory

Bumper cars

Family

An arena of cars that really do bump into each other, with a run of lights along the barrier once it gets dark.

Thrill4
Family9
Scenery3
Prestige5
€ 220,000 Research tier 2
Swing carousel in Amusement Factory

Swing carousel

Family

Sixteen chairs on chains, each with its own bulb at night. The point where a park stops being purely for small children.

Thrill5
Family7
Scenery6
Prestige6
€ 280,000 Research tier 3
Pirate ship in Amusement Factory

Pirate ship

Thrilling

A full pendulum: hard left, hard right, twice over, then settling back to the middle. It runs to a fixed pattern, so it is the one ride with no speed dial.

Thrill7
Family5
Scenery5
Prestige7
€ 350,000 Research tier 4
Sky swing in Amusement Factory

Sky swing

Thrilling

Eight seats flung out over the park. Expensive, and worth it for the guests who came looking for exactly this.

Thrill8
Family2
Scenery5
Prestige8
€ 550,000 Research tier 5
Roller coaster (small) in Amusement Factory

Roller coaster (small)

Thrilling

A train assembled onto the model's own rails. It crawls over the crest and races through the dips, because its speed comes from the height of the track rather than a number.

Thrill8
Family6
Scenery6
Prestige8
€ 500,000 Research tier 5
Spin swing in Amusement Factory

Spin swing

Extreme

Not far off the wildest thing in the park, and cheaper than the ones that beat it.

Thrill9
Family3
Scenery5
Prestige8
€ 500,000 Research tier 5
Drop tower in Amusement Factory

Drop tower

Extreme

Climb, hold, drop. Maximum thrill, minimum family appeal - a ride you build for one kind of guest and nobody else.

Thrill10
Family1
Scenery4
Prestige9
€ 650,000 Research tier 6
Loop ride in Amusement Factory

Loop ride

Extreme

Straight over the top and round again. One of the few rides in the game rated a full 10 for thrill.

Thrill10
Family2
Scenery4
Prestige9
€ 700,000 Research tier 6
Roller coaster (big) in Amusement Factory

Roller coaster (big)

Extreme

The most expensive ride in the game and the only one with a perfect 10 for prestige. Its train picks its own parking spot and lights the whole circuit after dark.

Thrill10
Family4
Scenery8
Prestige10
€ 800,000 Research tier 7

Tuning a ride

Click any ride to open its window. Everything here is set per ride, and every setting is saved with your park.

Open or closed

Shut it without stranding anyone

Closing a ride stops it taking anybody new - it does not freeze the cycle it is already running. A load already in their seats is seen round once and set down properly, because turning out guests who have just paid is the worse answer.

Speed · 0.5x to 2x

How hard it runs

A dial in quarter steps from half speed to double. Faster means shorter cycles and a queue that moves - and a ride that works harder for it. The pirate ship is the exception: it swings to a fixed pattern and offers no speed setting at all.

Minimum load

Wait until it is worth it

A fraction rather than a headcount, so "at least half" means the same thing on a four-seat ride and a twenty-four-seat one. It starts at half and steps by a tenth. Guests wait in the line rather than in the seats, so a ride holding out for a full load has a visible queue outside it.

When it will not fill

Set off anyway, or send them away

After two minutes with nobody new joining the line, the ride does whichever you told it to. Set off anyway runs the cycle at a loss. Turn guests away empties the line and runs nothing - and those guests sulk, take a mood hit, and will not come back to that ride for a while.

Running cost

Every dispatch costs money

A cycle is charged per dispatch, not per rider, and the price is worked out from the ride itself - a base cost, plus more for every seat and more again for every point of thrill. A full load clears it several times over; a nearly empty one loses money. That is what makes the load dial worth turning.

Entrance and exit

Move the doors

The plot fence goes up with an entrance arch and an exit on it, and you can drag either one to any spot along the perimeter. Put the entrance where the queue can reach a road, and the exit where you want guests to spill out - past a shop, ideally.

Rides break down

Sooner or later a ride stops with smoke coming off it and a queue standing around. A mechanic walks over and fixes it, so hiring one before you need one is cheaper than it looks. A ride window that says it is waiting to fill is not broken - it is doing exactly what you told it to.

Queue lines are yours to draw

A queue is painted tile by tile, the way you paint a road. Hold shift to lay a straight run. The shape you draw is the shape guests stand in - there is nothing authored about it.

  • Two abreast, in order. Each queue tile holds a pair standing side by side, and the whole line shuffles up as it moves.
  • Guests join at the mouth. They walk to the far end of the line and wait their turn, rather than pushing in at the front.
  • A short queue spills onto the road. Past the end of what you painted the line keeps going backwards into the street - which is your cue to paint more of it.
  • Switchbacks work. Fold the lane back on itself and the game reads it as one queue, however you drew it.

Waiting costs them

The first twenty seconds are free - that is just part of a day out. After that boredom builds with the square of the overrun, so a queue that is twice too long is far worse than twice as annoying.

Time in the lineMood cost
Up to 20 secondsNothing at all
About a minuteroughly 7 points
A minute and a halfroughly 22 points
Over two minutesroughly 65 points

A guest arrives at the park somewhere around 58. A long queue really can turn a good day into a bad one.

The one you build yourself

The boat ride

Every other ride arrives finished. The boat ride arrives as a jetty, a starter basin dug out behind it, six boathouses and a short stretch of lane - and it is up to you to carry that lane out into a closed circuit for the boats to run.

Paint the circuit

Dig water, then paint a boat lane on it. The lane has to close into a loop: the ride's own window tells you whether what you have drawn is a circuit, a dead end, a fork, or simply does not join up yet.

Buy boats one at a time

A dock is delivered with one boat and takes up to six. Each new boat gets its own berth, and a longer circuit is needed before the next one is allowed - so the loop you draw decides the size of the fleet.

Every boat runs on its own

One boat loads at the jetty while another is out on the water. They pull out bow first, come back in stern first, and give way to each other at the mouth of the lane.

A long lap is the point

Speed is constant, so the size of your circuit decides how long a trip takes. It is a restful ride, and guests get energy back for every second aboard - a big loop can send a worn-out guest back out at full.

Water is the most expensive thing in the game to dig, and filling it back in costs money too. Build the circuit around the lake the map gave you wherever you can - a mountain can even straddle the lane, so the boats sail in one side and out the other.

Unlocking rides

Not everything is available on day one. Rides sit in seven research tiers, and each tier costs more points than the one before it - 25,000 points multiplied by the tier.

Tier 1 is open from the moment you start, which is enough to build a small, cheerful, entirely profitable park. The looping coaster at tier 7 is a long way further on.

TierUnlocksPoints
1Teacups, mini ferris wheel, plane carousel, balloon ride, merry-go-round, bouncy castle, boat ridefree
2Sky ride, ferris wheel, bumper cars, pirate ship (museum)50,000
3Swing carousel75,000
4Pirate ship100,000
5Sky swing, spin swing, roller coaster (small)125,000
6Loop ride, drop tower150,000
7Roller coaster (big)175,000

Rides bring them in. Shops keep them here.

Hungry, thirsty, tired guests do not queue for anything.

See the shops