Planet Coaster

The graphics style is charmingly cartoonish which adds to the fun, and the 3D gameplay is great for when you test out your own, newly created, rollercoaster rides. But do not let the cheerful and childlike animations fool you: the spreadsheets on the management side are tight, well-plotted and concise, allowing you to see exactly where your money is going and, more importantly, where it is coming from so you can make even more!

Within the game you have a lot of control, even in the more challenging modes when resources are restricted. You can even pick the font that is used on your park signs, so you really can plan out and place your amusement park exactly the way you want it.

Manage Everything!

The management part of the game is fairly intense and while it starts out easy – paying one mechanic and one janitor to fix one ride and clean the small park is a doddle. When you have so many employees that you start to lose track of them all, then it becomes a little more hair-raising.

Rides must be maintained to prevent queues and customer dissatisfaction, janitors must sweep and clean (and you have to provide a good number of bins around the park to keep them happy!), research and development must be ongoing so customers keep coming back, and you also have to keep an eye on your profits, balancing your desire for fat bank accounts with good staff morale and happy customers to keep the lucre rolling in!

Three Ways to Play

Sandbox: This is the creative bit, where you have unlimited resources and access to all the surrounding land. You can design the most sumptuous and exciting rides for others to enjoy, and you can enjoy them yourself – all in the name of testing only, of course! Some players much prefer this mode of play, taking their time and using the best possible materials to make enthralling and exciting rides – or recreating real life ones that they have seen for themselves

Challenge: Perhaps the most exciting way to play. You start off with a small amount of land and money, and must invest all your ingenuity and skill into turning that into profit to buy more land and build more rides. As you go along, you will be issued with challenges, the successful completion of which will bring you rewards, such as resources, cash or pieces on land on which you can build even more rides, facilities and features

Career: In this mode the goal is for you to make as much money as possible, maximising the use of your existing funds to build rides that will bring in the customers and keep them in the park, happily spending their money for as long as possible. You must balance your profits against the needs of the park and customers, fighting to keep everyone happy and pouring their currency into your pocket, while paying staff and maintaining the park well

In all three modes, you are able to use auto-finish on rides, which means that instead of agonising over angles and speeds and precise measurements, you can plot in your exciting twists and turns, your beginning and your end, and then let the computer plot the bits of track in between, presenting you with a fully completed and functioning ride.