Sim Theme Park

Theme Park World tasks players with managing a series of amusement parks . To do this, the player must choose how to spend their funds, finding ways to expand the number and scope of their parks while remaining profitable. Money can be used to purchase things such as new rides or attractions, and hire staff to maintain the park. As in its predecessor Theme Park , the staff available for recruitment include mechanics, cleaners (known in some versions as handymen ), entertainers, and guards, but Theme Park World also introduces a new role: scientists (known in some versions as researchers ).

The staff repair rides, clean litter, entertain visitors, ensure the park's security and research new rides, shops, and attractions. Staff can be trained to make them more efficient, and require frequent rest in staff rooms. Rides can be upgraded to increase their reliability, capacity, and speed, as well as provide additional components for track-based rides, such as jumps and tunnels for race tracks, and loops for roller coasters. Toilets and features such as bins, speakers, and security cameras can also be purchased.

Various elements can be controlled by the player, such as the name of the park, the price of admission, the layout of the roller-coaster tracks, and the quality of goods in the shops. The player can build cafés, novelty stores, restaurants, and parlours for foodstuff such as chips (fries), ice creams, and burgers. In the PlayStation version, certain rides and sideshows are playable as minigames such as races and 9 puzzles . The player can take loans and purchase additional land for the park.

A key focus is maintaining visitor satisfaction: the player is provided with feedback on visitors' merriment in the forms of a happiness meter, and thought bubbles. The bubbles convey feelings such as confusion, pleasure, hunger, and hygiene, which are indicators of the park's success. There is an advisor who provides tutorials and information about the park's events. The player can earn golden tickets or keys for completing tasks such as getting a certain number of people in the park, reaching a certain happiness level, and making a certain profit in a year.

Golden tickets can be used to buy special rides that cannot otherwise be researched by park scientists, as well as unlock golden keys needed to open additional parks. The requirements for earning golden tickets are similar in each park, but get harder as the game progresses. There are four themes of park: Lost Kingdom (featuring mainly Mesozoic , but also Aztec, Mayan, and Ape-based rides ) Wonder Land (described as a "fairy kingdom" ), Halloween World, and Space Zone, with Space Zone being the hardest. In the PlayStation version, there are two parks for each theme.

Each world has setting-appropriate rides, shops, and sideshows. Only the Lost Kingdom and Halloween World are available at the start (in the PlayStation version, the players start in the Lost Kingdom ). The player can ride on rides, and tour the park in the first-person view . In the PlayStation version, four golden tickets are required to use these features.

There is also an Instant Action mode, in which the player starts with a pre-built park in the Lost Kingdom, some staff, and double the usual amount of money. It features automatic research and cheaper staff, tracks, and expansion, but certain rides, shops, sideshows, upgrades, and features are not available. Theme Park World Online The Theme Park World Online website contained news and updates to the game, and featured a page that contained published parks. Invitations to parks could be issued, and players could vote for their favourites.

Competitions were hosted, with prizes awarded for the best parks. Players could also visit others' published parks. Platinum Tickets, which were used to download rides from the website, were awarded when others visited the player's parks. Postcards could be sent by email, and the service offered a chat feature.

The chat service had a function to report abusive players, who would have their connection terminated. Players could also be blackmarked. An account was required to use Theme Park World Online .