Parkitect Game Review

Introduction

Put your skills as a theme park manager and coaster designer to the test and build the theme park of your dreams with Parkitect. Developed by Texel Raptor for PC and Mac, Parkitect offers a revamped take on the classic theme park idea made popular by predecessors like Theme Park Tycoon, Planet Coaster, and RollerCoaster Tycoon. The goal of Parkitect is to create a park that surprises and excites your guests, piques their interest, and keeps them in the park spending money.

Concept

If you are familiar with the gameplay of previous theme park sim games, the playthrough and overall idea of this game will be familiar. Launch a new game and enter into the familiar world of placing paths and constructing attractions to create an entirely customizable theme park. As you progress, you'll need to create shops that will generate park income and prevent park-goers from getting hungry or thirsty. You'll also need to build benches and tables to keep guests comfortable and create shelter for guests to protect them during bad weather. To properly staff your theme park you'll want to hire a variety of workers including engineers, entertainers, janitors, and security guards.

Graphics & Audio

Parkitect captures the electric energy and embodies the lively feeling of a real amusement park with its sound effects of screaming laughter from happy patrons, going as far as to featuring sick guest puking in trash bins after a ride. Theme park attractions range from 70 of the most popular amusement rides and include fully customizable roller coaster designs. The construction tool kit allows for an incredible range of creativity. Build structures, edit terrain, create water features, and plant trees to create a theme park as elaborate as your imagination.

Game Play

Parkitect offers a campaign mode that provides game players with 26 parks to revitalize through strategic design and business planning. For those looking for a truly immersive experience, the game also offers a terrain generator and scenario generator. Building is only one portion of the challenge. Keeping track of park finances and overall guest experience is paramount for park success as well. You are able to adjust item prices and staff salaries, reference spreadsheets, view visitor complaints, alter ride intensity, and critique your business marketing tactics. To achieve the most pleasant park experience for your guests, you'll need to route supplies to your shops through alternative "staff only" routes and hide staff areas from the public eye with fences and shrubbery. Deliveries are dropped off at the front of the park and require you to create the proper infrastructure within your park to be transported to each necessary ride and shop within the park. This will require you to hire staff members to physically transport items and eventually design a system of stock depots or an underground delivery system. You'll also want to add lights to your theme park so that your guests can see at night. Factors out of the park's control often come into play that can have either a positive or negative impact on your park, ranging from experiencing a shortage of supplies to having a park ride peak in popularity after it is featured on social media.

Conclusion

Parkitect provides a well-rounded theme park business experience for players, allowing for the control and management of backstage aspects as well as front-of-house creativity. It encourages players to balance crowd-pleasing aesthetics with the more practical business necessities. Because of the game's isometric perspective, it's easy for items to be deleted or mistakenly placed. Since there is no undo button, once an item is placed on the map it cannot be picked up and placed elsewhere. Aside from a few small user interface qualms, this thoughtfully layered game offers a pleasant, fresh take on a theme park business game, combining the need to manage staff members, please park guests, and perfect your park design. Because of the game's practically limitless design options, the replay-value is a strong 5.

Summary

Parkitect is a fully immersive theme park experience that combines design and business skills and leaves the potential for customization and creativity practically endless.