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CharophyceanchrissieGabriel

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What is the best succession to the theme park series?

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Total Posts: 16

Joined 2003-09-12

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Railroad tycoon and A-train were some others I played as a kid in the 90’s.

However theme park was always my favourite

I saw the most recent rollercoaster tycoon world got terible reviews.

Whats worth checking?

     
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Total Posts: 724

Joined 2004-03-09

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Personally, I’d say only Roller Coaster Tycoon 1 and 2 are worth it, anything after that isn’t _in my view_. They are amazing games, especially if you enjoyed Theme Park.

     

Total Posts: 106

Joined 2003-09-13

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Yes RCT1 & 2 if you just want more of the original “Theme Park” experience.

RCT 3 (the 3D one) is good in terms of evolution. It has a lot of nice things going for it, even if the gameplay is a little slower. But then, what games like this do you NOT sit waiting for the next $50 to come in so you can build one piece of track? Regardless, it has a sandbox mode (theme park never did, neither did RCT 1 or 2 for the most part)... many hours can be spent building your own dream theme park. And ofc, this time round you can actually ride the coasters and rides. With its expansions wet & wild, there’s a lot you can do.

Jurassic Park Operation Genesis. Somewhat casual on the building/management elements but what’s nice here is the dinosaurs, you are managing them as much as the guests.

Open TTD (Transport Tycoon Deluxe). As a player of Railroad Tycoon etc then TTD is absolutely a must play. Open TTD is free and can be downloaded. TTD of course was the foundation of Roller Coaster Tycoon 1 and 2 so could effectively be considered a sister product.

Theme Hospital is absolutely worth a bout, even if it is a bit linear (railroaded down a specific path) but it got those 90% reviews back in the day for a reason - it’s good fun. And of course, it’s Bullfrog which also means Dungeon Keeper should be in this list because again built on similar systems to Theme Park and Theme Hospital (and also Bullfrog again, their last great game effectively).

Yeah, the new JP: World game seemed too watered down and casual for my liking, the numerous Theme Park games that came out after the original never really took my fancy. Other ones (the names escape me) seem to be more about roller coaster simulation and less about running a park. But I’m glad to have played all the ones above as if they were successors to the original Theme Park, in one way or another, each of them felt like it.

     
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Theme Hospital is amazing really, great fun. Would strongly recommend it. It’s actually pretty cheap nowadays and hours of fun. Amazing humor, certainly a Theme Park vibe:

https://www.gog.com/game/theme_hospital

Nowadays if you want it to really have some better features, you can run it through CorsixTH, see it as ScummVM for Theme Hospital if you will. It adds quite some nice features, including higher resolution, many new languages supported, bug fixes that were in the original game, really too much to mention!

https://github.com/CorsixTH/CorsixTH/releases
https://corsixth.com/

     

Total Posts: 9

Joined 2009-04-01

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I also loved Theme Park back in the day, I would say the best succession to it right now would be Planet Coaster, it has the same fun and looks as Theme park did, it even killed the Roller Coaster Tycoon series Tongue.

For Theme Hospital (same developer as Theme Park) I would say Two point Hospital is basically Theme Hospital 2, it looks and plays the same but full 3D with lots of new and better features.

     
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Total Posts: 291

Joined 2018-01-11

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I bought Thrillville on xbox thinking it would be like this kind of game you are describing, and I was wrong.  Avoid it.  iz bad.  T_T


EDIT:  I wanted to point out that I think there is a new version of theme hospital now called “two point hospital” or two bit hospital.  Something like that.

     
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Total Posts: 724

Joined 2004-03-09

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Yea it’s Two Point Hospital, it’s quite extensive and lot of fun. I’d say it’s a good successor (in spirit) to it.

One game I’ve always enjoyed back in those days as well, was Pizza Tycoon, great fun with similar humor. You manage Pizza places, including their interior (buying it all, hiring personal) and as a fun ‘side’ you can also do things to your competitors. By buying ‘ice cream’ (weapons) you can sabotage their places, release rats or even use a bazooka to destroy their furniture. Great fun.

Beyond that, making pizza is a lot of fun! The competitions as well.

If you’re more into Railroad Tycoon like games, you can certainly checkout Transport Tycoon Deluxe (or OpenTTD to play it nowadays). Great fun!

     
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CaliMonk - 25 February 2020 01:19 PM

If you’re more into Railroad Tycoon like games, you can certainly checkout Transport Tycoon Deluxe (or OpenTTD to play it nowadays). Great fun!

Okay.. I’ll check out this pizza game.  I’ve never heard of such a thing ^_^

I’ve never had the bravery to go back to TTD.  I’ve heard good things, but I can barely even play Railroad tycoon II:

I understand the basics of it.  But as soon as I have to start really paying attention to what resources need to be processed to travel to what place that has high demand for the newly processed good, I suddenly can barely keep up with all of it.  All I can figure out is connecting lines of mail and passengers, and getting bonuses, and managing the schedule.
Even when I accidentally get the right goods to the right place at the right time, figuring out how to translate that away from corporation wealth and into personal wealth is a whole other hurdle I just… ARGH!  All that to say, I’m scared TTD will be even harder!

At least in roller coaster Tycoon, I never really have to be that good at the game.  I can just continually buy ads and promotional material to drive sales in my poorly planned out park.  Yes it does cost just to use the restroom. Yes the rides kill you.  No I am not going to hire more janitors.  Clean up after yourself.

     
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Joined 2004-03-09

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Well actually, I feel that TTD is a lot easier and less strict then Railroad Tycoon! Much easier to manage and keep things going in my view

     
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Total Posts: 2648

Joined 2004-01-18

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Two Point Hospital is on Game Pass if anyone has that membership.

     

An adventure game is nothing more than a good story set with engaging puzzles that fit seamlessly in with the story and the characters, and looks and sounds beautiful.
Roberta Williams

Total Posts: 106

Joined 2003-09-13

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OpenTTD: Heh! For newer players a good option is to set the start date quite late, say 1975 or 1980, because then you start with some airports. You only need a few (jet) planes in the air to start turning profit, and can completely overlook the industry side if you focus on plane passengers. As you get more confident, start pushing the date back, where industries are more likely your main sources of income. The bonus of OpenTTD is all the additional things you can tweak in the settings, to make the experience as comfortable or difficult as you want. This was not available in the original TTD but really adds to the experience in OpenTTD. Be sure to check them out!

Of course, there are different strategies and you can develop your own, but that’s usually the route I take when I just want to get in and get some quick profit and connect some towns.

The harder part IMO is waiting it out to reach the 50 year (or maybe it’s 100?) win state of the game. But OpenTTD certainly has a super-fast-forward button so you can make it after maybe a week of sessions… But hey, you’re not alone - my friend said TTD used to give him night terrors cos he couldn’t connect roads and make profit in his head lol. Certainly, TTD misses any sort of campaign that is pretty much a default in all other games of its ilk. Campaigns often help as a tutorial for the sandbox mode so I can see why the difficulty curve is a bit higher with TTD. But I guess that is why it’s quite beloved. Games that don’t hold your hand certainly have their audiences. So good luck, should you try again!

Recently I bought Transport Fever which is quite a nice 3D rendition of TTD style. With campaign so you’re never far away from progress. I’ve only played 10 hrs so far though and that was enough to complete a few of the early campaign, a few missions of what seems like a good amount, maybe 20 or so, I haven’t seen planes or boats or anything else yet so feels like there’s a lot left to explore.

And, in all honesty, I bought JW: Evolution and didn’t like it much at launch, but played it again recently and it’s clearly had a number of updates since and this time round very much enjoyed the first island - before it overloaded my crappy gfx card and I couldn’t complete tasks. But when I get a new PC I will definitely give it another go. It felt like it had come back a bit more in line with the theme park genre and operation genesis. I’m tempted by some of the DLC too, now. Some folks say its repetitive but certainly the first island and the missions all seemed pretty fresh for me, the dialogues of characters wasn’t repeated throughout, but I suppose that could change by the 5th island. Or maybe it doesn’t, because they talk about things relating to each island. So yeah, that went from a hard thumbs down to something I think I’d recommend now.

     
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Total Posts: 724

Joined 2004-03-09

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Nice tips on OpenTTD, I really need to fire it up again it’s been years!

Just visiting GOG I actually noticed a new city/building like game, Smart City Plan, anyone familiar with this? I like the art and the video looks interesting, but no reviews or anything yet.
https://www.gog.com/game/smart_city_plan

     
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Total Posts: 16

Joined 2003-09-12

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I actually played the hell out of theme hospital and dungeon keeper 1 and 2 back in the day. I owned them all in the boxes. Lost now sadly!

I instead gave tropico 6 a go on Steam, it was midly fun going through the initial play throughs but I got tired quick..my attention span for certain games has grown thin nowadays.

I have also done sometime back the scumvv or emulator for theme park and it was still really fun, even with the bugs years on.

     

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