The critical and commercial success of Theme Park will be the basis for the next Bullfrog title in the “Theme” series. It is fair to say that the English developer will have something more up their sleeves on that front… TAKE US TO THE HOSPITAL As this is a Bullfrog game, there’s several touches of insane humour, especially of the black variety: torturing visitors is something that the game allows us to do without consequences. Their opinions are useful to adjust the entry tickets’ price, number of toilets and tinker with other park features. It is possible to also have our very own TripAdvisor/Yelp experience by checking each visitors’ thoughts on the park. Looking to sell more sodas? Just put more salt in the fries! Just avoid going overboard otherwise visitors will stop buying them altogether. Each management decision has consequences, so that many of the kiosks’ in-depth features can easily be used to our advantage. Research department, then, becomes an essential feature, with scientists inventing ways to improve our park, along with exciting new rides. To keep the players’ interest beyond the first couple of hours, Bullfrog decided to keep some of the more wackier rides locked out. Luckily we won’t need an exorcist priest to get out of that. For added immersion, it is possible to try the rides ourselves in first person via, umm, “possession” of an innocent visitor.
#Theme hospital game engine full#
It will later be expanded upon, inspiring a full series of games which – perhaps – even outgrew the popularity of Bullfrog’s title, RollerCoaster Tycoon. Perhaps its most successful idea was letting the player design their own roller coaster tracks. Everything is laid out with a point and click interface, allowing immediate control of all the different aspects of running a business: building rides, kiosks and enrolling personnel to clean the park and keep the rides in good working conditions. Despite several features being cut at the last moment (like multiplayer), Theme Park, almost thirty years after, remains a solid management simulation, even in its gamepad-controlled console versions.ĭesignwise, it feels animated by a different philosophy from its predecessors in the management genre. The balance desperately sought after by Molyneux and his team was successfully achieved, since the game can be both a satisfying simulation and a relaxing “sandbox” experience. The game allows the player to have a relaxed experience or, alternatively, bear the burden of full business responsibilities. Theme Park’s Development took a year and a half, coming out in 1994 for PC, Amiga and 3DO, and it was quite a departure from the company’s previous serious strategy games like Popolous. For his next attempt, Molyneux was going to make sure it would be fun right out of the gates. The developer mentioned the lack of fun in the mechanics as the main problem with that first attempt. His very first title in the genre, The Entrepreneur, a text-only business simulation, ended up being a huge disappointment with reportedly, only two copies sold. What about the United Kingdom? Peter Molyneux, head of Bullfrog, despite having experience in the business simulation genre, was lacking an audience.
#Theme hospital game engine tv#
The “new” control scheme was a key in controlling many of the genre’s hits, like Germany which had cult classic TV management simulation Mad TV and soccer management series On The Ball. It might have had something to do with Amiga being one very successul gaming platform, one of the first commercially successful home computers to feature a mouse.
In early 90s Europe, the management simulations proved to be quite a popular genre.
WE BUILT THIS PARK: FROM ENTEPRENEUR TO THEME PARK Let us take a look at their greatest achievements: Bullfrog’s Theme Park and Hospital. Leave it, then, to English developer Bullfrog to transform both of these experiences in some of the most entertaining simulations ever developed. But what about running a hospital? That’d be pure masochism.
Is there something more fun than freely trying all the rides and the greasy food? Sure, but then who’s cleaning up visitors’ bodily fluids and scolding the employees? Okay, point taken.
Everyone has fantasized, at least once, about running a theme park.
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