Review: Thrillville
The masterminds behind the PC hit Rollercoaster Tycoon 3 attempt to bring that formula to the console with Thrillville. Unfortunately, they stumbled by crafting a game that's too simple for strategy gamers, and too convoluted for kids.
Not Your Father's Tycoon Game
PROTIP: Before getting into conversation with a guest, take note of their top issues. They may want to meet a friend, talk about rides, and more.
The concept behind Thrillville is appealing: take an amusement park simulation, marry it to a simple interface and wrap it around a deep management system. You start out by inheriting a theme park and your job is to maintain and improve it. You can build food stalls, games, and rides, including roller coasters which you can fully customize. You can also run around the park on foot and ride any attraction or play the games.
A huge obstacle of building/management games is making the management not feel like a chore. In Thrillville, not only do the individual tasks feel like chores, but navigating the menus is inconvenient and lacking in helpful text. When selecting a build mission, text describes the specific stall or ride you are supposed to build. Once you go further into the menus, there is nothing showing the item's name, so if you forget it, you have to go back several pages, find the tiny text within a paragraph, then go back to the build menu again. Sometimes, you select a build mission, and a window pops up telling you that you need to exit out of your current menu, then switch over to the separate build menu.
PROTIP: If a track doesn't connect from beginning to end, the coaster stays closed, wasting dollars and not earning more.
Why the mission doesn't take you directly to the build menu is baffling. At other times, a window pops up telling you that you may have already researched the item in question. Of course, you have to exit out and open the separate build menu, and lo and behold, the item is NOT researched yet! You have a mission that cannot be completed, but instead of it being grayed out, you have to find out by going through no less than five different windows. If you think this is irritating, think of how it would affect a young child.
Does vacuuming up garbage and washing vomit sound like fun? Well too bad, because you'll have to do it. And the mechanics simply involve pointing a reticle at the ground and holding a button. We are talking about an unavoidable mini "game." You also have to talk to park guests, going through dialogue trees featuring boring small talk and a lot of guessing because the topics are vague and often you'll have no idea whether your selection will provoke a good or bad response.
The best part of the game is building coasters, and luckily, this aspect is well-designed. Laying down different pieces is extremely intuitive and you can create exactly what you want quickly. There is also a handy track-assist feature that automatically fills in any gap at the end so you don't have to tediously line up the final pieces.
PROTIP: When you first start, get the broken rides working quickly and hire some more workers. You won't have much money, so don't worry about building anything expensive.
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