User Guide
• If customers complain that the ride is not good value or that they can’t afford to go on it
(or won’t pay that much), consider lowering the price of admission.
• Plenty of riders, but you’re still not making a profit? Maybe you should raise the price.
• If a ride is very old and breaks down frequently, you should decrease the time between
inspections and consider demolishing it and building a new one.
• Perhaps the wait for a ride is too long. Check the way this ride operates (number of trains,
cars per train, wait times, and so on). Maximise the efficiency of the attraction, and the lines
will flow more smoothly. If that’s not the source of the trouble, you can also consider building
a longer queue and raising the price (so that there are less people in line).
• If the price of an older ride is very low, but still no one will patronise it, then the ride has
probably lost its novelty. Consider a marketing campaign–or demolition.
• A brand new ride has no customers, and none of the guests in the park has any thoughts
about it. What’s wrong? Chances are your visitors can’t find it or get to it. Check your system
of footpaths and make absolutely sure that the ride is accessible. Next, make sure that the
ride is open.
Need Money?
If you need extra money, you can often (not always–the bank has certain rules) increase the
amount of your loan. To do this:
Click the Finances button to
open the Finances window.
Your loan is listed at the bottom of the default display
(the first tab). Click the up arrow next to the amount
to borrow more, in increments of one thousand per click.
Some park managers are uncomfortable with the idea of being in debt to the bank. (Then there
are the monthly interest payments to consider) At any time when you have enough cash on hand,
you can pay off a portion of your loan. Follow the instructions above, but use the down-arrow
instead of the up-arrow. Whatever amount of the loan you pay off is deducted from your COH.
• The Cash report is second in line. This is a graph of your COH, minus the total amount of your
loan from the bank, over time. The current total is noted at the top. Unless your COH exceeds
the amount of your loan, this number is red to indicate that it is negative.
• The third tab calls up your Park Value graph. This is a somewhat elusive number, calculated
by expert assessors to reflect what the park is worth in terms of the value of the land and
equipment owned, the quality and profitability of the rides and the park as a whole, plus the
park’s overall public reputation, as determined by the Park Rating.
• Lastly, the Weekly Profit report graphs your financial history on a weekly basis. This is the
most volatile of all the statistics presented here, because each data point reflects such a short
time period. The important datum here is the Current Profit, listed at the top. If this is a
negative number, you’re losing money right now, and chances are good that you need to
change something.
Sources of Income
How you create and maintain a safe, attractive park in which the rides are popular and the
guests stay happy are subjects that are covered elsewhere. What we have not yet discussed,
except in asides and brief notes, is the method of making sure that each ride is profitable. First
of all, you need a way to get information on which of your attractions is making money, which
is not, and why.
To survey your park’s financial health on a ride-by-ride basis:
• Click on an attraction to open its associated Ride window.
In that window, select the Income and Costs
tab to see a breakdown of this particular
attraction’s financial status.
For a summary of all your rides and shops:
click the Rides Info button
(on the Toolbar).
• In the window that opens, use the small arrow button to open
the list of Ride Data options.
• Select Profit from the list
• Click the nearby Sort button. The least profitable attractions
fall to the bottom of the list.
Once you’ve identified the places where you need to make adjustments, you should use these
same techniques to find out what’s wrong and what sort of changes you need to effect. Check
on the popularity of each attraction, the level of guest satisfaction, and the thoughts of your
visitors about each problem ride.
Many, many things can go wrong, but the good news is that most of
the potential trouble spots are under your control in some way. Of
course, in the park business as in all aspects of life, there are no
guaranteed sure-win procedures. There are, however, a few reliable
general strategies.
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