Park Beyond PC Preview

Limbic Entertainment has had a hand just about everywhere, though they are still guided by Bandai Namco. From their home base in Langen, Germany, they started off small, but they expanded and diversified quite heavily. However, the developers at Limbic Entertainment have officially raised the bar by creating a game that’s reminiscent of the old Roller Coaster Tycoon games, but they made it so much better while giving players unparalleled freedom to build. The game in question is Park Beyond, a Theme Park Management Sim that aims to take the top spot for any enthusiast of the genre and anybody with a little creativity.

 

We got to try out the preview for Park Beyond, and while there were high expectations, they were definitely met and blown away. While the game comes off as overly friendly, it’s probably a good thing because Park Beyond can be a bit overwhelming at first. Luckily, the tutorial introduces you to the vast mechanics at a decent pace so you can take advantage of everything the game has to offer without missing anything.

You start off your epic adventure in Park Beyond in your room, doodling away at ideas for an amusement park. You’ll eventually fold a paper plane and launch it out the window, where it’ll be found by Blaize, your oddly hyperactive guide to the first part of Park Beyond. You’ll be tasked with building a very basic roller coaster to transport some goods from one end of the town to the other, but basic isn’t exactly basic… There’s a little chaos to spice things up, but it might as well be called basic when compared to what you’ll get later on.

With Part 1 of the tutorial done, you’ll get a taste of how integrative the game is and how much creative freedom you get in the next part. To continue with the introduction, you get to meet Phil, the wild and very spirited owner of the company, that you need to help build theme parks in the hopes of saving them financially. So, you get to pick the theme for your first theme park and you’re given a very quick rundown of how bad the finances are for this project. It’s still part of the tutorial, so there’s not much to worry about… Yet

 

This is where things get hairy, you’ll be slowly introduced to the nearly endless mechanics and things you need to check, like fads, visitor happiness, interests, thoughts, and so much more. Lucky for you, the developers thought of everything to make sure it all ties in so you won’t miss a thing. Aside from building a theme park with entertaining attractions, your main objective is to ensure your park is clean, can turn a profit, and that your visitors are happy.

To start simple, you’ll have mountains of options to choose from for rides and attractions, but you’ll have to make sure it appeals to your target crowd – Adults, Families and Teens. After all, if you’re targeting Teens but building rides that appeal to adults, things will spiral very quickly, and your park will flatline. The next thing to be mindful of is your theme, you can place a multitude of decorations, but they have to match your theme as well. Luckily, the build menu is quite detailed and everything has tags. This simplifies the build process for those who don’t want to spend too much time just decorating.

On the matter of decorating, comfort, and cleanliness play a huge role in your park rating. Benches and trash cans are a must-have, they don’t take up much space, and they boost your rating nicely, it’s best to not be lazy with that aspect. Benches are absolutely necessary, but there are ways to make the cleaning side easier, and this is where staff come in handy. You’ll get janitorial staff you can hire in droves, however, you can also hire entertainers who will help bring visitors to your park. You’ll have to strike a balance between what you want and what you need since your staff still need to be paid.

 

You’re almost at the best part, just a little bit more to do. Another important aspect is to build food and refreshment buildings, visitors need to eat and drink if you want them to stay. This has a unique feature though, fads. The all too baffling trends that people tend to follow for the next big thing, you’ll need to keep an eye on what your visitors want and make it available for them to buy because it boosts their happiness and your park rating. The developers at Limbic Entertainment really did think of everything with this game, even more so when it comes to the Visitor Thoughts mechanic.

Sometimes being a mind reader can make all the difference you’d ever need, and you can do just that with every attraction, ride and building you place in Park Beyond. You’ll get to see just what your visitors think, positive, negative and neutral, it’ll be up to you to adjust prices and make certain things available for them to keep them happy.

You won’t be expected to go to every building to check everyone’s thoughts, you’re also given the oh so convenient Heat Map. With its myriad of filters ranging from visitor happiness to profit, it’ll give you a fairly good idea of what needs tweaking in your theme park, and it is a godsend when your park starts reaching bigger sizes. You’ll be given so many different tools to help your theme park thrive, it’s almost overwhelming. The keyword being – Almost.

 

What makes Park Beyond shine is also its biggest selling point, the roller coaster creation. You can just use prefabs if you want something quick and easy, or you can let your creativity run absolutely wild with building one from scratch. From loops to twists, going off the rail, or even shooting the cars over rivers using cannons, the sky is the limit with the creative freedom of roller coaster creation. However, the best part of creating a roller coaster that’ll leave your visitors feeling like they lost years of their lives is getting to take your newly built coaster for a first-person test ride. A little word of warning, it is not for the faint of heart, even less so if you can’t handle a little speed.

On a more fun note, if you just want to go wild and not have to worry about keeping visitors happy or turning a profit, Park Beyond also has a sandbox mode. As the name implies, there are no limits and no costs. You can experiment to your heart’s content and bring an interesting benefit into the story mode as well. As mentioned before, you can use prefabs for roller coaster creation, but you can also create your own to use in story mode. You can tweak your design to perfection in sandbox mode and get it to be just right, then test drive it on your visitors to share the thrills with them.

Park Beyond might not very detailed from up high when you’re building your theme park, but the game becomes a lot more detailed when you zoom in or test drive your rides in first-person mode. With all the many different themes you can explore, you’ll also see that everything is also unique to its theme instead of looking generic or recycled. When compared to its counterparts, Park Beyond when above and beyond just on the visual side.

 

With a game like this, you’d expect repetitive music and recycled audio clips, but Park Beyond doesn’t do anything like that. The background music is actually relaxed and inviting, and it just fades into the background as you start building. However, it does help build a good atmosphere at first when you’re starting out. You’ll notice the same thing with the noises from the rides and your visitors, it’s not overbearing and instead balances out nicely.

Park Beyond might not be fully released yet, but based on what we saw, this game is going to be absolutely massive. Everything from the well-balanced mechanics to the building aspects, Park Beyond is looking to be a hit for any player, along with a good creative outlet for anybody who needs it. 

Jay Claassen
Editor, NoobFeed