While I may not be a fan of rollercoasters, my love of management games extends even to theme park settings. But Park Beyond is more than just a regular theme park management simulator. It’s a theme park sim that lets players defy the laws of physics and safety. Park Beyond unapologetically embraces the absurd, making for an incredibly entertaining experience. With a fun gimmick and meaty management features, the game is ticking all the right boxes.
What makes Limbic Entertainment’s game more of a ride than anything else, is Impossification. Impossification is a feature that lets you shoot coaster cars out of a giant cannon, make your cleaners take out the rubbish with flamethrowers, or even have a rollercoaster with tracks that split into three separate rides.
With this new Impossification gimmick, Park Beyond goes from being just about the same as every other theme park management simulator to being absolutely off the rails.
Going Beyond…
Starting off with an entertaining tutorial that straps you in long enough to give you the basics, Park Beyond wants you to do the thinking yourself; and knows you can do it, too. Despite the game’s child-like art and wonder, players are treated as capable theme park designers and architects, rather than being talked down to. The tutorial has a few cutscenes establishing the story, but really it’s just your character talking with the spirited and lively Blaize Megatronic.
Yes, that is her real name. She explains that she thinks you can make the best theme park out there, and she wants to be a part of it. Blaize introduces you to mentor, Phil Bailey and executive, Izzy Dillard. Once you start the actual campaign, you’ll also meet Sofia, the Impossification engineer, and a safety inspector named Alex. The five of them take the time to teach you how to make the most unhinged and absurd theme park you can dream of. If a story campaign isn’t your preference, the sandbox mode is perfect for creating a crazy theme park without limits… or cutscenes.
Despite all this absurdity, building a theme park is simple and the controls are fluid and intuitive. Flat rides, carousels and buildings can be placed with just a few clicks. Roller coasters are a little more complicated, but you can easily adjust the height, yaw (the direction the track is facing), roll and pitch of every track without too much planning and stress. While constructing different parts of your theme park, you have the option to Impossify almost anything.
Roller coasters, flat rides, shops and employees can all be Impossified to increase Amazement. Roller coasters can have ramps and cannons to shoot coaster carts (and their occupants) across rivers and ravines. Flat rides can feature slingshots to fling customers into the air or the ability to dunk them underwater. Shops can feature animatronics and big displays, while Impossifying staff will make it so they do their jobs with strange tools and in entertaining ways.
After outfitting your theme park with rides, shops and staff, you then need to manage them all to make a profit and ensure that the park is enjoyed by the guests. The management of the parks is actually the most detailed and entertaining thing about Park Beyond. Of course, you’ll be keeping an eye on the profitability of each ride and shop, as well as ensuring the staff are happy and well-paid, but this just scratches the surface.
As a park manager, you’ll need to be aware of social trends within the game. For example, if spiced hot chocolate becomes the new must-try drink of winter, you’ll want to increase the prices of that specific drink. Or if a new health superfood gains more attention, customers won’t buy as many burgers and hot dogs.
Customers also give detailed and varied feedback to help you make sure there are enough seats, bins and toilets, as well as fair prices of rides, food and park entrance fees. There’s even a heatmap to check things like overall profitability, customer satisfaction and staff needs. For a management sim, Limbic has gone above and beyond in creating an intricate system that isn’t daunting for newcomers to the genre, but meaty enough for veterans of management sim games to sink their teeth into.
As is typical of the management sim genre, the graphics in Park Beyond are fine. It’s not gorgeous, but there’s something oddly charming about the uncanny valley character designs and animations. As for the park rides, buildings and decorations, they’re quite intricate and they look realistic compared to the bare locations where your parks can be built.
Another win for Park Beyond is the clean-looking UI. Symbols are easily understood and the menus are easy to navigate. Nothing about this game is frustrating to do or use, which is really, really nice for a management sim.
Park Beyond really does go beyond when it comes to the Impossification gimmick. Combined with clean UI, intuitive controls and some of the most detailed management simulation I’ve ever seen, it looks like it’ll be joining the likes of Planet Coaster and the RollerCoaster Tycoon franchise in being a well-known name in the theme park sim sphere.
It’s silly and fun without being childish and I’m excited to see what the full game will bring to the world of management sims.
The Closed Beta Test will be held from May 9th to 19th on PC. Interested fans can register here: https://bnent.eu/BetaPB.
