Introduction

Amusement Park 4000 is a game of strategy for the 16/48/128k Spectrum.

Starting with an empty patch of land and 1000 currency units in the bank, it is your task to build an amusement park which will make you rich!

To begin with you will need to construct your park, which involves building the rides and the paths to connect them.

Move the cursor around the screen with keys QAOP. To build a path you need first to select a paving slab with key 1, move to the area where you wish to place it, then press M. The M key places or removes paths, and places any scenery and rides you have selected. You may remove and redraw paths, but rides and scenery cannot be removed once in position. Each block of path will cost you 1 currency unit.

Placing a ride in your park is easy. Press 4 to bring up the rides menu. Initially you begin with 3 different rides to choose from, but this list will grow should you invest enough money in Research and Development - more on this later. Choose your first ride with keys A-C and you will return to the main screen. Move the ride around until you are happy with its position, then press M to place it at that point. Once the ride is in position the cost of the ride will be deducted from your bank balance. The price and capacity of each ride is displayed on the selection screen.

Once you have your first ride in place you may notice some little people appearing on the road at the bottom of the screen - they've heard about your new park and want to experience it for themselves, so you'll have to hurry and make sure your they can reach the ride via the paths.

The way you connect your ride to the paths is a little tricky. You need entrance and exit pathways, positioned either directly above or below the ride; they may not be positioned to the side. Entrances are unique in that you need a special type of path, or queuing area, so that the people have somewhere to stand while awaiting their turn. You can select this path with the 2 key. This path is yellow, distinguishing it from normal paving which is white. Here are two examples of rides which are properly connected (this is best viewed with a monospaced font):

                        W
                 WWWWWWWW
                 Y W              * = ride (always 3 squares x 3 squares)
    ***          ***              Y = yellow queuing area
    ***          ***              W = white pathway
    ***          ***
    W Y
    WWWWWWWWW
         W

So now your first ride is connected. Providing you haven't set your ticket price too high, your first customers will start to enter the park and start queuing for the ride. When enough people have entered the ride the fun will begin and the ride will flash, indicating that it is in progress. This will take several seconds, after which the ride will finish and your customers will emerge from the ride on the white pathway to which you connected it earlier.

An amusement park with just one ride is a little boring however, so you will need to add more rides. As you do this your park rating will increase and the people will be prepared to pay more to enter. However, it is not just rides which will improve your rating, you can also add scenery to beautify your park. You do this by selecting the scenery menu with the 5 key, and selecting from the menu in the same way you select the rides. To begin with only trees are available, but by ploughing money into research and development you can improve this.

Budget

Your money is displayed in the bottom left of the main screen, along with the current month and year. For a more detailed view of your financial situation you can bring up the budget screen using the 6 key. In this screen you can adjust the ticket price using keys Q and W, select how much you spend each month on Research and Development with A and S, and how much you wish to spend on advertising using Z and X. You may also take out or repay a loan using keys O and P. Loan interest is charged at the rate of 8 currency units per month.

Ticket Prices

Don't set these too high! The path at the bottom of your screen is located outside your park, and just because lots of people are walking along it doesn't mean they are going to pay the entrance fee - they've seen your advertisements and want to see your park, but if your ticket price is too high they'll just walk straight past. You need to improve your park rating before you put your prices up - trial and error will establish the best setting for each park.

Research and Development

If you really want the best park you need to invest in Research and Development. This will give you more rides to choose from, extra scenery and improvements to existing rides. The money you allocate will only go to R&D if you have the funds. If you run out of money for R&D these payments are automatically suspended.

Advertising

Increasing this will mean that more people hear about your park and come to see it, so balance this with your ticket price and you should be in the money! If you run out of cash your advertising budget is suspended.

Loans

If you're short on cash you can take out a loan of 1000 currency units. Interest is charged monthly, so it is advisable to repay this as soon as you are able. Unlike advertising and R&D, if you run out of money to repay the loan the bank won't suspend your payments and you are declared bankrupt. This is the only way in which you can lose the game, so be warned!

End of Year

Notice the date at the bottom of the screen. You will see the months pass as you contruct your park and the people wander around enjoying the rides. At the end of each year you are presented with a summary screen showing the number of rides, visitors, your park rating and bank balance. Press ENTER to start the next year.

Behaviour Of The Little People

Not very realistic I'm afraid, as they all tend to behave themselves!

Occasionally they wander out of the park, then back in again. Your park has a special system whereby they don't have to pay to get back in again.

If you haven't built an exit path from a ride the chances are they'll get dumped on the grass - this can also happen if you remove a path upon which someone is already standing. In these circumstances the people are far too polite to walk on the grass, and stay put until you build a path for them. One other interesting feature I left in involves their reaction to scenery, as anything which isn't a path or grass is regarded as a ride. If you place a queuing area directly above or below a tree, people will queue up thinking it's a ride. Obviously it isn't, so they stand there queuing for the remainder of the year!

Main Editor Controls

O - Cursor left, P - Cursor right, Q - Cursor up, A - Cursor down
M - Place/Remove item

1 - Select pathway
2 - Select queuing area
3 - Deselect (delete mode)
4 - Select rides menu
5 - Select scenery menu
6 - Budget screen

Game Credits

(c) 2003 Jonathan Cauldwell.
An entry for the 2003 Minigame Competition, 4k category.

Project started 18.07.2003 @ 22:00.
Project completed 22.07.2003 @ 15:00

Compile length: 4070 bytes.