Thrillville
We go hands-on, and... oh crap, where to begin?
Published: October 26, 2006
LucasArts has, for a few years now, demonstrated an ability to see when they may not be able to do something internally and tap the skills and experience of those who have. For us, it was a change that happened right around the time they hooked up with then-independent developer Rainbow Studios for Star Wars: Racer Revenge, a remake of the fairly blah Star Wars Episode I: Racer.
Since then, they've allowed other developers to touch what was largely sacred Star Wars properties; Raven Software worked on Jedi Knight II, Traveller's Tales on LEGO Star Wars, Pandemic on Star Wars: Battlefront, and nearly universally the game have gone on to critical and consumer praise. It's a keen sort of intuition that allows a company to place their most valued properties in the hands of a developer that won't completely screw it up, and thus far, LucasArts has done a fantastic job.
They've also started moving towards picking up completely independent properties, at times stepping in to offer advice or tools, but when it came to replicating the process of building an entire theme park, you can't get much more experienced than the guys at UK-based Frontier Developments, the very same folks that faithfully transitioned Chris Sawyer's RollerCoaster Tycoon series into 3D. But as we discovered when we sat down recently with a near-finished version of the game, Thrilleville is much, much more than a coaster sim. It has all that, but... well, we'll get into that now.
Your uncle Mortimer is insane, dude. No, seriously, he's a nutjob, but he's a smart nutjob -- one o' them mad scientists -- and he freely admits it. He also wants you to take over managing and growing his collection of theme parks all headed up under the name Thrillville. Though it may seem like a lot of work, you'll be able to ride every single attraction in the park, train the employees by doing what they do for them, and all the while get to manage exactly where things are placed, how many of them there are, and how much everything costs.
This is the basic premise of what was initially one of the most daunting early builds we've ever gotten. It wasn't that the game is completely unwieldy -- it's aimed at both young and old gamers alike -- it's just that there's a ton take in. The game is sandbox-ish, but not without some basic ground rules, and as we first walked into the park, a very LucasArts-friendly space-themed set of coasters and attractions, we were greated by an octet of colored columns of light that went over everything from employee hiring, training and firing to building rides (and of course "testing" them to managing visitor interest and getting friendly enough with them that they could go around flirting with other teens to managing all the finances.
Even after every section and the accompanying mini-game that helped hammer home the ideas, we were still a little overwhelmed, but if given the basics; cheerleaders to pump up the crowd, technicians to keep the rides operational and groundskeepers to clean up all the puke and garbage, and all of them with training, the park can more or less run itself for a few hours, which is precisely what we let it do as we run around experimenting with the different options.
Building attractions is broken down into a series of simple menus. Everything in the park requires energy to run, so there's a limit to the number of mega-rides you can install at one time, but that and the pre-selected build locations are all that's stopping you from going nuts. There are of course set pieces like rocks or ships or tanks that help add to the park ambience, but if you're just got to put that mega trampoline in there, the rocks will automatically be swapped out. Before you've placed everything (in the case of coasters, they really only have one spot, and anything under them will be removed automatically), the shoulder buttons allow you to rotate things and the left analog stick smoothly moves the around and once you've placed and object, you can still resituate things, but it only take a few seconds before parkgoers notice something new and start to line up.
Since then, they've allowed other developers to touch what was largely sacred Star Wars properties; Raven Software worked on Jedi Knight II, Traveller's Tales on LEGO Star Wars, Pandemic on Star Wars: Battlefront, and nearly universally the game have gone on to critical and consumer praise. It's a keen sort of intuition that allows a company to place their most valued properties in the hands of a developer that won't completely screw it up, and thus far, LucasArts has done a fantastic job.
They've also started moving towards picking up completely independent properties, at times stepping in to offer advice or tools, but when it came to replicating the process of building an entire theme park, you can't get much more experienced than the guys at UK-based Frontier Developments, the very same folks that faithfully transitioned Chris Sawyer's RollerCoaster Tycoon series into 3D. But as we discovered when we sat down recently with a near-finished version of the game, Thrilleville is much, much more than a coaster sim. It has all that, but... well, we'll get into that now.
Your uncle Mortimer is insane, dude. No, seriously, he's a nutjob, but he's a smart nutjob -- one o' them mad scientists -- and he freely admits it. He also wants you to take over managing and growing his collection of theme parks all headed up under the name Thrillville. Though it may seem like a lot of work, you'll be able to ride every single attraction in the park, train the employees by doing what they do for them, and all the while get to manage exactly where things are placed, how many of them there are, and how much everything costs.
This is the basic premise of what was initially one of the most daunting early builds we've ever gotten. It wasn't that the game is completely unwieldy -- it's aimed at both young and old gamers alike -- it's just that there's a ton take in. The game is sandbox-ish, but not without some basic ground rules, and as we first walked into the park, a very LucasArts-friendly space-themed set of coasters and attractions, we were greated by an octet of colored columns of light that went over everything from employee hiring, training and firing to building rides (and of course "testing" them to managing visitor interest and getting friendly enough with them that they could go around flirting with other teens to managing all the finances.
Even after every section and the accompanying mini-game that helped hammer home the ideas, we were still a little overwhelmed, but if given the basics; cheerleaders to pump up the crowd, technicians to keep the rides operational and groundskeepers to clean up all the puke and garbage, and all of them with training, the park can more or less run itself for a few hours, which is precisely what we let it do as we run around experimenting with the different options.
Building attractions is broken down into a series of simple menus. Everything in the park requires energy to run, so there's a limit to the number of mega-rides you can install at one time, but that and the pre-selected build locations are all that's stopping you from going nuts. There are of course set pieces like rocks or ships or tanks that help add to the park ambience, but if you're just got to put that mega trampoline in there, the rocks will automatically be swapped out. Before you've placed everything (in the case of coasters, they really only have one spot, and anything under them will be removed automatically), the shoulder buttons allow you to rotate things and the left analog stick smoothly moves the around and once you've placed and object, you can still resituate things, but it only take a few seconds before parkgoers notice something new and start to line up.
