Game: Steam Park Players: 2- 4 Publisher: Horrible Games Age: 8+ Time: 45 minutes Replayability: 9/10

Steam Park the Best Translation to Analog Tycooning

I have to say I went into playing Steam Park blind and was completely caught off guard by how engaging this game is. I grew up on Roller Coaster Tycoon. I spent years growing and developing my park to perfection, tactically placing my rides and shops in order to attract and maintain my customers. I beat every level with perfect completion and even began engaging in my very own goals such as: winning with the smallest park I could build, winning with no roller coasters, winning with a free rides. I Could not get enough of the experience of Roller Coaster Tycoon that this interest bled into other business oriented/tycoon games. I carried Game Dev on my phone and build massive cities in Sim City 3000. As time passed by and I grew up my most beloved video games took a turn for the worse. The games I grew up on conformed to the culture industry masking the thrill with micro transactions and missing the point of what their fans want. Cluelessness is an understatement for these developers but I digress.

Steam Park has restored my appreciation and love for Tycoon games. With 3D cardboard cutouts of rides themed in steam punk subculture décor. I was able to relive my glory years (of being the best theme park manager) vicariously through this board game. The dystopia-esque artwork by Marie Cardouat can not go unnoticed as it didn’t with Dixit or (soon to be) …and Then we Held Hands. Horrible Games and Iello Games has delivered a marvel in both game play and experience (Just as long as you are over 52″). I could go on about the art direction and how I enjoyed what direction they took, but I’d take away from the game play. I love how i seemed to be able to mimic the time barriers video games have the edge with. Each ride in Roller Coaster Tycoon took time to construct (which was really your games time cycle continuing as you build); Steam Park is able to translate this into dice rolls and action points. As you build, the more visitors you’ll be attracting to your park. Like Roller Coaster Tycoon, these visitors have ride preferences. The translation of attracting visitors depends on what you draw from a bag. Correlating meeple color to ride color creates the illusion of visitors entering or leaving our park based on their interests. I also enjoyed that we too need to clean our park through dice rolls, because even though this is just a game–people make messes. Below I will describe setup and game play.

Final Thoughts

The game has a bit of a setup but is easily taught and played. Begin by separating by color all the rides and hand each player a starting ground tile, a pig, and 6 die. Begin by simultaneously rolling your die and laying on the pig the dice rolls you are happy with–do this in a quick fashion as the first one done will have the 1st turn card. The dice will provide you the resources to either build, clean, draw a bonus card, or construct more land. Each purchase of a ride or stall must be placed on your ground tile and can the rides or stalls can only touch if they come from the same set. The game ends after 6 rounds. Count your money and declare the winner as whoever has the most of it.

Buy this if you don’t own it.