Your Theme Park: Construction and World Travel
Build and manage a bustling theme park while traveling the world to solve intriguing puzzles in Your Theme Park.
There was a time when I was entirely into theme parks. Growing up, we took family trips and I have many fond memories. So when I spotted Your Theme Park, it was time to relive those exciting years! These sorts of interactive books with tracking sheets have been a little bit of a hit-or-miss for me, but I was still eager to check this one out!
Game Overview
Game Name: Your Theme Park
Publication Year: 2019
Designer: Shuky
Artist: Gorobei
Publisher: Van Ryder Games
Solo Mode: Designed for Solo (Included in the Base Game)
Over the course of a year, a theme park takes shape with all sorts of rides and attractions to purchase and add. More land may be purchased, employees can be hired, and trips around the world may be taken. There’s a lot of tracking involved, but also plenty of fun puzzles to solve!
First Play
May 14, 2022
Complexity
1
Latest Play
May 14, 2022
Expansions
0
Setup Time
Almost None
Lifetime Plays
1
Play Time
1 Hour & 30 Minutes
High Score
N/A
Game Area
24" x 22"
Low Score
N/A
Construction Details
Pages and pages are dedicated to the various rides and attractions that may be built. Each has its own special requirements and benefits, plus a set number of squares.
Such a fun experience to plan some of these things! Yet costs seemed almost prohibitive, especially at the start.
I was quickly reminded of Your Town, which fell flat for me mostly for its excessive bookkeeping. This seemed to follow a similar path, only with a very different theme.
Still, I loved the opening artwork and story! It was time to start building and expanding my very own theme park.
Tools of the Trade
Initially, I was so very excited that I looked at using some other tools! I grabbed my trusty Staedtler wet-erase markers, but I had another idea in mind.
I picked up a bunch of magnetic, erasable boards at one point for organization. However, together with a bunch of magnet cubes and circles, I thought this could be neat!
The squares were a little tinier, although I grabbed some standard cubes to mark paths and other elements.
Unfortunately, this was a little too much work, as I’ll explain later on, yet I hope to use everything eventually.
Special Bonuses
Moreso than the theme park management was a bustling world to explore, plus bonus rewards to uncover.
Lots of pages showed off what I might find, often by completing an activity on a certain day. So many neat options, and not all of them had clear uses.
Oddly, a tracking sheet for these rewards isn’t included. It almost looks like it expects this to be a single-use book. A page listing these rewards with checkboxes would help!
As I settled in and began to plot out some of my first rides, I was struck by this open-world concept.
Back at the Office
Choices were abundant, with no set path early on. My biggest quip was the inclusion of multiplayer elements that took up a lot of the book, but weren’t usable.
Things like espionage and sabotage weren’t available to me, yet they seemed pretty confrontational for the theme.
Managing the park itself was interesting with all sorts of choices, including research to get ahead and build even better rides eventually. Knowledge is power!
Yet in the end, the map on the wall was what intrigued me the most… I could travel the world visiting other parks!
The Best Fountain
No need to point out how absolutely thrilled I was when I saw this! Almost all of the other theme parks came with plenty of puzzles, many of which boggled my mind.
There were interesting rewards, but it felt disjointed to want to explore rather than do much with my theme park.
Tracking days, money, income, expenses, and the map was tedious. I ended up switching over to visiting some of the other parks as part of this play, ignoring the rest.
I got more joy out of solving puzzles and seeing new sights than building up my park… Which might say something!
An Unclear Experience of Disconnected Ideas
There was a strange feeling of playing separate games as I progressed. My own theme park was extremely small, owing to the fact that I had almost no money. Yet spending it all would end the month early… Which felt like an odd choice. Although I had a lot of decisions, there wasn’t a lot going on to hold my interest in all of the bookkeeping and numbers.
Where it really shone was in the different theme parks I visited. There were plenty on the map, all with a certain cost to visit… But I ignored that for a few near the end just to see them! The puzzles were a lot more interesting, and some of them completely stumped me. I almost forgot I needed to head back home to track some more numbers.
Although solving these puzzles might have led to benefits for my park, the whole experience didn’t feel connected. I almost would have loved this to be more like a book of visiting tons of theme parks, collecting souvenirs, and solving puzzles along the way. That would have been awesome! Yet hoisting management duties on top of it was… Unsatisfying.
Maybe it comes down to realizing that it all does work together, and the problem is me. Ha ha! After all, my Rollercoaster Tycoon experience is extensive… With plenty of failed parks, lack of proper facilities, deadly crashes, lines for days, too many mascots, dead flowers, that maintenance guy who mowed the lawn in the forest… The list is endless!
Charming Artwork
I think part of the reason why I loved exploring so much came down to the illustrations. So much fun! And cute!
Every theme park I visited had its own sort of aesthetic, while different areas added pops of color. Why not a giant field of unicorns with a related puzzle?! Ha ha!
To make sure I didn’t spoil too much of the fun, I left the door open to return to explore again by leaving out over half of the theme parks. I’ll have to come back to visit.
Despite the disjointed approach and abandonment of my park’s management, I had a pretty great time!
Session Overview
Play Number: 1
Solo Mode: Designed for Solo (Included in the Base Game)
Outcome: Complete
Maybe I could have looked at some of the scoring, but I enjoyed just puzzling through without any bookkeeping. I suppose I made it my own to enjoy it more. So many theme parks, and I didn’t even visit half of them! I doubt if I’ll ever dive into the theme park construction and management elements again, yet the challenging puzzles are still calling to me. Definitely hope to return to explore some more and see what else might be out there!
%
1 Play
Affordability
Price & Value
7
Functionality
Challenges & Mechanics
6
Originality
Design & Theme
8
Quality
Components & Rules
6
Reusability
Achievement & Enjoyment
8
Variability
Distinctness & Randomness
2
+ Pros (Positives)
- All of the artwork is bright and fun, with puzzles and hidden elements to find sprinkled throughout.
- Each theme park around the world has its own distinct style, yet can also have unexpected mysteries to solve.
- The play area is very compact and the majority of the gameplay takes place within the book itself.
- Solving puzzles is quite fun and satisfying, especially since many of them are very difficult and not obvious.
- It’s very easy to pause and return to the game by simply marking off progress and bookmarking the current page.
- There is a lot of content packed into the pages and panels, with a lot of small storylines to follow along with.
– Cons (Negatives)
- There is a major disconnect between all of the bookkeeping and management vs. traveling to other parks.
- Not enough tracking sheets are included to note all of the important elements, such as collected rewards.
- Some of the rules for running a theme park seem a little convoluted and take more effort than solving a puzzle.
- Multiplayer sabotage is a way to play with multiple books, yet this is an odd spot to focus a lot of content on.
Victory Conditions
None (No Victories nor Losses)
- Overall Goal Progress 30%
Goals and Milestones
Visit God Save the Park!
Visit Houlaland.
Visit Park India.
Visit America Park.
Visit Antarctic Land.
Visit Feria Fiesta.
Visit HaHa Russia.
Visit Jungle Town.
Visit Polish Fun.
Visit Yatta Paradise.
Continue the Conversation
What do you think of Your Theme Park? Have you played anything like it? I give it credit for doing some very unique things, but I imagine I’ll be back for all of the puzzles. There was enough suffering in the late 90s with my attempts at building a theme park. Ha ha! This was another interesting experience, and I’m glad I got to enjoy the cheerful artwork!
That “Back At the Office” illustration is very much a videogame style “we prettied up the menu screen”, isn’t it? A third-party checklist seems like the sort of thing someone might upload to BGG files…
It does feel like that! And I see that hint… Maybe if I play again to visit the parks and collect more things, I’ll make a simple checklist to share. Or maybe it’s already out there and I just need to look for it!