Park Beyond: The design philosophy behind the crazy ferries and the giant octopus of limbic

In Gijón is celebrated every year a pretty liar party called Black Week . It was originally created as a literary festival focused on the black novel, but anyone with a minimum relationship with the village of Jovellanos knows that, besides the literary part that continues to exist as a vestige of those origins, there are three fundamental pillars quite far from the books: The positions based on eating, the positions based on mojitos / Gin Tonics and the attractions between which a huge ferris wheel. **

I am a fan of the first two things, but not so much about the third, since it gives me a lot of respect to upload to an array of such proportions. For that reason, when we were gathered to the means for an announcement that ended up being an amusement parks management game , I will not say I was sad, but I quickly approached the feeling that very good has to be this so that I like it . And it turns out that, after being able to know Park Beyond and the team behind the project, I have sold it despite my respect for attractions .

of Tropico 6 parents

Park Beyond is an amusement parks management video game performed by limbic entertainment , responsible for the republic simulator Tropico and Strategy Saga MIGHT * & Magic: Heroes *. With these mimbres, the team led by CEO Stephan Winter and the creative director Johannes Reithmann has given birth to a game as faithful to the genre troops of management, as crazy and imaginative in his development and proposal.

A couple of decades ago, Theme Hospital, Sim City and all these group titles soon called as Tycoon, were very novel games and tremendously breaking. However, in these years we have lived a gender boom that has created a great competition within it. During the presentation, we were all expectantly waiting for a necessary turn in the proposal ... and everything is summarized in a concept called imposition , which talks about making possible the impossible and encourage our imagination.

Park Beyond will be launched next year 2022 for PC and new generation consoles, will be published by bandai NAMCO and will have voices and texts in Spanish, as well as many other languages. From this concept, the conception of the video game, the inspirations and much more I could talk for half an hour with Stephan Winter and Johannes reithmann . This is all we have told us to MGG.

How Nace Park Beyond is born?

The first question is obvious: what leads to this study to immerse yourself in a world like the management of amusement parks? The answer of Stephan Winter tells us about his birth : _ We were at the end of the development of Tropic 6, we had 3 years doing a City Builder, but after 3 years, making another City Builder did not sound good. We wanted something different . In internal meetings we realized that many of us were fans of the amusement parks in real life, they even travel to them on their vacations. We could benefit from our experience in management, but it felt different. _

It is important to emphasize that Limbic has devoted himself to city managers with tropics and strategy with Might & Magic Heroes. Although they had already told us that they could take advantage of that knowledge in the management part, I wanted to turn around the question and ask for What we will see from their previous games in Park Beyond : _ In our study we love developing games Complexes, or rather games with some depth and those who can spend a lot of time. We just have many people here in Limbic who enjoys this type of game. This is something in Park Beyond, of course at the content and opportunities level That you can take as a player is huge. There is a very hard drive on management level if you go for it, it is something that we enjoy. _

Remains reminiscence there, although there is a key learning of tropic 6 that is applied in this new game: _other thing you can expect, and that is one that we learned with tropics 6 and that is The most simulation part. In Park Beyond we are talking about thousands of visitors, who have their own needs, energy, money, things that they like, that they do not like ... and all this is simulated during the game, and a part over The one we learned a lot in tropics 6. It is easy to make a prototype for 15 visitors, it has no loss, but if there are 5000 people walking through your park, we have something very different between hands. _

Games like the tropic or the great cities Skylines , as well as the most concrete Jurassic Park: Evolution or Roller Coaster Tyconn have armed this second advent of management and simulation games. We asked developers about their opinion on why this recent explosion and this is what Winter _: Number one: are games without stress, you can play at your own pause, you can pause. Number two: compared to the old games , The Tycoon, now we have a part of creation and you can share your creations. The third and last I think it is a production issue, right now you can do huge things, with thousands of visitors, hundreds of attractions ... and before it was not viable. _

Imposing to power

Park Beyond is cimped on a basic idea, imposition . The study wanted to give a twist the parks management video game and make us the visionary engineer capable of doing attractions never before seen so far. Reithmann comments How it influences the gameplay and how it is related to the rest of the systems : _ we have this concept of the Impossification as a central theme, but it is also something that has to be shown in aspects such as the economy, can not Be only better and craziest attractions. You must have a clear impact on the gameplay. To do this, we have added a new resource. In this type of game you always have a basic resource that is money, with which you believe attractions, keep the Park and manage the experience of your visitors. _

You must interact with the rest of the systems, but do not occupy the space of the other attractions. They get it with a new resource different from the traditional money : _ For the imposition we wanted a second resource and we have called it Amusement . Basically, everything that taxes will generate, will generate amusement for visitors. This resource is very important because it is the one you will use for your investigations, with which you will carry out more impossible ideas.

We are the visionary architect

But so that all this lace, has to have an idea of ​​design that justifies it, and also generate a new strategic layer: _ The idea is that you, as a visionary, you inspire for people having fun and astonishing themselves. And this is Something with what you follow your research. At playable level, add a new layer to making decisions, because it is not always interesting to tax an attraction. A giant ferris wheel with a lot of height and different wheels, spends many maintenance resources. In fact, You can get to lose money, but get amusement. It is a balance that you will have to manage. _

Rinse the subject of the imposition and how it works, it is time to talk about another balance that this system should have. In the presentation they were very clear about how they wanted this overflow of creativity and imagination, it did not clash with a certain degree of realism. It is true that these attractions do not exist as such, but they do want to reach a rational point .

This is what Winter tells us: _ This is something that was very important since the principle of development, since the pre-production phase, because when we discuss what we wanted to do ... there is a very fine line from which things start To be magic. In nothing you can start talking about teleport, as in Star Trek. This was something we did not want. We did not want to introduce magic. We wanted to do things that could be possible in X years, that if Elon Musk puts all Its resources in a ferris wheel, may be similar. _

an ambitious campaign

But let's talk about that jewel of the crown that is the campaign mode, which encapsulates all the design philosophy of the Limbic video game. According to Reithmann, it is a story that will go to 30 hours, but that you can go to many more if you draw attention to the rejugability that the game's approach puts us on the table. It is not that we have huge ramifications of history, but Yes we can address the challenges from different points of view .

A key decision is to decide what kind of audience we want in our park , as it tells us: _ The player is the visionary architect, how are we going to tell him what to do on a mission? We have given him The return to the situation. You are the one who has to give solutions and how to make a large park. That's why we come to the idea of ​​meetings. An example is to decide if we want to make a park that you like the young people, to the adults or that is for the whole family. _

To give us an example of what this decision can involve, it gives us an example with the Youth Archetype of Parks: _ Perhaps young people want a Russian mountain with 10 loopings, and that needs such a number of money and some research. You may have to have it Being a few months saving to make this investment. But perhaps someone different wants to make a families park, and will approach the missions differently. And all these visions will be fine. _

the Teter that changed the way of thinking of the study

During that presentation to media, Winter insisted on the importance of players in the development and loop of feedback from very early in development. This matter intrigued me and I was able to ask him during that session after him and the creative director of him. When have the testing players entered into development and what great ideas have contributed to the video game?

_ There was a person who did the only thing he did for 3 hours was to decorate the entrance of the park. He did not put a store, he did not put a way even ... or put an attraction. He focused on the entrance and did not stop adding all the available assets , creating a great mix ... a huge entrance area _, Iteen tells me before telling what they did about it: _ We talked with that boy and we asked him how we could make the game better for him. And obviously I had ideas like that for doing such a thing We need many clicks, the UX does not work well if you do this ... we can say that it did not play the game, but it was very helped us to improve this concrete part of the game. _

In summary, we are facing an heir video game of a Titan of the Genre of Management as is tropic, but that seeks to twist the rules thanks to the imagination, but without breaking the natural laws. The last thing I expected was that, after confessing that I have never gone to an amusement park and that I am a fearful of the ferris wheels, one of them confess that He is not a big fan of the amusement parks in real life, But that he had begun to love them thanks to this development and the passion of his companions. Maybe I will continue without riding in the black week's ferris wheel, but the game sure I give you an opportunity after this talk.