In Planet Coaster, you design, build, and run a theme park. You can build all sorts of rides and get to ride them, while managing employees and shops, security, and park cleaning. It was wonderful to design my own park and walk thru it as a guest. Riding a rollercoaster I designed was also thrilling! There’s a huge amount of options for customization and micromanaging, if that’s what turns your crank. You can analyze your guests’ demographics and run marketing campaigns targeting specific groups, review which rides and shops are most profitable, research new rides, train staff. I really enjoyed building and managing my park.

 

I combined Planet Coaster with an online course taught by Steve Alcorn, who runs a theme park design firm. The course covers: how artists and engineers create theme parks, how theme parks are built and run, which theme parks have the largest attendance in the world. 

 

I learned a lot about theme parks from both the game and the online course, which complemented each other!

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If you know of other great ways to learn with this game, contact me.