If it wasn’t for Park Beyond’s “impossification” gimmick – with its ludicrous, physics-defying rides – you’d probably be hard pushed to tell it apart from any number of other theme park management games based on its trailers so far. As a die-hard management sim fan, though, I couldn’t resist the recent opportunity to take Tropico developer Limbic Entertainment’s latest project for a spin to see what, if anything, it might be able to bring to the familiar theme park genre.
Park Beyond’s big marquee addition is, of course, the aforementioned “impossification”, a twist that wrenches the usually grounded theme park management genre a little out of reality to create a world where technology and physics are no longer limitations. The result is a game where players can build impossible, gravity defying rides, bringing Till Nowak’s wonderful short The Centrifuge Brain Project to mind. Based on an early build given to press ahead of Gamescom, though, Park Beyond’s impossification gimmick is, perhaps not unsurprisingly, a fun if rather inessential addition to the theme park management genre.
Rides, shops, and even employees can be ‘impossified’ by building a park sufficiently capable of wowing visitors and generating Amazement. Amazement can then be spent at certain thresholds to make increasingly reality defying upgrades – a classic pirate ship swing ride might suddenly gain the ability to split in three, each section whirling in loops independently of the other, while an octopus-themed attraction might come alive, its tentacles hoisting up ride cars and plunging visitors into watery depths for additional thrills.
Aesthetically, it’s fantastic, lending an air of absurdist wonder to proceedings, but, in real terms, all that appears to means for your park is that rides get a bit of a stat boost with each new impossification upgrade, becoming a little more exciting, generating a little more money, becoming more costly in upkeep, and so on. It’s the same for rollercoasters, which, in the press build, could be impossified with the likes of ramps and cannons, blasting cars into the air to traverse lakes, buildings, and more. Here, impossification does demand a little more thought – sharp turns after an airborne landing are a big no-no, for instance – but, aside from a pleasing dollop of whimsy, it’s hard to really see what meaningful substance impossification might bring.