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Theme Park thread

Posted: Tue Oct 30, 2018 9:28 pm
by a31chris
Since there isn't one here, I'd like to start one.

I bought this game new in the box. had it for a few months never really touched it because I don't like micromanagement games. But I figured I would get into it give her a run. Quite a lot involved in it according to the manual.

So here is a YouTube link of an hour long video which may give us some gameplay insight...

https://youtu.be/tJo3sDOLJ8Y

Jaguar game by game podcast of Theme Park

https://atarijaguargamebygame.libsyn.co ... PWC9VmLbDQ

Theme Park strategies

I've gathered some from around the web..

- Turn time clock speed down to -20 when setting up park before opening. (Jag: press option-> 6 -> D-pad left-right to adjust game speed)

- Put a mascot at the park entrance and where long lines tend to form.

- On the Jag, avoid the monorail as it may cause crashes.

- Put large rides to the back of the park and small rides to the front.

- Avoid bathrooms, especially cheap ones, being near any of the fast rides. The smell and ride dizziness causes vomiting.

- No more juice on vats after maxed out. Game crashes(Jag)

- Some mascots make visitors thirsty or hungry for burgers... pay attention to icons above visitors.

Re: Theme Park thread

Posted: Wed Oct 31, 2018 9:51 pm
by a31chris
I have not got into playing this yet but watching the attract screens this engine seems to be a bit smoother than Syndicates. Though Theme Park may use Syndicate's engine I think they reworked some subroutines on their second go around.

When as much action happens in Syndicate like I'm seeing in Theme Park's attract screens it seems like Syndicate just slows to a crawl.

Re: Theme Park thread

Posted: Thu Nov 01, 2018 8:43 pm
by a31chris
I have been playing this a bit. Now according to some magazine reviews I read there were a couple things that I expected to happen that would be a large part of my Theme Park on the Jaguar experience.

1. Slowdown.
2. Graphical glitches

#2 has been a large part of why I have held off on buying this game. The reviewer made the game sound very broken.

Neither one of these things has happened yet at all. Slow down might happen later as even more stuff is crammed on the screen. But so far no evidence of any slowdown.

I will look online later and see if I can find some Jaguar Theme Park videos that show these problems that were talked about.. But so far this is a very impressive showing compared to Syndicate. This is not what I expected at all.

Re: Theme Park thread

Posted: Fri Nov 02, 2018 8:36 am
by a31chris
Someone's thoughts on YouTube
This game was almost impossible to make any decent money to go purchase other properties. Making the park large with multiple guests, MURDERED the frame rate. I could get these parks to crawl at like 1 frame every 2-3 seconds.

The reason for this is the AI controlled by the 68000. You could fill the park with rides, shops anything. The thing would never miss a beat, but the second you started getting a large number of people in your park. You might as well turn off the game.
Over use of the 68000, making people turn off games on their Jaguar since 1993.

Re: Theme Park thread

Posted: Mon Nov 05, 2018 5:23 am
by a31chris
I found one graphical glitch regarding the hedge maze. It acts squirrelly when you try to set it down.

Re: Theme Park thread

Posted: Fri Nov 09, 2018 1:54 am
by a31chris
Watching this recent video with this guy and his kids building a park was very relaxing and uplifting.

Also learned a few things.

1. Happiness of Park goers influenced by mascots.

2. Further research lowers prices of rides

https://youtu.be/aTz9PZHfzBw

Re: Theme Park thread

Posted: Sat Nov 10, 2018 7:38 pm
by a31chris
Playing in 4-5 year stretches in Sandbox mode. Everything set on easy with only 4 opponents. Still having trouble making a profit..

My basic strategy, Duck shoots at 95% chance to win. Cost of prize $50 less at least then the price to play. Use one ride of each of the mechanical high maintenance rides. Use the majority of low maintenance rides hedge mazes tree fort excetera.

I'm going to try reducing the chance to win a little bit on the duck shoot see if that helps.

Re: Theme Park thread

Posted: Tue Aug 11, 2020 8:45 am
by MegaData
Haven't played the Jaguar in a while. Thought I'd pop in here and say I played Theme Park yesterday and today. (9th and 10th of August) I thought there had been more stock trading in the game than there appears to be... not sure if I got the idea to play it because I've spent too much time lately on stock trading & need a break or if someone at work laughing at the idea of playing Atari just set me off. (An overheard conversation.) At any rate, I have paused my game at the moment. I just want to unlock all the various... extras.

I called the 1st park "MegaData's Merry Men."
The second incarnation was "Sweetness."
Not sure if the game is saving any of that.
Note to self: Nice to have a record here.

As an aside, this reminds me a lot of Populous for Sega Genesis. A search reveals that the title was also done by Bullfrog Productions for Electronic Arts. :D

Re: Theme Park thread

Posted: Fri Aug 14, 2020 5:23 am
by MegaData
My last park, "Metroblaster," gave me what I wanted, sort-of; I got all the vats(?) maxed out "--DONE--" but then I was curious what it would do if I pressed the multi-vat button, to give them more juice, after they are all maxed out -- that pretty much locked up everything! End of line. I figured it would do nothing but, yeah, not like that. So, couldn't sell the park or upgrade rides etc. with maxed-out extras.

I did get the splashdown. loop, and corkscrew added to the roller coaster rides. So, I made progress. Considerable slowdown makes it difficult, and it is not straight-forward without reading the manual, which I have hidden away with my boxes.

Laying down walkways needed to be done with the #4 button after a fashion, as it kept giving me a sign post if I did the fire-button menu.

Apparently #1 closes the park. This is helpful, if you have not "accidently" hit the button.

Trading stocks and loans do help have enough money to make a monster park somewhat quickly -- within a day. I play on medium difficulty with all opponents. I'm afraid the slowdown would become overwhelming on the hardest setting, like Skyhammer. I couldn't get through Skyhammer because of too many onscreen objects locking up the game.

My old saved game does have over 9 million starting cash. It would be nice if I could sell a park for a million more, (10,000,000+) once complete. I do believe that just about unlocks all the map locations.

Further play continues in, "Cylon Party Palace."

Re: Theme Park thread

Posted: Tue Aug 18, 2020 9:05 am
by MegaData
So, "Cylon Party Palace" met it's demise after I tried to replace the entrance to the monorail. My speakers gave out this comical "bong" sound that reminded me of a kid flicking a spring doorstop. Upgrading rides as they get overused is a good idea, normally. In this case, vertical lines streaked the screen, from bottom to top, and then became one glorious black hole. This leaves me wondering if it's a hardware or software issue. If I go buy another copy of the game, will that game work the same?

Obviously, I began a new game moments after shutting down the console.

"Epic Eternal Blaze" used no monorail.
No more juice on vats after maxed out.
Japan has a price of 20,000,000.
Started with just over 9 million.

Not certain when I should sell, but I'm close.

9,086,479 -- Available Cash
702,214 ----- Park Value
8,137,760 -- 640 shares of Epic Eternal Blaze @ 12809
_______________________________________________
17,926,453 -- rough total, at this writing.

I have four trophies but there's space for three more. I've tried to do an internet search to know what they are but I see nothing on this. Anyone able to tell me what they are? I think I have one for longest, highest, most expensive roller coaster, another for longest tube ride, longest race track, and highest share value.

Re: Theme Park thread

Posted: Fri Aug 21, 2020 6:40 am
by MegaData
"Epic Eternal Blaze" ended when I tried to adjust the capacity on one of the Tube Rides. I had just found out how to do this recently when I guess I did it one too many times for the game's liking. The "pointer" began flashing and did a verticle/left diagonal streak from bottom to top... and I was so close to selling. At the end of the year, I was going to sell! I had made 21 million possible.

Not having realized earlier that I was using it, I removed the CD attachment for "Replicant Avarice," played on HARD, Northern USA, got two vats filled, had 500000 stocks, 500000 park value, and 900000 cash when the game suggested I replace the Treehouse. As soon as I hit the "check mark" everything stopped. This is the first time where I felt like I could not avoid the game giving me grief. I can avoid the other pitfalls but this time I just followed the "suggestion" given to me by the game.

I'm even more determined to get 21 million saved to this game, now.

I unplugged the power supply that had been powering the Jaguar for somewhere around a week now. It was rather warm to the touch. So I switched it out for cool one. Then I looked at doing the easiest setting possible but that doesn't let you buy and sell stocks. Now I have Full Sim Level, Happy Visitors, Easy Start Level, All Opponents, Easy opponents, Not 1st game, making my mark in the UK at a starting cost of $0. (Since my last game used the hardest settings and ended rather early.) May "Novus Ordo Seclorum" prove to be my last attempt at 21 million. It takes a bit more luck than skill at this point. I know what I'm doing. I just need the game to stop locking up! :)

Re: Theme Park thread

Posted: Fri Aug 28, 2020 6:00 am
by MegaData
A political radio show on NPR had a person on who described himself as a "Masochistic Optimist." I laughed when I heard that. I totally relate...

So, the Space Shuttle was smoking and the game wasn't letting me replace the ride. Multi-tone sounds while locked up, had me reset. I'm making money but not able to "save" any of it.

Next park was called "Treasure Island," and I swear the game knew "Treasure" as a key word. I never had so many problems with thugs stealing my inventory from the stores in any other game! I knew visitors could not be buying that fast... I closed the park to negotiate with staff and found that the park claimed to have "0 visitors" but some clown in a purple trench coat was strutting through my park. I stuck a guard on him once I finished negotiations, but another one was later discovered and I locked these guys away in tree stump fences before setting guards on them. However, as soon as I set down a guard, a biker rolled in from the right side screen and picked up the guy who stole my goods! I put down more guards and even tried building a brick wall in front of the bike but no joy.

Is it important how Treasure Island ended? I learned some important lessons on that one but it ended badly, like the others. The game seems broken, but maybe I am unearthing a bug?

"One Eyed Willie" is my current park. I still have one more vat to fill & I am setting my sights a little lower this time as I hope to net a 2,500,000 gain. (Starting with over 9 million, rounded up to ten, I give myself a 25% gain.) Can I save my progress this time? I am not using more than one of each ride. I have normally used two or three ride multiples in previous games. I was actually surprised you can fill an entire park this way, utilizing tree/lake filler in places with larger rails, still using three of each storefront/game front. The working theory is to eliminate things I do that could be part of the lock-up problem, but the game still hangs at times. It makes me worry it could all end with the next button press. History dictates this is bound to fail but less risk equals POSSIBLE savable progress! Fingers-crossed.

My saved game allows me to get rid of loans first thing but rarely make much money before I get... the Arcade.
I'm buying my park's shares 1st thing so no one else can buy me out. (When I come in #2 or lower, and it tells me who is richer, I will buy some of their shares, if I can.)
I start the research vats before opening the park.
Prizes run at 10% chance to win with equivalent money (1200 prize = 120 to play.) If the patrons walk by with the "prize is too low" -- black background with a teddy bear icon -- I raise the prize and dollar amount, but not the chance to win... so far. (That would be a percentage sign on black background, yes?)
Some mascots make visitors thirsty or hungry for burgers... pay attention to icons above visitors.
Still unsure how to get the best results on negotiating, but I always try to get less than 8-10% increase for results.

I read somewhere that thugs can't resist beating up mascots. So place a guard near a mascot to catch thugs. I have not seen this work. I have seen guards take thugs out of the park before but I doubt I would catch when a mascot beating happens. Do the mascots act wounded? How do I know if they were beaten?

Re: Theme Park thread

Posted: Sun Aug 30, 2020 11:31 am
by a31chris
Wow. And you done all this with cheats activated?

Re: Theme Park thread

Posted: Mon Aug 31, 2020 7:04 am
by MegaData
Nope. I have used no cheats. That would make life easier. Why would I want to do that? LOL! I have loaded an old save that has over 9 million and has around three map locations unlocked -- it doesn't really seem like a hard game, just time consuming and unreliable in the save-game department. I'm averaging two or three days of intermittent play to complete a park.

On that note, "One Eyed Willie" paid off. I figured I met my goal of 12,500,000 and then, at auction, I finally saved a game with $13,255,737. Not one monorail in that park. Only one of each type of ride, otherwise. It may also help to close the park during negotiations as the game seems to run smoother once I reopen the park after negotiations are successful.

I named the next park "Niflheim," in Scandinavia. I'm finally moving on to a new location on the map!

I don't generally check into cheats until I complete a game. Myst maybe the only exception. Never did do that one proper. An old save on that would just confuse a person, wouldn't it? Maybe some proper notes to help me keep track of clues would help? Kind of like I did with Final Fantasy. I did go through Final Fantasy (Origins) I & II on the Playstation last year. So, I should be able to make the time for this. I totally drew a world map for the first game & found that fun. I'm weird like that. After I completed that I looked for the monsters I missed and played it again to get the undiscovered monsters & any small items I may have missed. Then, I saw there was a map I could've looked at online. I think I learned a lot more making my own map.

Still bothers me that I do not know what the other trophies in Theme Park could be. Are there more?

Re: Theme Park thread

Posted: Fri Sep 04, 2020 6:30 am
by MegaData
"Niflheim" cashed in at 15,219,776

"Spaceballs The Theme Park" gave me new difficulties. Late in the game, 1's 2's bold N's and M's were not showing up on screen. Names of who held stocks were missing letters. The park name became "SPACEBALLS THE THE E PARK." While smaller numbers on the purchase screen and stocks were not altered, I only knew roughly what my park was worth, how many people were in the park, supply screen was used by volume instead of numbers, even capacity on rides was altered and what numbers I was negotiating for would "blink." I still had two vats to fill completely when I went to auction. It just became annoying and it seemed to be getting worse. I knew I should have waited longer, until after my research was completed, but I wanted to cash in before the next oddball glitch occurred, with the possibility of losing everything, for a loss at 13,075,818.

However, I can move on from New Zealand, map-wise.

I laugh at the cartridge in the name of progress!

Ooo, PROGRESS is eight letters.

I started saving park names, instead of my handle. Apparently, "Spaceballs" only saved the first 8 characters, although you are allowed to enter more. My save shows as "SPACEBAL." Did not notice this with MegaData or Niflheim. I guess I need shorter park names? Sad, I was just getting warmed up on longer ones... Still, makes me wonder why "One Eyed Willie" paid off without a similar malfunction. How long can the string be? :?

Re: Theme Park thread

Posted: Fri Oct 02, 2020 8:03 am
by MegaData
MegaData's Theme Park PROGRESS:
====================================================================
COST | PLAY || AREA ---------------- | NAMES USED || SAVED AMOUNT || NOTES
====================================================================
Zer0 | E A S Y | | U.K. --------------- One Eyed Willie || 13,255,737
300K | MEDIUM || EGYPT ------------(Old Save Unlocked)
300K | MEDIUM || NIGERIA ---------- (B4-2020 9,844,651)
400K | E A S Y | | SCANDINAVIA ---- Niflheim || 15,219,776
700K | MEDIUM || NEW ZEALAND -- Spaceballs... || 13,075,818

700K | FIENDISH || YAKUTSH ------- Youthanasia || 12,834,169/12,792,655
1 MIL | FIENDISH || ANTARCTICA --- Rylos Court || 11,537,068
1 MIL | VERY HARD || INDIA --------- Los Rylos || Unknown amount. || Some of these may be out of order of cost.
1.4MIL | MEDIUM || AUSTRALIA ----- I A S A (Farscape) || 9,697,497
1.5MIL | VERY HARD || PERU -------- Weyland Yutani || 11,087,855
1.8 MIL | FIENDISH || BRAZIL -------- Sector Fourteen || 9,327,082 || 1yr, B5 reference.
1.9 MIL | HARD || ARGENTINA ------- Newton Haven || 9,501,795 || Had to have 12 saloons.
2 MIL | VERY HARD || GREENLAND -- Grovers Bend || 7,830,108
2 MIL | MEDIUM || ICELAND ---------- Continued Grover's Bend || 5,952,497
3 MIL | HARD || ALASKA --------------- As William Peltzer/Billy in Kingston Falls || 1,375,158
5 MIL | EASY || EUROPE --------------- As Motoko Kusanagi/Major in (Security) Section Nine || 955,960
5 MIL | VERY HARD || RUSSIA --------- As Emmett Fitzhume/GLG ZO in Burt Reynolds Theater || 7,459,127

5.6 MIL | MEDIUM || S. AFRICA ------- As Wade Watts/Parzival in Oasis || 15,247,364 || Monorail crash on first attempt.
................................................ [3rd EDIT] Replay seems easier with the inability to achieve some awards in second round?
................................................ [4th EDIT] THIS LOCATION WAS NOT UNLOCKED ON THE MAP AFTER SAVE -- POSSIBLE "SHOP CHEAT" FOUND?

10 MIL | EASY || CALIFORNIA --------- As Marty McFly/Eastwood in Hill Valley || 19,840,065 || Physical Amusement Park noted by save?
............................................... Saved as "EASTWOOD.A" without ability for users to enter periods or save more than 8 characters.

7.5 MIL | EASY || N. USA .............. As William Adama/Husker in New Caprica || 28,905,112 || Played 48 game years on February 25th 2021

8 MIL | MEDIUM || KUWAIT ............. As Faith/Slayer in Sunnydale || 31,917,510 || Monorail was used near end of game on March 15th 2021

9MIL | E A S Y || E. USA................. As Elvis Presley/The King in Graceland || 58,201,008|| 6 crashes with Monorail - NOT USED for 7th game completed on July 3rd 2021. Save shows as "GRACELANX"


12 MIL | MEDIUM || CHINA .............. As Dolly Parton/Dolly in Dollywood || 54,511,498 || Had 74 Million before storm cut the power. Stopped playing for a spell. Gave up on "high score" to move on to final location on January 12th 2022. Saved as DOLLYWOO? although I entered DOLLYWOOD.

=================================
LAST Map Location :
=================================

20 MIL | EASY || JAPAN .............. As "A Taylor"/Sheriff in Mayberry || 101,757,880 || There were three people I could not remove from my park and only one blonde man walking beside a roller coaster pillar I never put down. The graph chart showed my Balance underneath the chart after year 45, I think. And I played, maybe, 50 years? Selling 5000+ stocks took WAY too long w/one share each button press! Simple "Congratulations screen" was a bit of a bummer for all the hours of gameplay to uncover it. It was shown for about 5 seconds before advancing to the map screen. Be prepared ahead of time if you want to get a screenshot with a camera!

=================================
Replayed Locations:
=================================
Zer0 | E A S Y | | U.K. ------------------- As Togusa/Rookie in Newport || 1,063,931/*4,188,951
300K | MEDIUM || EGYPT ---------------- As The Doctor/DocWho in Gallefrey || *3,966,777
300K | MEDIUM || NIGERIA -------------- As Zoey Ashe/Ash in Tabula Rasa || 3,866,028
400K | E A S Y | | SCANDINAVIA --------- As Ash Williams/El Jefe in Elk Grove || 12,142,113
5.6 MIL | MEDIUM || S. AFRICA --------- "It's You Buddy" in Bullfrog's World || 18,698,082 ||Saved game has S. Africa completed January 18th 2021
............................................... Saved as "BULLFROG 0B" -- user unable to enter "0B" in title.

I am having fun with this game. No two parks have been entirely similar. Still learning a thing or two as I play on.

October 1st [this post] will likely mark an end to gameplaying for a spell as Halloween casts it's spell over my household. Perhaps November may see me editing this post once progress is made. Cost and difficulty for areas of the map would have been handy for planning my strategy early on.

Looks like it gets easier after Russia :D
Just need to rebuild cash to continue.

Re: Theme Park thread

Posted: Sat Oct 03, 2020 10:15 pm
by a31chris
Thanks for sharing that. We can keep that as a high score table.

Many consider the lack of being able to save your park a deal breaker.

Is it possible to describe the bugs you've encountered?

Re: Theme Park thread

Posted: Tue Oct 06, 2020 6:26 am
by MegaData
Advice and observations on bugs and errors (working theory, subject to change):

When playing a long game, that you must pause several times to get through, the game will start to get sluggish at some point; it will slow down as if you have changed the game speed ("-20" is useful for maintenance on rides or building a roller coaster but should not look the same speed at "0")-- I suggest closing the park until things run smoothly. no research, fire employees, stop stocking shops (if that's possible) so you don't lose too much money while the park is closed. Note that you can turn off rides and keep the park open but that will gather litter throughout the park. If the game doesn't let you put down new employees or new rides/shops are hard to put down even after you've "deleted" the ground you want to put a shop or ride down onto, sell the park soon. If it's early in the year, close the park and avoid major replacement of rides until things look normal. I tend to find deadly errors when ride replacement or ride maintenance is required.

I am convinced we skipped a year (2023?) when it slowed waaaaaaaay down. I must have been playing two years at once!

I should have sold my last park as most of those warning signs appeared... total black screen when I replaced the pirate boat. I hit the #3 button to adjust the capacity on the brand new one and got a black screen. Soft reset (* with #) would not work to get out of the black screen. I had to turn off the console. I had a full park. There was space for one more ride but I would've had to edit a rail or delete some trees to fit more than one ride/shop into the park. I had 6 million in cash and over 4 million in stocks. I know I used at least three pirate boats... and the game seems to get confused or need more processing if you use more than one. [I assume?] Replacement just compounds the confusion. When the advisor suggests replacement, be extra careful. This usually means a Mechanic is working on the ride already. It might help to wait until the Mechanic completes their work? I am not entirely certain that I waited...

Unfortunately, there is something wrong with the way the rails are setup. I have had patrons complete a roller coaster ride that never emerge from the roller coaster exit. I do not know if they still count as people in my park when they disappear. Sometimes turning on the roller coaster [monorail] or the big dipper will not show the cars on the track... turning these rides on, or use of the #3 button on the entryway, can cause the game to fail -- I've had it happen with the Roller Coaster, Rubber Tubing, and Monorail.

I have stopped using the Monorail altogether. DO NOT USE THE MONORAIL! I have had too many games die with maintenance, or replacement, of the Monorail to ever use it again... well, I may be brave to use it as the last ride I set up before I am selling a park, but I strongly advise everyone not to have the Monorail in your park long or it will kill your game. I've had many more successful games after I stopped using it.

Re: Theme Park thread

Posted: Fri May 21, 2021 3:45 am
by MegaData
I am still working on unlocking all of the map locations but had three park crashes since my last update.

(1) I've been testing the theory that the Monorail can be used as long as you do not try to replace it when the pop-up window asks if you really want to delete it, "it will cost you nothing as it has not been in the park for a month" (as best I recall) when you know it has definitely been in the park more than one game month. The first crash happened this way.

(2) I don't know if there was a brown out while I was at work, or if the game was actually experiencing a glitch, but I had the game on pause at the year end results (where I normally pause and take a break) and the screen was blank, black, when I got back to un-pause it. I haven't ever had issues with pausing the game here until this park.

(3) Advisor told me to replace rides, as the game tends to do as your park ages. Mechanics were summoned to fix the Pirate Boat before I replaced it, I guess. When I replaced the old ride with a new one, one mechanic started putting yellow and black striped barriers up around the brand new Pirate Boat! I clicked on the mechanic, hit the "A" button and the game froze. I meant to hit the "C" button to close the window. Then the vertical lines ate the screen until it became black. I had just over 30 million cash and 12 million in stocks. I had decided to try for 50 million.

So, this is my update for May 19th, 2021. I think the Monorail was quite successful on the last park, as I replaced it at least a couple times, but changing the capacity does not work. This game is VERY buggy... is there more than one version released?

Re: Theme Park thread

Posted: Mon Aug 23, 2021 11:07 pm
by a31chris
Not that I'm aware of. Thanks to Ataris shit developer support we're lucky we got what we got. And that's thanks to Bullfrog/Ocean's Mike Diskette saying yeah I'll port Theme Park and Syndicate to the Jag. When the company wasn't going to at all.

Thanks for your posts regarding Theme Park. Very interesting. I need to spend time with this again.

Re: Theme Park thread

Posted: Mon Aug 23, 2021 11:10 pm
by a31chris
Have you thought of making a YouTube video of you playing Theme Park? I would love to see that. I'd share to the FB group as well if you're agreeable.

Re: Theme Park thread

Posted: Fri Jan 28, 2022 11:16 am
by MegaData
What would I need to capture gameplay?

What Facebook group?

Next time I'm on here will likely be the conclusion of the medium difficulty.
If there are cheats, I wouldn't mind a discussion of them now. 8)

Re: Theme Park thread

Posted: Sat Jan 29, 2022 12:48 pm
by a31chris
Well possibly this FB group but that's optional. I would like to at least see it on YouTube. All you have out there is people dinkin' around or the demo playing.

https://m.facebook.com/groups/jagconnec ... ef=m_notif

I think there are a ton of options now via USB to capture stuff like this.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/lifestyle/rf- ... es-reviews

Asked around. For some answers what others were using:

Scart/composite output to HDMI converter to Elgato capture card for PC.

Scart to OSSC upscaler to StarTech USB3hdcap.

Re: Theme Park thread

Posted: Wed Feb 02, 2022 10:52 pm
by a31chris
Here's the entire conversation with Theme Park programmer Mike Diskette courtesy Lost Dragon-

I was lucky enough to chat with the Jaguar coder about his work on [Theme Park] and Syndicate :

Bullfrog was very PC focused, doing very little in house console work, as the Amiga guy in the office I was super excited by the jaguar and its hardware and exotic chipsets, so I did some personal work trying stuff out on the Jaguar, finding the hardware could blit 13 full screen sprites, doing some polygon tests for magic carpet etc.

I think Atari probably approached Bullfrog about porting games to Jaguar, I imagine there was some financial incentive advances on royalties or some such, but that was all beyond my pay grade.

At first Bullfrog paid an outsource company to do the ports of Theme Park and Syndicate, this went slower than expected and I offered to do the Theme Park port in my spare time and some office hours.
In a week I had the basic game up and running.

Bullfrog had a shared library of rendering code so once that library was up and running on Jaguar it was easier for Alan Wright to get Syndicate running.

I think the source may have come from the 3do version which had been changed to use a joypad. Maybe that was just syncicate, I do recall having to put joypad control in for theme park

The pc sprite draw used run length encoded sprite data and could draw scaled sprites, I implemented this code on what was called the gpu processor, which was quite fun. it had 4k of local fast ram and no access to main ram so you had to blit the data in and out I would build scaled raster lines of sprite data on the gpu processor and then use blit commands issued from the gpu to draw them line by line.

Another fun task was optimising the general data decompressor which was using Rob Northern Compression which I seem to recall I had to do some reverse engineering on, taking a dissasembly of the amiga 68000 version then re writing the assembly to work on the gpu processor as that ran faster than the jaguar 68000 core.

The music and sound was also tricky atari included a dsp chip but no libraries to use it so it had to be coded from scratch to mix sounds, all the pc music was in midi format which we also had no player for so I had to figure out the midi format (before the days of the internet) then software mix and frequency shift all the sounds on the fly using the dsp chip. Good fun..

The save game was a real issue on theme park, we only had 128 bytes storage on a cart so had to just save what your park was worth so you could rebuild it next play : (

Probably took about 3 months all together to do both ports with 2 people.

We didnt have any support from Atari, in fact our first submission failed because of an occasional failure to boot the cartridge, the boot code was the only bit of code Atari supplied, and failed the companies own tests.

Jaguar was probably the most badly supported machine by any hadrware vendor as it literraly came with no software libraries, not even standard c libraries for sprintf etc. Everything had to be written from scratch (which I actually loved). The hardware docs were nice and detailed though, it was very much like an amiga on steroids. I believe the gpu processor which was basically a risc processor with special 3 component instructions for color channels was meant to be able to read main ram and was to be the main processor, but due to some error in design it could only access its local 4k and had to have its instructions blitted in and out so instead of it being the main cpu in the machine the 68000 which was meant to be a secondary cpu became the main one for running all the game content. I cant remember where I heard that though so no idea how true it is.

-Mike Diskette

Re: Theme Park thread

Posted: Wed Feb 02, 2022 11:37 pm
by a31chris
I've also updated the first post with a link to Shinto's game by game podcast of Theme Park.

Re: Theme Park thread

Posted: Thu Feb 03, 2022 1:41 am
by a31chris
MegaData wrote:
Tue Oct 06, 2020 6:26 am
Advice and observations on bugs and errors (working theory, subject to change):

When playing a long game, that you must pause several times to get through, the game will start to get sluggish at some point; it will slow down as if you have changed the game speed ("-20" is useful for maintenance on rides or building a roller coaster but should not look the same speed at "0")-- I suggest closing the park until things run smoothly. no research, fire employees, stop stocking shops (if that's possible) so you don't lose too much money while the park is closed. Note that you can turn off rides and keep the park open but that will gather litter throughout the park. If the game doesn't let you put down new employees or new rides/shops are hard to put down even after you've "deleted" the ground you want to put a shop or ride down onto, sell the park soon. If it's early in the year, close the park and avoid major replacement of rides until things look normal. I tend to find deadly errors when ride replacement or ride maintenance is required.
Have you tried the keypad button '2' option? Exit the Game in progress and then it takes you back to the title screen? And then use the option to continue last game without shutting the system off? Maybe that would work better for long pauses than the pause button.

Re: Theme Park thread

Posted: Fri Feb 11, 2022 5:07 am
by MegaData
For the last location, JAPAN, I experimented with recording on DVDRW but quality is not as good as it could be. (EP 6hr setting.) I will have to look into the video capture scenarios. 8)

I don't believe I have ever used keypad button 2. And after reading the interview, (thanks for the post) I don't see why I ever would; it only saves the amount of money you have? Completely broken save feature. I do generally just close the park and try to empty it of all the patrons I can, when it slows down. Delete/fire the mascots... clean up the park, fix rides, then fire the people that did that. A reset of everything, without losing research, stocks, and park layout. STILL IMPORTANT to Avoid the Monorail.

Re: Theme Park thread

Posted: Fri Feb 11, 2022 5:46 am
by a31chris
I meant use the 2 option without shutting the system down. Instead of pause.

Re: Theme Park thread

Posted: Fri Feb 11, 2022 5:57 am
by MegaData
I honestly didn't know it was an option while I unlocked the entire map. I thought the "continue" menu option was broken. :D

Re: Theme Park thread

Posted: Fri Feb 11, 2022 6:37 am
by a31chris
MegaData wrote:
Fri Feb 11, 2022 5:57 am
I honestly didn't know it was an option while I unlocked the entire map. I thought the "continue" menu option was broken. :D
Yeah well I would test it out first with something small before committing. 😁