S is for Steam Park

By IELLO

Picked this one up at a Phoenix Fire swap meet. It's been on my try list for quite some time, so I had high hopes for it.

Players: 2-4
Time: 60 minutes
Ages: 10+
Theme: Fantasy Theme Park Creation
Mechanics: Dice Rolling Race, "City" Building

In Steam Park, you play owners of theme parks competing for visitors (which bring in $$) and keeping the park clean and free of the dirt created by said attractions (which you are fined for at the end). The park owner with the most money at the end is the winner. Attract visitors by building cool 3D attractions!

A quick note on the quality: While I love the 3D aspect of the attractions, many of the punch board pieces were not cut properly (some not at all) and I had to go at them with a paring knife to get them out (which in retrospect probably wasn't the best idea, but got the job done). Before I got the knife out, I tried to force some of them, which resulted in some torn artwork and also I had to glue one attraction together.

At the start of the game, players begin rolling their dice (being careful not to knock down their theme parks) and saving the dice rolls they want and re-rolling the rejects until  happy with the whole roll. Can't be too picky though because whoever finishes first gets some free dirt cleanup, while the last player gets stuck with extra dirt to deal with.

The rules for placing attractions and booths on the park grids are a bit frustrating. Rides can not touch other rides (including diagonally), unless they are the same color. In this case, they must touch at ONLY one square. Booths cannot touch rides, not even diagonally. Booths can only touch (including diagonally) booths of the same type. Extra grid pieces can be added to the park for the cost of any die roll.

Overall, we give this game a 5/10. We decided to keep it for now, because we think it might be a good game for our kiddos when they're older, due to its simplicity and quick play, but we definitely have city builders that we like better than this one.