Indoorlands – Review
Pixelsplit created and released the amusement park simulator Indoorlands. A brand new indoor amusement park is being constructed in the middle of nowhere. Initially, the amusement park may look like any other. However, with enough time and effort invested, players can build a landmark attraction on par with Disneyland or Six Flags.
At the game’s outset, players must go through a brief tutorial. Some of the fundamentals of using the controls are covered, including how to move the camera and drop objects. Also covered are ways to save money, investigate emerging technologies, and delight guests. However, it ends far too soon without delving into many other essential details like land acquisition, traffic regulation, or attraction densities. There should be more in-depth guides for more advanced users, or at the very least, more information in the encyclopaedia.
After completing the tutorial, players can enter either career or sandbox mode to create a new park. The career has all options activated, which leads to an increase in wealth and resources over time. You can set your own preferences in the sandbox, such as the amount of money you start with (up to an infinite amount), the visibility of certain options, and whether or not certain features are enabled by default. In addition, there is a choice of three different landscapes for players to explore: desert, wasteland, or tundra. All of the action, however, takes place inside, so you won’t have to worry about the effects of weather or temperature.
Player parks that excel at providing rides and other forms of entertainment to visitors tend to do the best. This entails rides and games suitable for children, such as roller coasters and swing sets, as well as carnival booths and other similar attractions. There should be plenty of places to eat, buy trinkets, and use the restroom along the route to accommodate the needs of visitors. Players can also choose to perform tasks like cleaning and repairing manually, or they can construct special buildings that perform these actions automatically.
Visitors use a wide variety of tags to narrow down their search for the right building. For example, if a character is craving salty food but is out of pretzels, they will settle for popcorn or fries instead. The same holds true for “kid friendly” buildings: even the most discerning parent can find something to like. As a result, accommodating a wide variety of visitors becomes more important than trying to win over a select group of customers when making design decisions.
To begin, players are given only three of the twenty possible sectors on a small rectangular plot of land (45 by 15 grid cells). Since even the most basic roller coaster requires an 11×14 grid, it’s clear that acquiring more land will be a necessary first step. Customers are notoriously lazy, opting instead for the first available option near the entrance. That’s why it’s important to strategically position high-profit attractions farther back in the park and high-traffic areas closer to the front gates.
There will still be a lot of empty room even with forward planning. Each structure follows a uniform grid pattern, with sizes ranging from 1×1 to 4×5. A possible solution is to lay down a series of strictly adhered-to pathways (decorative halls) to increase the park’s aesthetic value. However, many corridors may require visitors to make a tortuous zigzag motion or to skirt around corners. Simply installing generic flooring that can accommodate small displays like columns, ponds, and statues is another option.
Players are restricted in their constructions by the depth of their exploration and the number of tourists who flock to their cities. There will initially only be simple attractions like snack stands, merry-go-rounds, and pendulum rides. Visitors to research stations can be surveyed over time, allowing players to assemble a wealth of information. This paves the way for enhancements such as larger amusement halls, a wider selection of food and merchandise, and even direct access to the park via public transportation. However, the overall slow trickle of development and money during career mode can result in a rundown park in dire need of renovation or outright demolition.
Two types of contracts may be offered to players to speed up the process. The more common kind are “challenge contracts,” which stipulate the construction of predetermined buildings in exchange for payment. Without taking into account the current park layout, some of the tasks seem ridiculous. One of the tasks was to build 12 toilets using a 2×2 grid in just 10 minutes. Until there was sufficient land, the resulting toilet graveyard sat abandoned in a remote area of the map.
The second kind of agreement is the devil’s bargain, which provides immediate gratification at the expense of park peace and quiet. For example, a breakdown of an entire building type or a group of irate, difficult-to-please visitors. Strangely, if repair and cleaning of buildings have already been made, many of these “problems” become a nonissue, as they can be quickly fixed by automated works. Furthermore, there are times when the contract alternatives are glaringly superior. A player could be rewarded with 20 research points for each failed restaurant, or they could receive 15 research points if just five randomly selected buildings went dark. But in the long run, deals with the devil are usually better and more profitable than the norm.
The cost of the game can be managed by changing the item quality and the price paid by the customer. The cost of admission and all attractions is included. The park must strike a balance between maximising profits and minimising the number of visitors turned off by subpar offerings or excessive prices.
There are a tonne of pre-made roller coasters and rides available in Indoorlands, but players who want to get creative can also make their own. A huge variety of cranks, paths, pulleys, seats, turnbuckles, and more are presented to the player without any sort of introduction or tutorial. The onus is on the individual to put them together in some way, whether to create a logical whole or to consciously fashion a metallic monstrosity. Indoorlands don’t allow deathtraps like you’d find in RollerCoaster Tycoon, and all rides must be in working order before they can be opened to the public. Once a ride has been fixed and tested, players can take it for a spin by setting the camera to follow the lead vehicle.
Indoorlands is not aesthetically pleasing. Even on the highest settings, the polygon count of most objects and characters is quite low. The result is a strangely dated 1980s computer-generated aesthetic. Every single one of the models used for the characters has that same blank expression on their face. Like the surreal drawings of cartoonist Joan Cornella, which have become memes and image macros on sites like Reddit and Twitch, these also bear strong resemblance to the works of this artist. It can be annoying to see such visitors aimlessly strolling around the park.
The gameplay in Indoorlands is incredibly unrefined and prone to bugs. It is not uncommon for even a well-built machine to experience stuttering. Direct Unity errors can also cause the game to exit to the desktop. These issues are not random and appear to be saved in a player’s progress; for example, if you rotate the placement of a building and the game crashes, you can count on seeing the same thing happen again the next time you load the save. It’s possible that some players will have to demolish entire parks after spending hours on them.
Indoorlands features numerous interesting elements and concepts, but almost none of them come together effectively. While the game’s core concept is enjoyable, players will have to dig through a mess of confusing systems to get there. The worst part is that flaws and mistakes can sneak up on you. If Pixelsplit can fix these issues, they’ll have a great game on their hands.
