Interface and Data

SimPainInTheAss

Clicking on objects in SimCoaster is a pain in the ass. Kids are mischievous and may drop stink bombs, or old people will bitch about your park to other customers. The fastest way to get rid of these troublemakers is to click on them, and call for a rent-a-cop to kick them out. This sounds simple, but clicking on a visitor is harder than sniping a CT through a wall across the map while jumping up and down with an AWP in Counter-Strike. If the troublemaker is standing near any trash, you'll click on the trash. If they're standing in a crowd, you'll click on every single person except the one you want. If you zoom in a building will get in your way. It's a painful experience.

Moonshine stands

The Alpine Ace

The menu system has issues as well. Left clicking on an attraction or an icon in the HUD will pull up a short menu, right clicking will pull up the default option screen for that item. The problem is that the menus you pull up do not go away until you click OK or Cancel, and you can only have one screen up at a time.

Data Management

SimCoaster is a Sim game, and inherent in all Sim games is managing tons of data about your city/planet/empire/park. SimCoaster fails horribly in this department. There are graphs that show you cash flow, expenses, visitors, etc., but there is a lack of useful overlays.

The Tentacle

Polar Zone

There's no way to tell why people don't like a ride. New rides are popular, but after a while people won't go to them as often. Why? I have no idea, and the game sure doesn't tell you. Is it too expensive? Too long? Not long enough? Ugly? Is it too far from the bathrooms? The only hint you have is that old people don't like high excitement rides. Other than that, you're on your own. This could easily be solved with overlays for each of the problems visitors have with attractions. The only overlay available is "visitor happiness", which tells you absolutely squat. Why are they happy? No clue.

I think they're penguins

Ride the snowman's belly

Keeping track of your employees' work is difficult as well. Since it's up to them to make sure the park is running smoothly, it would be nice to keep track of their work. Unfortunately, attempting this is futile. For example, how many plants can a gardener take care of? How large is too large of a coverage area? A simple overlay showing the state of your park's plants could easily solve this. The only overlays available show you the range of an employee at the instant you pull up the map, but it doesn't relate patrol area with possible coverage, so it's useless. Games like Zeus: Master of Olympus, which displays real-time overlays for every single aspect you need to worry about, is an example of how overlays should be done.