Recs.
Updated
SpecsUpdate
Pros
Pro Powerful terrain tool that allows 3D scultping
The terrain tool is very powerful, and addition to allowing for changing the terrain height, you can also pull out horizontal jutting terrain and cut in caves in any direction with pull and push tools. An example of this in action is a sample where Mount Rushmore was created using entirely in game tools.
Pro Powerful building creator
The building designer has many construction assets that are customizable to be any color and provides an amazing amount of customization by allowing you to intersect parts and rotate them in any orientation without having to worry about clipping.
The building system has a compromise between grid based and freeform construction, in that the first object you place down creates a grid around it that you can build to but you can go off grid whenever you need to.
Pro Steam Workshop support breathes more life into the game every day
Anyone can upload their buildings and rides to the Steam Workshop, allowing for an potentially infinite amount of items to build in your game. Giving players a place to get new content, that's user created, you have near-unlimited possibilities for how to create each park you choose. This gives many players, who find creating new rides difficult, a way to make each new park fun and exciting, as well as giving creators a way to share their work. Due to this Workshop Support, and the hundreds of rides and buildings created by users already, the life of this game is near endless, with new ideas and new way to build popping up every day.
Pro Real time lighting system
Lights in game light up surrounding scenery in real time making the game's night time scenes look absolutely gorgeous. Lighting objects can also be customized to be any color and come in spotlights and other kinds of lights allowing you to make the exact ambiance you want.
Pro Every game theme has a backstory that helps immerse players further
The themes in the game aren't simply generic assets, but there's actually in-game lore created for the different entertainment characters, as well as stores and scenery, adding extra realism and depth to the game assets. Due to this, each park and asset has a fuller and more rich background, allowing players to get even more lost in this experience than in any other theme park builder yet.
Cons
Con Being unable to place decor and utility pieces on even slight hills is largely annoying
While pathways can be built on small hills, you will be unable to place miscellaneous assets without the use of the terrain tool. The game allows you to place buildings on these hills, however you cannot place any trashcans, benches, or any decorative piece down, as the game requires them to be build on squared-off pieces of land. Due to this, litter will pile up and the attractiveness of your park will decline unless you hire more leaning staff to pick up the excess trash, or completely undo your work and flatten the terrain.
Con Takes forever to build anything good
Yeah there's room for creativity if you have endless patience. The building is frustrating though. Only -certain- pieces will align with each other leaving you struggling to place rows of fences in a way that doesn't look obviously haphazard, and so many other things too like signs, hedgerows, lots of decor that has loads of potential but ends up looking wonky. And because the building pieces are really basic you have to spend ages building each individual scenery item if you want it to look anywhere near as good as the stuff that's already there when you load a scenario. If you don't have that patience, your parks may end up looking crap and this might make you quit out of frustration.
Con Park management system is not very sophisticated
The management options in Planet Coaster does not add much on top of the developer's previous game, Rollercoaster Tycoon 3. This means it doesn't require much work or management tweaking to get a park making money, and if you allow time to pass quickly you can just wait and let your cash reserves rise.
Recommendations
Comments
Flagged Pros + Cons
Out of Date Pros + Cons
Con Still in early access
The game isn't fully released yet, and while it's currently in a good state, it's not totally clear what the full feature list for the final game will be.
Con The pathing system does not allow for creating large plazas
The pathing system relies on creating curvable nodes which means you can't fill in space to create a large open plaza, which is common in most real life theme parks.