Jurassic Park: Operation Genesis is a detailed, deep, and hard-to-stop-playing 3-D action sim that takes the traditional “tycoon”-style game to a whole new level of adventure … and just plain fun! Building an entire island full of prehistoric creatures, keeping them alive, and preventing them from eating your awe-struck public can be a little overwhelming at first, so we’ve pieced together some guidelines to help you build a firm foundation for your own Jurassic Park.
In the Beginning After you’ve taken on the challenges of the game’s goal-oriented training exercises and even tougher mission levels, you’re ready to enter Operation Genesis mode and create your own dinosaur island. At the very beginning of this mode, you’ll get to design the island that will be home to your new park. You can adjust the size of the island; decide on the number of trees, mountains, and rivers; and, of course, determine your island’s shape.
The bigger the island, the bigger the park you can build. If you’re planning on exhibiting lots of herbivores, you’ll want a lot of trees, which pacify the gentle giants. If you’re going to include some carnivores, though—and why bother building a Jurassic Park without carnivores?—you won’t want to max out on trees. They can obstruct the visitor’s views of some dinos and keep you from reaching the all-important five-star rating. Give yourself plenty of rivers; in the off chance a river gets in the way of an important building, removing that one section of river by “flattening” is much cheaper than having to pay for a large number of lakes to keep your living biological attraction watered. And, be sure to include a few mountains (the medium setting is good), which enhance the view and, again, the visitor’s moods.
Dino-dream park or a dino-disaster?
You Do Plan to Have Dinosaurs On Your Dinosaur Tour? Depending on your starting dinosaurs, you might want to create a large herbivore enclosure, or a smaller exhibit with higher security, if you’ll be breeding a more dangerous carnivore. Build your first hatchery before you build your first enclosure, so that you’ll know what kind of fence to use, for example, and how many trees you’ll want to keep the herbivores happy. This will also help you factor the cost of herbivore and (if necessary) carnivore feeders into your initial budget.
So, now, your island is up and running. You’ve built your first enclosure, hatchery, a feeder or two, a few amenities, basic attractions, and a ranger station (don’t bother waiting until you need one—that’s just the time you won’t have enough money to build it). Now you’re ready to begin the process of breeding dinosaurs.
At the beginning of Operation Genesis mode, you’ll get two dinosaurs from the same fossil dig site that you can produce, two- or three-star attractions to help establish your Jurassic Park. That’s fine for a start, but you’ll need more dino-DNA from fossils or amber. While you can still spare the money, now’s the time to hire one more dig team and get them working. You shouldn’t’ really need more than two, and dig teams get quite expensive quickly. Once you dig up enough DNA, you can trot out the brachiosaurs and velociraptors—increasing your park’s fame dramatically—and open more dig sites.
These two do not play well together.
Let's Get This Moveable Feast Under Way! Like dinosaurs, your park visitors need to eat, drink, avoid stress, and defecate. Unlike dinosaurs, you’ll usuallymake money when this happens.
Park visitors come in four flavors (or so the velociraptors tell us—ba-DUM-cha!) that need different dinosaur activities to stay interested. To build a successful park in Operation Genesis mode, you’ll need to make sure your enclosures “multi-task” as much as possible, to appeal to at least two different visitor types. Building a high-security T Rex paddock with a viewing dome for up-close action that will send Thrill Seekers into fits of glee? Add a Corythosaurus or Triceratops to please the authenticity-obsessed Dino Nerds, too. To make the Fun Lovers happy and keep the Nerds wheezing with joy, put friendly herbivores together with their dino “friends” (you are reading your Dinopedia, right?) from the same era, while littering the place with paleo trees. A diverse, tidy park will increase your scores across the board and keep Mainstream dinosaur fans happy.
Don’t put big carnivores in your enclosure.
All major theme parks may have delays, but if you stick to these tips, you’ll be off to a good start. Just try to keep your fatalities low, your dinosaurs healthy (and vaccinated), your park clean and tidy, and your visitors alive. Do that, and the rest is a walk in the park.
