How to Earn Money

To win this game you need to earn money. Here are my tips!!

Pay Back Your Loan

Tip: You are paying interest on your loan each month, in order to save money, pay back your loan as soon as possible.

*This tip is most useful when the goal is to have a high park or company value.

Most parks start out with a loan of $10,000. I try to initially pay back half of this loan, and use the other half to get my park started. By doing this I can "bank" my loan and use it later if needed. For most parks, I find that I go in the red mostly in the first year, and if this occurs, I can take out a loan again and use that money to make a new ride. Note: There is a maximum loan value that you are allowed to take out.

Some parks start out with zero rides, for these parks I like to use my loan money to build a couple of rides to attract guests to my park. I will usually build two smaller rides such as a merry-go-round and maybe a scrambled eggs, and a rollercoaster. Don't forget to build a couple shops/stalls and a bathroom!

Other parks start out with some rides. These rides can initially keeps guests happy and earn you money while you slowly pay back your loan. When there are already some rides in the park, I spend less money initially.

When the goal of the game is to have a high park or company value I try to pay off my loan by the end of the first year. However, when the goal of the game is to have a certain number of people in your park by October year 3, I am not as picky with my loans.

Customize your research throughout the game

Another important aspect of this game is "research" where you pay a monthly fee, and in return you get a new ride/attraction over a period of time. Each park will have a different order that you will recieve the rides (and shops/stalls), and not every park will have every ride avaliable.


Although it does cost you money, I usually have my research maximized throughout the game. This gives you new rides faster, and I think the cost is worth it. New rides = more money. At maximum research you generally get one new ride every month.

The only time I will have the research set lower, is when my park is in the red, and when the park is small and there isn't a lot of room to build new rides.



I will always have "Scenery and Theming" and "ride improvements" unchecked throughout my games. Although these are fun to play with, you do not initially have the money to make scenery, nor the need to entertain gueses with fancy ride improvements. I will play around with these things once I have beaten my scenarios.

Throughout the game I will generally always have "gentle rides" and "thrill rides" checked on. These rides are cheaper, and they do both increase park value and make money for the park.

I will switch "Roller Coasters" and "shops and stalls" on and off throughout the game. For example, if I don't have enough money to build a roller coaster, I will unckeck it for a while until I have more money. Some parks will come with a lot of shops and stalls, and so I will uncheck this box, however if there is not a wide selection I will leave it checked.

Charge a premium for new rides!

*Note: this does not apply to parks where the entrance fee is set to zero. In these parks, guests do not demand a lower ride prices over time

Guests get really excited about new rides, and they are always willing to pay a higher rate when you make a new ride. This doesn't just apply to roller coasters, guests go ga-ga over a new car ride or ferris wheel as well.

I will initially charge a premium for new rides. For example, for a new roller coaster I maight charge $4.00. For a new gentle or thrill ride I might decide between $2.50 or $3.00.

However, as time passes guests will not want to pay this much to ride the rides. You need to keep checking your queues to see if guests are in them. You can also click the button to see guests thoughts about the ride. If you are charging too much, no one will ride your ride and you will not make any money, so change your prices accordingly. I usually drop a price by $.50 each time this happens.

For some gentle rides guests will not pay $.50! For these rides I will either charge $.20 for a ride, which usually creates enthusiam about riding, or I will demolish the ride, and create a new ride that is the exact same in its place.

Charge as much as possible for park entry fees

This one seems fairly obvious. If you are getting the message that guests are commenting your entry prices are cheap, then increase them!

Entry fees are the quickest way to make money.

I usually initially have my entrance fee at $10. I will increase the fee as I build more rides, or as I see the message.

Be Selective about who you Hire

Every time you hire an employee, you pay a monthly salary. I usually start out with a mechanic, and a handy man.

You will need to increase your mechanics as you increase the rides you build, otherwise as they break it will take forever to have them fixed. I usually build one mechanic for every 3 rides or so.

Handymen have several jobs. These are watering gardens, cleaning paths, emptying trash, and mowing lawns. I always turn off mowing lawns, it is a waste of handyman time. I hire a lot of handymen as guests dont like an unclean park. Initially I will have one or two and as $ becomes avaliable, and as there is more footpaths I hire more.
- Note you can "mow" the lawns yourself by using the land tool to click on an area and the grass will change back to no weeds.(be careful you don't pay to change land though)

I will hire one security guard after I have about 300 guests. Security guards prevent vandalism, which is annoying when in the game. Don't hire too many as they are expensive!

Finally, I don't hire entertainers, they are a waste of money.


You can set your employees to stay within a certain area of the park, for the most part I don't see a need to do this. The only excpetion is if you have a high volume vomit area, for lack of a better term, such as the exit of an intense roller coaster. I will sometimes set a handyman to stay in this area if it gets too gross.

Be Smart About Your Land Use

The final tip I have does not make you money, but it saves you money.

Some parks come with a lot of footpaths (e.g. Evergreen gardens). If there are too many paths, guests get lost and cannot find the park exit. This is annoying, and makes them unhappy. What I usually do is either make do not enter signs or delete the paths. Do not enter signs prevent guests from entering, however your employees can still go past them. This may cause a problem if they are not in the area they should be working. Therefore, I only use these signs if I intend to use footpaths at a later time when I have more guests.

I usually go through the park and delete the unwanted footpaths. This both increases my money (time to pay back that loan!) and allows me to build my own paths later as needed.


next, changing the land is REAL expensive, so I avoid doing this as much as possible. Use what you have! If you are playing Leafy Lake, build on the lake. If you are making a new roller coaster, build parts underground!

Sometimes I will change land if I need to put in a big ride, but I try to stick to the 4X changer, and I have to be careful as it is easy to move too fast, and you cannot get your money back if you change land in an unwanted way.

Finally, Deleting trees costs money. I try not to delete trees unnecessarily (e.g.need to clear a large area to build a large ride). It is a waste of money to go through the park and remove all the trees. If they annoy you, you can select the "see through scenery" option

Final Remarks

Although this guide is fairly basic, I hope it helps you to earn money and build a better park!

Please comment with any additional tips that can help people out, and maybe one day all our parks will be as fabulous as that one Arid Heights scenario.

[Equillibrium_LXXXVIII]

In addition to placing a handyman at the exit of an intense ride, I place a bathroom and lots of benches for guests to sit down and or go in and hurl. I find this setup goes a long way in reducing the amount of vomit that collects on paths near ride exits. You can also charge guests to use the bathroom $0.10 as passive cash generator.

[tiredofbs]

that behemoth on the last picture is like the final boss of all roller coasters, an attraction to end all attractions

[audiolady]

I sometimes hire entertainers just for fun. The panda looks like he's singing a little song I made up for him-"Stay on the path, you stupid idiot. It's a good path, you stupid idiot." Until he wandered of the path looked down, jumped back on the path and started dancing again.

[audiolady]

I really want to ride that last coaster irl! Did you make that yourself, and is there a way to share the blueprint?
That's me, stealing the blueprint.

[savukala]

Park/company value isn't relevant until you are closing in to the time limit, maxing out the loan to get lots of initial value makes more sense in my opinion because it is enabling you to build fast and charge a lots of premiums from park guests, paying the loan back later is no big deal by the end of scenario.

Also if your roller coaster crashes and people die, demolish it and build the same thing on the same spot, customers will see it as a new ride and you can cash in the premiums again.

Very good tips :)

[theEscape]

Very helpful guide, thanks for posting!

[Blackjack]

Make your umbrellas cost $20.

No one complains when it's nice, and when it rains they buy em up.

[fireproof_in_tn]

I find it is very much worth your money to keep the advertisements going.

[Decayedwrath]

dude i need to know who created that roller coaster that damn thing is a f ing beast or if its in the game i wanna see that damn thing in action god id shit myself and piss myself if i was riding that thing

[Thugg_Nasty]

Hey great tips! Just downloaded yesterday and I am hooked again. One other tip I would like to add. Build 1 or 2 Kiosks in the beginning and set the umbrella price really high (i use $15.00). Guests will usually pay when its starts to rain. I notice in the months that it rains, my shop sales usually double.