I recently picked up Parkitect with my good friend, Realeo, what also has a couple of posts here. The game is everything you want from a park simulator with the thing you didn’t know you did: multiplayer. Building alongside a person-person who is just as clueless as you are about how things work is a joy. It also works well as a quiet group activity at times when your both sweating through figuring out how to finish a ride or why people are not buying your bubble tea. I recently got into diving into the numbers, clicking on each ride and looking at the statistics, and this has led me to a discovery. Spiral Slides are for suckers.
Spiral slides are these cool lighthouse looking rides, where a visitor queues up for the chance to climb to the top and slide down in a spiral to much pixelated joy. But this is no happy lighthouse as it appears. It is a sad lighthouse. It is Nickel Creeks’s Lighthouse. The only thing being dashed against the rocks here though are profits.
Making money is the last priority with the Spiral Slide. First off the queue is 1 visitor and the time for said visitor to complete their turn is surprisingly long. Second, a queue line is a waste of space on the ride because you will tie up visitors who could otherwise be spending their money elsewhere in the park. Third, out of my whole park this ride made less money than anything else despite being one of the first few built. I am talking 36 years of operation and only $5,761.43 of profit or roughly $160 a year.
Having said all that, it is pretty cool looking so maybe you should build one anyways.