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Thrillville for PlayStation Portable
Thrillville for PlayStation Portable puts you in charge of Uncle Mortimer's amusement parks. You walk among the visitors, place attractions and try to keep rival Globo-Joy from gaining the upper hand. A new roller coaster is more than an extra structure: you can ride it yourself afterwards. You also design go-kart tracks and miniature golf courses, then try out your own route. The park becomes both a workplace and a collection of playgrounds.
Visitors tell you what they think of the park. You discuss their interests, make friends and discover whether they need different attractions or facilities. Toilets, food stalls, prices and advertising are part of management. Missions might ask you to build a track of a certain height or beat a guest at a minigame. You earn ratings that open new parks. Construction takes place in designated zones; you do not draw an unlimited park entirely from an empty map.
Besides building, you play go-kart races, shooting-gallery games and arcade adventures, among other things. In Party Play, you choose individual games without walking through the park first. The local Ad Hoc feature supports up to four players on PSP systems with wireless networking. With your own copies of the game, you can play the contests together; through Blueprint, you can also exchange roller coaster and track designs you have made. Managing the five parks remains a separate single-player adventure.
Region and language
Our PlayStation Portable games are European editions and come with a Dutch or English box, unless stated otherwise. By default, you receive the version for the European market. We note it in the product details if the region is different or the box is in another language. In almost all cases, the game is playable at least in English, and often in the other five common European languages too.
You receive the physical UMD edition. You need a PSP with a UMD drive to play it; a PSP Go cannot play this disc.
This copy has North American packaging with an ESRB age rating. The packaging is in English.
Manual
Thrillville for PlayStation Portable includes the manual unless the product title states otherwise. If the booklet is missing, the title says “No Manual”. This lets you see before ordering whether the game comes with a manual.
The manuals included with our games usually contain at least English and often around six European languages. The exact languages vary by edition, so Dutch is not always included. The booklet explains the controls and the main rules. You can use it to check how to control the game, which actions are available and how its different features work.
The history of Thrillville
Frontier Developments made Thrillville together with publisher LucasArts. The game appeared in North America in November 2006 for PlayStation Portable, PlayStation 2 and Xbox. With RollerCoaster Tycoon 3, Frontier already had experience of digital amusement parks. For Thrillville, however, the team chose a different starting point: a controllable character among the attractions. The producers wanted to connect building, visiting and playing within the same park, rather than simply providing an overview of revenue and visitor numbers.
That choice shaped the missions too. Conversations provided information about visitors, new attractions had to meet their wishes and revenue made further expansion possible. Taking part in games yourself gave day-to-day management a different kind of break from simply changing a setting in a menu. The PSP edition retained the five parks and the collection of minigames, but received modified missions and less spoken dialogue than the console versions. From the design stage, the building controls were aimed at buttons and analogue input.
The PSP's wireless connection also provided a practical way to exchange your own designs. During development, LucasArts already described Blueprint as a place to share roller coasters and other creations. The first Thrillville thus established a formula in which park management, conversations and short contests existed side by side. Thrillville: Off the Rails followed in 2007 with new content. The spectacular jumps between track sections in that sequel are not part of this original release from 2006.
Similar games for PlayStation Portable
Thrillville: Off the Rails for PlayStation Portable builds on the same combination of amusement park management, visitor conversations and attractions you can play yourself. The sequel adds new missions and minigames and uses the striking WHOA track pieces for extreme roller coaster sections. The original Thrillville introduces Uncle Mortimer, the five parks and the basics of building and playing. They are separate games; the stunts and additions from Off the Rails are not automatically included in the first game.
The Sims 2 for PlayStation Portable also lets you control your own character and build relationships with other people. In Strangetown, you investigate secrets, hold conversations and keep an eye on your Sim's needs. Thrillville directs that social element towards amusement park visitors and links their wishes to attractions and facilities. You manage a business with playable fairground games, while The Sims 2 organises its progression around personal problems and mysteries.
Harvest Moon: Hero of Leaf Valley for PlayStation Portable combines daily work with conversations and a threat to the place where you live. You grow crops, care for animals and get to know villagers. Thrillville replaces the farm with amusement parks and gives you plenty of separate contests in between. Whereas Hero of Leaf Valley revolves around recurring days and seasons, in Thrillville you work through ratings and missions towards the next parks and attractions.
Every Extend Extra for PlayStation Portable shares Thrillville's emphasis on short rounds in which you try to improve your performance. You trigger chain reactions by exploding yourself at the right moment among approaching enemies. There are no visitors, shops or attractions to build. Thrillville connects such score-focused diversions to a park that you continue to expand, while Every Extend Extra builds all its rules around timing and explosions.
Everybody's Golf for PlayStation Portable develops golf into a full sports game with club selection, wind and different courses. Alongside its other attractions, Thrillville lets you make and play miniature golf courses. The pleasure of choosing a line to the hole is shared, but the scale differs. Everybody's Golf explores one sport in depth over long rounds; Thrillville alternates golf with building, go-kart races, conversations and looking after your visitors.
