New Game Idea: Amusement Park Tester
Amusement parks are famous for thrilling rides and delicious treats — but which park is actually the best? Lucky for us, we've found a desperate student (yes, that's you, the player) to do the testing. It's your student job, and it's what keeps your university lifestyle afloat.
1. Pick the park you're going to visit today
Parks further away take longer to reach, but a longer trip means passing more restaurants along the way.
2. Choose where to have breakfast
On the way to the park you'll pass several restaurants, and at each one you decide whether to stop or keep going. Once you've passed a restaurant, there's no going back — so feel free to gamble on something better down the road, at your own risk. Arrive at the park on an empty stomach and you won't handle the heat, or have the energy for all that walking.
3. Explore the Park
Test the venues, ride the roller coaster, try the slushy — until you eventually run out of energy. Fortunately there's no shortage of stands to top yourself up on the go, if you don't mind the calories. Park food is expensive, calorie-dense, and low in nutrition, but it's all you've got. Don't eat too much right before an extreme ride, so plan carefully. And take the train whenever you can: less walking means more energy left for testing rides.
4. Head Home
Same route: restaurants pass by one at a time, and skipping one is final. This is your chance at dinner — assuming you haven't already eaten your fill at the park. A park further away means more places to stop, in both directions. Dinner restaurants are different ones from breakfast ones, obviously, so you can't take any learnings from step 2 to this one.
5. Home Time
Now you can prep for tomorrow, go shopping, or just relax and recover your stats. Keep in mind that a distant park eats into your evening, which may leave no time for your daily workout — crucial if you don't want those calories settling on your waistline.
That's the day!
That's the core loop. My idea is to make the player a student whose real goal is keeping their grades up, with park testing as the income that pays for student life.
Some technical details
I feel like browser games have an easier time with compatibility, and it also removes the hustle of downloading things, if it's hosted somewhere. I get that people will likely want something downloadable too; which is not an issue; it's a Twine game, so I should be able to export it into a downloadable ZIP as well.
Now it's your time to shine :) I'd love feedback on the concept and the attached screenshots. Note that they're from a vibe-coded demo — nothing final. All the graphics are still missing, so it's a bare skeleton showing only the stats. I do plan to add a character window, and I'd like to experiment there and try some new approaches — ideally something better than the one in GoL.
Comments (1)
Interesting premise! I have some notes: You may have already thought of this, but while snacking restores energy, perhaps eating too much should make the player sluggish or even have to take a short break. Also an important part of WG kink is the reactions of those around the gainer, so maybe the player character and her friend are working together as amusement park testers? That way there's someone to talk to, to comment on the player's weight gain, criticize them for being greedy, someone to be embarrassed by the player's antics. Also worth noting that many amusement park rides have a (usually high) weight limit, which could lead to amusing scenarios in the late game. But even before the player reaches that point, they might have trouble fitting in the seat, or have to take up two seats, or ask for a seat belt extender, or even just be uncomfortably squished against the person next to them. These discomforts on certain rides could make the ride cost slightly more energy, which would in turn slightly discourage the player from riding them. This could lead to a snowball effect in the player's gain, where she lets her friend test the rides she finds uncomfortable, giving her more time to eat. Also, if you keep one mechanic from Gain of Life, keep the clothing tightness, it was lots of fun. The indication that your clothes are now tight turns the game into a gamble: how long will they last? Do you place it safe and replace them or keep them and risk bursting out of them at any moment and being punished with a higher price for new clothes? The player could order new clothes online from home at the end of the day (which would add an interesting timing element to the gamble. Now it's not only a matter of buying new clothes in time, you also have to worry about if they will be delivered to your home before you burst out of your old clothes. If the player bursts out of their clothes at an amusement park, they would have to buy clothes from a store there (amusement parks famously overcharge for everything!)