Theme Park is a construction and management simulation video game developed by Bullfrog Productions and published by Electronic Arts in 1994.

Reviewers praised the gameplay and humour, but criticised console ports for reasons such as lack of save or mouse support.

Starting with a free plot of land in the United Kingdom and a few hundred thousand pounds, the player must build a profitable amusement park.

[2] Money is spent on building rides, shops, and staff,[3] and earned through sale of entry tickets, merchandise, and refreshments.

[4] Shops available include those selling foodstuff (such as ice creams) or soft drinks, and games such as coconut shies and arcades.

[7] Over thirty attractions, ranging in complexity from the bouncy castle and tree house to more complicated and expensive rides such as the roller coaster and Ferris wheel are available.

[18] If visitors become unhappy, thugs may come to vandalise the park by committing offences such as popping balloons, stealing food, and beating up entertainers.

[19] Occasionally, wages and the price of goods must be negotiated; failure to reach an agreement results in staff strikes or loss of shipment.

[20][21] Theme Park offers three levels of simulation: the higher difficulties requiring more management of aspects such as logistics.

[26] Once enough money has been made, the player can auction the park and move on to newer plots,[27] located worldwide and having different factors affecting gameplay, including the economy, weather, terrain and land value.

[28][29] The Mega Drive and SNES versions feature different settings (e.g. desert and glacier) depending on the park's location.

[30] Peter Molyneux stated that he came up with the idea of creating Theme Park because he felt the business genre was worth pursuing.

The three difficulty settings enable players to choose the desired depth: simply having fun creating a theme park, or making all the business decisions too.

[33] The story was originally to have the player play the role of a nephew who had inherited a fortune from his aunt, to be spent only on the world's largest and most profitable theme park.

There was to be a feature where a microphone is placed on a visitor and so the player could hear what they were saying,[31] and multiplayer support was dropped two weeks prior to release because of a deadline.

[36] Theme Park took roughly a year and a half for Molyneux and co-designer and chief programmer Demis Hassabis to develop.

Molyneux wanted him to create a colourful style to appeal to a Japanese market, but Carr disagreed and left Bullfrog.

[50] Other ports include the Amiga CD32,[51] Atari Jaguar,[52] 3DO Interactive Multiplayer, Super Nintendo Entertainment System,[53] and Macintosh.

[59] PC Gamer's Gary Whitta was highly impressed with the game: he eulogised the fun factor and compared it to that of SimCity 2000.

Their elaboration was that "slow gameplay and confusing layouts keep it from ever achieving the addictiveness of the other 'god' games, and most players will find themselves bored before they've even run through all of the options".

Sam Hickman of Sega Saturn Magazine praised it for retaining the original intro, music, speech samples, and features of the PC version (all of which had been left out of most previous console versions),[50] although a reviewer from the Japanese magazine of the same name criticised the lack of mouse support.

[65] A Next Generation critic lauded the game's "simple interface", "infectious gameplay", and "realistic business fundamentals", but felt the Saturn's "near-perfect" conversion of the PC original was commendable but unexciting, and expressed regret that there were no upgrades or additions.

[70] GamePro gave a terse joint review of the Saturn and PlayStation versions, commenting: "You decide every detail, right down to the roller coaster's speed.

New features of the game are the user interface, which was designed to fit the stylus functionality of the DS platform, and bonus rides/shops exclusive to certain properties, such as a tea room themed on an AEC Routemaster bus for England, Japanese dojo-style bouncy castle for Japan, a Coliseum-themed pizza parlour for Italy, a La Sagrada Familia-themed paella restaurant for Spain etc.