DinoPark Tycoon

Overview

• Full Name: DinoPark Tycoon
• Code:
• Type: Business simulation game
• Developer: Manley & Associates
• Publisher: MECC
• Language: English
• Release Date: 1994
• Region: NA
• Barcode: 790561033387
• Local Title:
• Rarity: 1
• Case: Long Box with Single Jewel CD Case
• Notes:

Overview

DinoPark Tycoon is an educational business simulation computer game released by MECC. Players run a theme park which features dinosaurs as its main attraction. The goal of the game is to care for the dinosaurs while keeping the park clean, organized, and well maintained.

Game Play

The objective in DinoPark Tycoon is the successful administration of a dinosaur park. Players start off with a $5,000 loan. The money is used to pay for the land, dinosaurs, fencing, food and employees necessary to run the park and pay back the loan; failure to meet loan payments results in the park's foreclosure. Once the loan is paid off, players may expand the park and earn profits. If players are confused, an animated dinosaur appears and guides the players through the game.

Players then visit supply stores to buy the necessary items for park maintenance. The food store provides meat for carnivores, plants for herbivores and seeds for planting. The general store provides fences for the dinosaur pens, with varying degrees of strength and price; concessions such as bathrooms, gift shops and parking lots; and advertising, which is bought per season. The employment office offers the personnel to run the park, and Dino City retails the dinosaurs for the exhibits.

As time passes, players face problems such as escaping dinosaurs, sick employees, and seasonal attendance declines. The trick is to scratch out enough profit to expand the park with capital improvements and bigger and better dinosaurs." Players may choose to sell their park. If it has been successful, the player achieves an onscreen award and an entry on the top scores list.

You are in charge, and have to do many things, including:

• borrowing money
• buying and selling dinosaurs
• buying fences to keep them in, including electric fences for extra security
• hiring staff, such as maintenance, cooks, tour guides, vets
• building and expanding your park to include things such as washrooms, concession stands, and parking lots
• setting admission fees
• advertising your park

To aid you in making decisions, the game includes these plus more features:

• dinosaur fact guide
• daily records
• quarterly financial reports
• calender

Other Versions

The game was originally released for MS-DOS and MACOS in 1993, and came in two versions, Retail and School, the difference being with the School version is you start with a $20k loan rather than $5k. The 3DO version included enhanced graphics and sound.

A Windows version was later released in 1997.

Credits

• Developed by Manley & Associates: Ivan Manley, Carol Manley, John Baron, Rebecca Coffman, Kurt Pfeifer, Robert Ridihalgh, Jerry McManus, Laura Adamo, Brian H. Johnson

• MECC: Chuck Bilow, Barry Mansur, Nursen Bilge, Glen Anderson, Brian Anderson, Sue L. Minor, Ron Helwig, Josef Ling

Disc Archaeology

Findings from a byte-level analysis of the US retail disc image (551,116,800 bytes / 268,800 blocks; 407 filesystem entries).

The same file exists twice

The /dino_sounds directory contains a genuine filesystem anomaly: two separate entries both named POPP122 — one 7,932 bytes at block 41323, the other 4,282 bytes at block 161655. They are different files with the same name in the same directory, something the mastering tools should never have produced; which one the game actually opens depends entirely on directory search order.

The whole script in STRINGS.DAT

/STRINGS.DAT (13,789 bytes) is the game's complete text database — an offset table followed by every line in the game as readable plain text, from the tutorial prompts to the auctioneer's patter: "Next up we have %s %s. Can we have a starting bid of $%ld?" and "Thanks for coming folks! Don't let the door hit ya on the way out!"

The park's economy in the executable

The game's event system survives as a token list in launchme: _dinoplague, _dinoattack, _dinoborn, _dinodied, _hungrydinos, _bankexpensivedino, _banktoomanydinos, _dinostoauction... Saves go to /nvram/dinopark.sg%d with a separate high-score file dinopark.topten, and source filenames (music.c) survive in debug strings.

Notable files

• The music ships as MIDI files (3DOPARK.MID, 3DOAUCT.MID, 3DOXTNCT.MID...) — rare on a platform whose titles overwhelmingly used streamed or sampled audio.
• Sound-effect names preserve the studio's working shorthand: crashsym22 (crash cymbal, 22 kHz), BLWCFFE (blow coffee?), EARSQUK22, and one file that kept its sample-rate conversion suffix as a name: BIRDS2211128.
• NICETRY.act — the game-over screen's filename reviews your performance.
• MANLEY.act — the park's advisor character, Manley, gets his own archive; MECC.act is the publisher logo.

No text credits

A full-image sweep finds no staff names as text anywhere on the disc — the credits exist only as pre-rendered graphics (CREDITS.act, ENDCREDITS.act, about.act). The only copyright string on the disc is in the boot code, not the game.

Filesystem notes

The root directory spans four blocks and verifies hash-identical across all seven copies, which are scattered evenly across the disc (blocks 76 through 230401) — careful redundancy placement. The copies of /System/Drivers, Folios, Programs, Scripts and rom_tags disagree between generations — the common multi-pass mastering artifact; not dump damage.

Unallocated space

77,948 blocks (~152 MB, 29% of the disc) belong to no file, in 56 scattered runs. Every byte was checked: 100% standard iamaduck mastering filler, nothing hidden inside.

Media

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  Back
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  CD
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  Screenshot
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  Screenshot
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  Screenshot
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  Screenshot