DaKay's DinoPark Tycoon Guide

EDIT 18.06.2014, last Edit 05.02.2019:

After I wrote the first version I did some more research (I mean I called this a guide so some more details should be a good thing).  Furthermore after some research I found out that some of the stuff I wrote in the first version were not like I wrote so that mistakes are removed now too. I may update this again if I find some more information, if I do so I will add the date in this section.

Usually this guide was supposed to be posted on gamefaqs. But because I don't want to do hours of research to find out how to format the guides the right way (Since you cant just post it from your text file and have to write all in ASCII and re-formate it I had a problem with a topic which just wasn't formatted as I wanted it to be). After several tries I gave it up and decided just post this guide here. I am not taking any offence on gamefaqs, I like it and I frequently visit this site, I just didn't have the patience to post my guide there.

However, here is the edited guide:

-Intro- 

I remember when I was a kid I played this game...but never succesfully. Now I found the game on an abandonware-site and started to play again. The game still was hard to beat on the honest way (we all know about the auction trick for countless money...but thats cheating).
So I started to look through the web to find a guide or at least some hints...and I found out that these are kinda rare for this game. And if you are looking for a detailed guide you won't even be able to find anything. So I decided to write my own little guide to show you how to get some better results on the honest way of playing the game (without cheating). There also should be a file called "quickstart" if you click on LOAD GAME...then you have 2 or 3 dinosaurs, some staff and 20.000 bucks. But I won't write about this way of starting the game here...this guide is for the people who want to start their Dinopark from the scratch.

-General facts/hints-
Ever started a park and failed even before the first year ended? This can happen because of several reasons. Here you have some hints that make your park much easier to handle:

1. Put Dinosaurs into the right environment
Have you ever wondered why sometimes your Dinosaurs tend to break out much more often? This happens because many people don't watch the Dinosaur data. Look into the information about the Dinosaur. On the bottom you see in which area they were living. Always try to stick with the ones who really lived in the area you picked at the start. Don't put a desert Dino into marsh area. He will tend to break out much more often.

Note that this will get more and more unimportant when you continue in the game and from about year 3 even the right Dinosaurs will break out really often. But in the Beginning of your game (for the first 2 years or sth.) this has a big effect on your breakout-rate.
[EDIT:05.02.2019, wrong]
 
2. Always keep some money
Another point that can lead to an unexpected bankrupt. At the beginning keep about 5.000$ for the case of an unexpected Dino-Escape. Furthermore be prepared for the bad quarters later in the game. They really let your income drop down. In year one you are still expanding so you won't recognize this effect that much. But from year 2 you really have to be prepared for these bad quarters. Check the staff list for monthly staff expenses and try to hold back money for being able to pay them for a few Months without income. The rest of the amount should be covered by the visitors. If needed, fire some people and rehire them when better times begin, you won't need them during the weak months.

3. Watch the messages
Most of the time the game will tell you when somehting is not right. If you get a message on the screen about missing staff/food/whatever ALWAYS AND IMMEDIATELY take care of this problem.

4. “Dinosaur has disappeared”-Events
By speaking about these events I mean situations where you get a message that one of your Dinosaurs is gone because of a random reason. There are 3 different types of these events:

A - Poor Maintenance =>this is caused by missing maintenance people - First possible occur at the end of first quarter of year 1

B - Dino Breakout => this is caused randomly, but the chance can be lowered by the strength of the fences...additionally it can be hugely lowered by putting the dinosaur into its natural environment.
[EDIT:05.02.2019, wrong] 
Furthermore these seem to never occur before end of first quarter in year 1 (well...with the metal fence! ;D). Keep in mind that even with all the best fences+electrics, putting the Dinosaur into the right area and having enough maintenace will never prevent  these outbreaks for 100%.

C - Random Events =>this is caused randomly. (Dinosaur stolen etc). I don't know if you can take an influence on this. They seem to occur from beginning of year 3

Note that there are much more events  that may happen during your game.  But since this part is only a startup guide I just list the most important you have to deal with. You can find a complete list  within the “in-depth”-Section.

5. Don't put middle/big sized carnivores and herbivores next to each other
There is a chance the carnivores will eat the herbivores. Same goes for big and small carnivores. The big ones may eat the small ones. A Good way to solve this is to put the middle/big-sized carnivores into the three cages at the lower right corner of your park (marked red).

6. The right pricing
Another important point is the entrance of your park. I made the experience that you make the best profits if you take an entrance of 5$. This way you will cover your expenses and still attract enough visitors to come into your park. 

7. Many people = many money
Whatever you do, your first goal with a new park should be the full parkings upgrade. These upgrades raise the number of people who are able to visit your park...which raises your income ;)


[EDIT:05.02.2019]
Just partly True. Just go for parkings level 2 at this point, more in the in-depth-section

8. Uprade with the right timing
After the parkings lvl 2 are done don't buy all of the food store and Gift shop upgrades right away. To make them profitable you need more visitors first...A good Strategy is to uprade these once everytime you bought 2 new dinosaurs. Because more Dinosaurs lure more people to your park.
[EDIT:05.02.2019, just partly true]
A good strategy at this point is to get food store lvl 1, then gift store lvl 1, then go for parkings lvl 3 before uprading them any further 

9. Check the little "Staff OK" note on your desk in your office regularly

By clicking on this you will get informations if you have enough employees for your park to run at its current maximun potential. Be aware that the game won't tell you if you have too many employees. It just tells you if some1 is missing.

10. Don't expand to fast
You will loose really fast if you expand too fast. Don't buy all the pens and fill them with dinosaurs as soon as you have your first bigger amount of money. Try to concentrate on the good quarters (always do an expansion the moment the last bad quarter ends so that you take your new attractions through every day of the good and best quarters to earn money for you). And if you expand, never buy more than 2 Dinosaurs at a time. The more Dinosaurs you have the more costs you have to face for feeding, employees, Breakout-replacing and so on. Furthermore the bigger your park gets the more you have to pay to hold your park during the bad months.
[EDIT:05.02.2019, wrong]
 Expand! Just keep an eye on the costs and don´t overdo it (don`t forget to always keep the "replacement-amount" which you should raise to 10.000 as soon as you have more than 2 Dinos) and be sure to have parkings lvl 3 and gift shop + food store lvl 2 and flyers+newspapers permanently running.
 
11. Season-Jobs
If your park has reached a certain size it is efficient to fire some of your employees (Confessionaires/ Security) during the bad quarters. Not really a nice action to fire your people but you can save a lot of money by doing this.


12. The right Dinosaurs at the right time
You should always mind about the running costs (food) for the Dinosaurs. Herbivores are much cheaper than carnivores. Small Dinosaurs are cheaper than the Big ones. If you buy a few big Dinosaurs without thinking about the running costs first this can cause some serious financial problems, especially if your Park still is in the early years.

13. Always do advertising
This can greatly raise your visitor numbers. It's the most effective if you use the big campaigns during the good quarters. Besides that you should ALWAYS buy the Flyers and Newspapers from the moment you did the last parkings upgrade.
[EDIT: 05.02.2019] Never do TV-Adds. Not worth the cost!

-Step by step guide how to start your park from the scratch-

1. Picking the area
So you clicked NEW GAME and now a little dinosaur wants you to visit the building where you can buy the cages (the ground to build them on). If you come here for the first time you will also have to decide in which area you want to build your park. Don't just randomly pick one. This game also is a simulation...so you first have to decide what dinosaurs you want to have later. Why? I think you all know the situation when you bought a dinosaur, you don't have much money and the dinosaur breaks out...BUT: That won't happen that often if you put the Dinosaurs into their natural environment. The Deinonychus for example lives in desert. So if you plan to have one of these you should pick the desert and he will rarely break out.
[EDIT:05.02.2019, wrong]

2. Buy/unlock a cage
As the topic said...do it. Back to the "Street".

3. Buy a fence
Back on the street you see the little dinosaur again. He leads us into the shop. This is an important building which we will visit a lot! ;) Click on FENCES. Now you come to a point where many people (including me some days ago ;D) already fail: They use the wooden fences. And these are easy to break for every dinosaur, even for the smallest ones. Sure, sometimes you may have luck and the fence works long enough until the first goal you need to reach fast to be successfull is reached (parkings upgrade). We take the metal fence and go for sure! Back to the streets.

4. Staff
The little Dinosaur again...he leads us to the place where we hire our employees. Hire 1 tour guide for now. Leave.

5. The first Dinosaur
Now we are thrown into the building in which we can buy our dinosaurs. At this point you should take cheapest dinosaur which was living in such an area. Hypsiliphodon in desert, Ornithomimus in marsh, and if you picked plains take the Orni too. He doesnt really fit here but our first dinosaur has to be cheap (the metal fence will hold him for long enough, don't worry ;) ). Besides that its better to take a herbivore as the first dinosaur since plant units are much cheaper than meat for a carnivore.
[EDIT:05.02.2019]
 
6. Feed your new Attraction
Back on the streets our little friend now leads us to the dino food shop. Buy just 8-10 of the cheapest plant units. Note that you can also feed your dinosaurs with growing saplings so buy some of them too (don’t let them run out and you will really save money with plant food).

7. Set the Prices
Now we are asked to visit the last building. Our office. Here you can look into statistics, check your inventory, set the prices and get some usefull hints from time to time. For now, we click the book and set the entrance price on 5 $. I tried a few prices and with this one you should have enough visitors (its not that expensive) and still earn enough to keep your park going. I for one never failed when using this price ;)

8. Open your park
Now its time to let the visitors in. Click where the little Dinosaur wants you to do. After you opened your park just wait.

9. Preventing a break out
Since you just started the only possible breakout at the moment is the mainenance-breakout (A). And because you are low on money we save it until the last moment. Wait until beginning of march, then hire a maintenance. This way you save 2 months of loan and still prevent the first possible maintenance breakout which can occur when march ends

10. Patience!
Now wait. The first goal should be the parkings lvl1. This raises the number of people that are able to visit our park. So do nothing (except rebuying food/saplings for your dinosaur...but dont throw all money into the food. Better buy regularly all 6 - 8 weeks [EDIT:05.02.2019] and in addition, if you`re playing in marsh area I would recommend to start with flyers as soon as you have about 6.000-7.000$ since here you start out in the weak months) Since you never now when a breakout occurs you should wait with the first update until you have like 15.000$ (always save 5.000$ to replace the metal fence and dinosaur in case of a breakout).  The time it takes to save the first 15.000 is up to the area you pick at the start because all areas have their good and bad quarters in a different season.

11. Park-Tuning
If you have bought the first parking upgrade you will recognize your money growing faster than before. But don't get hasty now. We wait again for another 15.000$. This should take much less waiting time. Don't even think about taking another update just because you have some money now. Stick with the strategy of upgrading the parkings to lvl2 first. This is because the more people can visit your park the more money you earn. Besides that: With this upgrade the food store and the gift shop show their full potential. Its more effective to wait with these until the parkings lvl2 are done. Right after the second upgrade wait for the third one (save 15.000$ again). The waiting time between the second and the third should be really short.
After this is done, go for the food store uprade next (just one upgrade) and also start some advertising (just flyers for now, and you have to renew this every quarter so do regularly from now on) and still always try to hold back 5.000$ in case of a dino escape (dont forget to hire a concession for the food store after you bought this upgrade).
Next one after that should be the gift shop and the rest rooms (gift store just 1 upgrade, rest room 1, AND you need another concession for the gift shop).

12. Patience again More park tuning
After you have bought the gift shop you should have reached a point where you earn a good amount of money. [EDIT: 05.02.2019] Now it`s time for parkings lvl 3. Again ->15.000$ to save but this time this shouldn't take long. With the parkings lvl 3 done you should go for food store and gift shop lvl 2 now, then you also can do the rest rooms lvl 2. Not save it for a while (until you own about 20-30.000$). Then its time for new dinosaurs. But don't overdo it, 1 or 2 more is enough for now. You should go for a small/middle sized herbivore again. Furthermore you should start to build walls from now on and also add the newspaper to the advertising (also keep the flyers going). .

13. Voila!
If you followed all these steps you should now have a running park and a good amount of income. If you just wait some months now you should already be able to join the top of the highscore list when you sell your park. From this point feel free to do whatever you want. 

-In-Depth-section for all who wan't to know it all (contains spoilers!)-

The Quarters in the different areas (best and worst possible visitor numbers)

Desert: Best in winter, good in fall, worst in summer

Marsh: Best in summer, good in spring, worst in winter

Plains: Best in Spring, good in summer, worst in fall

[[EDIT:05.02.2019]
Long term pricing
In Year 1 you are still expanding so 5 $ for entrance the entire year may work. From year 2 you should set the price on 5$ for the 2 good seasons and to 2,50$ during the weak seasons

Best growth results with saplings in the different areas

Desert: Flowers

Marsh: Fungus and Spores

Plains: Trees 

The upgrades and the order in which you should buy them 
[EDIT: 05.02.2019] Parkings 1 -> Parkings 2 -> Food store 1 -> Rest rooms 1 ->  Gift Shop 1 -> Parkings 3 -> Food Store 2 -> Gift Shop 2 -> Rest Rooms 2 -> Up to you from here
With these you have a fast expansion in the early game. But because the situations may differ after these you have to decide the other ones by you own. Note that buying the food store/gift shop won't generate any running costs as long as you don't have a concession for each of these. So if you do these Upgrades and see that you have more running costs than income with the level 2/3 Gift shop or food store just fire the concessions working in these. Besides this you can't do anything wrong here so just upgrade your park as you want.

[EDIT:05.02.2019]
Stuff about Staff
Staff effetivenes always multiplies with 3: 1 Maintenance for 3 pens, 1 Tour guide for 3 Dinosaurs and so on. No data about managers but since they `re needed as soon as you have 5 people I guess their capacity is 15 employees.

Furthermore you shouldn`t have more than 2 concessions for each store because the 3rd ones profit isn´t worth the cost, and with stores lvl 3 you also always have a "reserve store" when you get an inspection (they always just effect 1 store)

 

The occuring Events, the moment they start to show up and how to handle them (even though the most messages tell you what to do)

Dinosaur destroyed the fence and escaped (from 2nd quarter year one)

What to do: Immediatly replace it. Check is the Dinosaur is natural environment to lower the possibility for this to happen. Later in the game build stronger fences and add electricity to lower the possibility even more.

Dinosaur escaped because of poor maintenance (from end of 1st quarter year one)

What to do: Immediatly replace it. Hire 1 maintenance.

Dinosaur stolen from criminals/animal activists (from year three)

What to do: Immediatly replace it. You have deal with these ones. They just happen from time to time. I don't know if security has any effect on this but hiring enough of them to test this would lead you to the end of your park.

Dinosaur A ate Dinosaur B (from end of 1st quarter year one)

What to do: Don't place medium/big carnivores right next to any herbivores. Don't place any small Dinosaur next to a medium/big-sized carnivores. Replace your lost Dinosaur in an other cage.

Employee stays at home for a week because of random reasons (from the moment you have more than 4 Employees, usually first time in year 2)

What to do: Just do something in the following situations: You just have 1 maintenance/manager/tour guide and he is the one who stays at home. 

In this case go into the Employee office, hire one of the employes who stays at home and now wait on this screen. As soon as the number raises back to 2 employes fire the hired one. Especially later in the game this is really important. Dinosaurs break out with "bad maintenance" message if you just go on without a maintenance for 1 week, same goes for quitting employees if the manager is missing.

1 Week park shutdown because of road repair near the park/broken water pipe (from year 3)

What to do: Nothing. You have to sit it out

1 Week store shutdown because of inspections (from year 3)

What to do: Nothing. Just go on with your game. You can not do anything against this

You have to pay for the damages caused by one of your escaped dinosaurs (from year 3)

What to do: Pay it. This can happen if you have medium/big-size Dinosaurs and they escape.

Vandals are running amok (when the visitor numbers grow beyond a certain number)

What to do: Hire 1 more security [EDIT: 05.02.2019] Or dont, up to you, they destroy your food containers, you loose half of the food supplies and just rebuying food is cheaper than security

Employee quits because of bad management (more than 5 Employees, usually year 2)

What to do: Hire 1 manager, rehire one of the employees who quit if needed

Dinosaurs are overeating (year 2)

What to do: Hire 1 veterinary

Employee quits because you dont have enough money to pay the loan

What to do: Earn more money! ;D

Nah, for real: If this happens to you in year 2 or later, take a credit from the bank. Do not rehire anyone because at this point you are in danger to loose the game. Maybe fire some more of your employees until your money raises again (Don't fire all your confessions (keep 2, 1 for food store, 1 for gift store) and try to keep at least 1 tour guide and 1 maintenance if possible. Managers are the first choice in such a situation, followed by security. Fire them first.

But if this happens in your first year then you`re doing it wrong! Try again. No chance to win within this try. :-P

Other random facts

- If you want your park to look a little more "natural", buy Tree saplings to start the trees growing in your park...you can also buy tree units directly, but this will be much more expensive [EDIT: 05.02.2019, Wrong]

- Spending money in the shop upgrades the area where the visitors are walking around. Early in the game you just have a little Volcano, later you even can get a merry-go-round ;D
-If you have concrete walls on all pens your walkway will upgrade to a white pavement

Volcano 

Waterspring

Merry-Go-Round

- You can kill the annoying fly in the food store by just waiting for it to be "in range" and then switching the page or closing the book. SPLATTER! YAY! :D ...But the next one will come immediatly...

- If you are on the street or in your office and you click on the shopping cart you can feed the dinosaur which appears from behind the info tables with the nut to get 1$ (works just 3 times in a row)
- No need to click the picture/the Egg and then the "buy"-butten everytime. Just double-click. Click a third time to skip the "egg-animation"
- The above also goes for the store, just double click to buy
- Time passes faster when you are on the "Street-Screen"
- If you want to know what day it is just click the small calendar at the bottom of the Screen, besides this is the only way to pause the game.

-Cheats-
I usually refuse to use these but...this is supposed to be a guide so I will also add this information.
There are bugs in the game which you can use for huge amounts of money with not much efforts. It works like this:
1. Auction Cheat
- Buy a Dinosaur and put it for auction (you do this with the big book in your office, click on INVENTORY and make the check mark behind your Dinosaur)

- Now wait until the next quarter change. You will see a little sign "Auction today" on the lower left corner of the screen. Click it.
- Wait until your Dinosaur is selected for sale
- Now wait for some of the people there to make a bid. Right after the first bid for your dinosaur was made do the following: Click on the dinosaur-info (question mark) and leave the info again...now check the amount...it raised a little without someone making another bidding. You can repeat this until you have the amount you want to have. Let the auction end to get the amount. But be aware that at some point it starts with the original amount again. 

Auction Start

After several screen switches

2. Tour Guide Cheat
(From the Abandonia-Forums, haven't tried this one out)
- Start new game
-Hire 99 Tour guides when asked to hire an employee
-when they start quitting, fire them, if you fire them faster then they quit you`ll get a negative amount of emplyees leading to regularly getting money instead of having to pay 

-Credits-
-DaKayOne (me)
-UrethraFranklin from the Abandonia forums
 
NOTE: You are allowed to copy this guide as long as you credit me!! For you people from gamefaqs.com: You also are invited to take this Guide for your site since you don't have one yet and it usually was supposed to be posted there...you are also allowed to edit it...but as I said, do not forget to credit me! ;D

Link to the Game: Get Dinopark Tycoon at Abandonia