Ever wanted to run an amusement park? SteamPark lets you do just that, but with a bit of a difference! This park has rides powered by coal, people who will only pay full entrance fees if they go on the rides they want and lots and lots of dirt that needs cleaning up!

The components are beautiful, but a word of warning, be gentle when punching them out! A lot of people have had them tear.

Steam Park Components

42 visitors (7 each in 6 colours) 18 rides (a small, medium and large ride in 6 colours) 4 starting ground tiles 20 additional ground tiles 4 turn order tiles 20 stands (4 each of the 5 different types) 34 bonus cards 4 reference cards 1 turn track 1 turn counter 1 final dirt track 4 pig boards 24 dice (6 for each player) 48 dirt tokens 84 bank notes (in 4 denominations)

Steam Park is played over six days. Each day is made up of four phases: roll, dirt, actions and income.

The roll phase happens simultaneously for everyone, after a countdown each player rolls their dice. You can then either re-roll your dice or place any that you want to keep on your pig board. If a dice is on your pig board it cannot be re-rolled. All of the dice are the same and have six different sides, as shown below.

Steam Park Dice

In left to right order:

Build rides, with this dice you can build rides (obviously!) For each one of these dice you have one visitor space ie. 2 of these lets you either build 2 one space (small) rides or a single 2 space (medium) ride

Clean dirt, for each of these dice you have, you can discard two dirt tokens (more on dirt later!)

Play bonus cards, well, does exactly that! Each one of these you have lets you play one bonus card.

Attract visitors, this is what the game is alla bout and what will generate you income (and dirt!) For each one of these dice you have, take one visitor of your choice from the pool and drop him in the bag. You then draw out an equal number of visitors. If you have space on a ride of the same colour, they will sit on the ride until the end of the game.

Build stands each stand costs you one of these dice to build. There are five different types of stand, each with a special ability.

Empty side does absolutely nothing, boo!

Steam Park Turnorder

When you are happy with your dice results you then grab the lowest available order tile. These tiles affect what order you will play your turns in, and may help you clean up dirt or give you dirt. Talking of dirt, that's the next phase!

For each dirt symbol on your dice, take a dirt token, now take a dirt token for each visitor in your park. Finally, apply the bonus/penalty from your turn order tile. (Feeling grubby yet?)

Next comes the actions phase, where, in turn order you get to action your dice rolls from earlier. At any point you can utilise one of your dice to 'buy' an additional ground tile, which you will soon need due to placement rules. All those lovely rides and stands you want to buy, have rules for placement meaning you will run out of space on that little starting board you have! When you build a ride, it must not touch any stand or ride of a different colour. If they are the same colour they must connect at one space. Stands are similar, the only thing they can touch is another stand of the same type.

Steam Park Stands

There are five types of stands, all of which do various cool stuff, from helping you clean dirt to allowing you to change your dice roll.

Steam Park Cards

Playing cards give you extra cash and every time you use a card you get to draw two and pick one to keep so even if you don't max out on them it's sometimes worth getting a bit of cash and cycling through cards to get something better!

Last, and most importantly, is the income phase. At this point you will get three cash for each visitor on one of your rides.

At the end of 6 days, add your cash totals up and, using the final dirt track, deduct money for the amount of dirt you have, whoever has the most cash is the winner!

Steam Park is a great light game, with beautiful components and a great theme. Once everyone gets the hang of the dice you can play a game in around half an hour. There is a nice balance between luck and skill (dice rolls, drawing visitors vs stand and ride placement and card plays)

The rule book is not only beautifully illustrated and fun but also easy to understand. A great all-rounder!