Roller Coaster Kingdom: Five Things You Should Know Before Playing

After playing FarmVille, Cafe World or Mafia Wars, players start to see a pattern to the games that Zynga makes. Yet, the company's Roller Coaster Kingdom game looks, plays and operates quite differently than its super popular peers. To help shorten the learning curve to fun, here are five must-know tips on turning your pleasant park into a big money venue.

1 - Booking Guests

Unlike other games, Roller Coaster Kingdom's paying patrons just don't show up to hand you money. You have to book tours in order to bring people to your park. Of course, it takes time from booking until they show up (from a few minutes, a few hours and up to two days). Your available coins also determine which tours you can book too. Just remember to venture back to your park when the tour arrives to welcome them to the park. If you fail to welcome them, you'll lose the patrons, their money and the cost of booking the tour.

2 - Rides

Making money from park attendees is done by thrilling them on rides. The bigger the ride, the more it costs to ride. So a House of Spooks (which costs 5,000 coins) brings in 3 coins per rider, the Tombstone Coaster (which costs 7,500 coins) gives more at 5 coins per rider.

3 - Food and Drink

The other way of making money in Roller Coaster Kingdom is by selling food and drinks. As you may already know, amusement parks gouge hungry patrons and that's true in the game too. They're a lower cost option for park owners when compared to rides and don't suffer from the capacity issues that rides do. Full on restaurants like Tooter's are even a higher value opportunity that gets you 8 coins per patron at level 1. Sadly, it costs 75k to get to level 2 (11 coins per patron).

4 - Adding Neighbors

Roller Coaster Kingdom relies on the help of others in order to obtain more items. Asking your Facebook friends to be your neighbors also adds a steady stream of income as your neighbors do better, you can receive bonuses in the thousands. So rather than wait until the next bus tour, you can use the bonus to upgrade your rides, add new rides or give patrons new food and drink options. Skip the decorations early on in your game since you'll need that for upgrades and rides that bring in money.

5 - Upgrade When You Can

Each ride in the park comes with a number for Excitement, Capacity and Ticket Price. More exciting rides create more demand and if those rides are upgraded, you'll gain more money. It's also a good way to maximize your rides since upgrades often are cheaper than buying a new ride.