Jurassic Park: Operation Genesis - Gameplay

Gameplay

The player's main objective is simple: create a theme park/zoo featuring dinosaurs, make it popular, and make it safe. The gameplay functions are very similar to the SimCity and Tycoon game models. It is necessary to build feeding stations where herbivores can get bales of plant feed, while carnivores are fed live cows or goats. However, herbivores become unhappy if they don't have enough trees around them or enough nearby dinosaur friends to socialize with. Likewise, carnivores have an innate desire to hunt other dinosaurs, so even a constant stream of livestock will not keep them happy.

Players may also create dinosaurs; in order to create a dinosaur, a significant percentage of the particular dinosaur's DNA is needed. Fifty percent (50%) is needed in order to create a dinosaur; the higher the percentage of DNA, the longer that dinosaur will live unless it dies by means other than natural causes (which, in the game, is old age). To gain a dinosaur's DNA, the player must extract it through fossils or amber, higher quality specimens mean that more DNA is extracted.

The player may also dig for fossils using a fossil hunting team to dig in one of the nine dig sites positioned around the world to obtain DNA. There are various dig sites in which the player may search for fossils and each dig site contains fossils from three certain dinosaurs and some of the dinosaurs, like Brachiosaurus, are available in more than one dig site. The chance of finding fossils in the site depends on the quality of the site. There are 6 classifications on the quality of a dig site. These classifications are excellent, good, average, mediocre, poor, and exhausted (exhausted sites are not truly empty, as it is still possible to find fossils, amber and gems there, but findings happen rarely and the fossils and amber are often low quality). More dig teams can be purchased at increasing amounts of money. When a player's dig teams are excavating a site, they occasionally will come across various precious metals and stones which can be sold when collected and can help raise park funds.

Attractions help make the park popular, and increase its rating power and income when correctly configured. Attractions must be researched before they can be constructed, and include the Balloon Tour, Safari Adventure and Viewing Dome (The Viewing Vents and Viewing Platforms do not need to be researched.) The Safari Tour and Balloon Tour attractions also allow for the player to "take over" the ride for the purpose of park exploration and photography, but only when a person in the game is using it. The player may also observe the dinosaurs from the Viewing Dome, Viewing Vent, and Viewing Platform by selecting the "View" option after clicking on the building.