Like other 'tycoon' style games,
Jurassic Park: Operation Genesis is all about finding a suitable site and building the infrastructure necessary to create a successful dinosaur park. Successful in this case means profitable, and profits come from the visitors who pay for everything from entrance fees to hot dogs and all of the various attractions one can eventually add to a park.
Visitors only stay and pay if they are happy, and that is the real focus of the game. Some visitors are just awed at the dinosaurs and don't require that much to be happy, but others who require more thrills want to see carnivores, or perhaps they want to see a variety of dinosaurs all living together in the same exhibit. There are a variety of reports to let you know who is happy and who isn't, and you can also get info directly from visitors, as well as frequently receiving e-mail from one of your fellow workers about unhappy visitors.
Information flows freely in the game, including the just mentioned e-mail, which you will receive lots of, as well as many reports and a Dinopedia with lots of detailed information about dinosaurs and how to care for them. This information can be invaluable when attempting to create a profitable dinosaur park, but the task can still prove daunting. Visitors are fickle, and money is in short supply, so it is quite the juggling act to try to please enough people to stay in business.
A typical game starts like so: You pick a site, which can be configured with a particular shape and size, as well as the tree and water content. Next, you select a place for your entrance, and you create one or more dinosaur exhibits. Everything has to be connected by paths, and you can also place bathrooms, trashcans, a security center, a cleaning building, as well as a food kiosk. Once the basics are in place and the dinosaurs have hatched from their incubators, you can place the 'Open' sign on the door and the visitors begin pouring in.
You also have to begin a research program, deciding whether to focus your efforts on better security, new attractions, or maybe on the latest vaccines. In addition, you can assign teams to dig sites to attempt to find fossils and amber that can be used to produce new dinosaurs, or to get more complete DNA on existing dinosaurs so that they can have longer lives.
And this adds another element of strategy to the game, where you always need to think about which dinosaurs are going to die, and how quickly you want to replace them. Longevity is not your only problem, though, as dinosaurs will sometimes get stressed out or sick, and so it's important to arrange attractions appropriately as well as researching vaccines so dinosaurs can be inoculated at birth and avoid illness.
Some exhibits will be more appealing like, if you feed the carnivores live animals or even other dinosaurs! Like all things in Jurassic Park: Operation Genesis, dinosaurs are expensive, so using them as food is not always a smart option. There are a number of other ways to make exhibits exciting though, so one must always be looking at the available options, what visitors are saying, and how much money is in the bank!
