Welcome to My Sea Park – an iPad Game Review
By 
City building games are some of the most popular in the App Store. They take on a variety of skins, but the basic structure of the game play is the same. Start with a plot of land, buy a building, decorate, collect experience points and money, buy more buildings, grow your city. My Sea Park fits perfectly into that genre with a sea park theme. If you’ve always wanted to own your own penguin habitat sitting next to a rollercoaster, now is your chance.
Players start with a few hundred coins and about 80 shells. Both are used to add buildings and decorations, but shells are much, much harder to come by. Your first habitat is a manta ray pool. Players gain coins and experience points over time with each structure that is built, so it is a good idea to fill your park as soon as possible.
Once a habitat has been built, players can upgrade it with fish. To collect fish, hire a fisherman and send him out to sea for different amounts of time. The longer he is out, the better the catch. For example, you can hire a fisherman for 50 coins and he will fish for 30 seconds and bring you back 5 fish. Or, you can pay him 250 coins and send him out for five minutes. He will return with 20 fish.
There are tasks to be completed that help keep the game going and earn extra experience points. For example, you may be tasked to add three different colors of flowerbeds or pick up a certain number of pieces of trash. With more experience points, players level up and unlock new animals, buildings and decorations.
Some items may seem pricey, coin wise, but if you’ve built enough habitats and other buildings, like coffee shops and hotdog stands, the coins start to collect in large amounts. The shells are another story. You start with about 80 shells and rarely collect more. There are ways to earn free shells, but it takes forever and some ways require you to do stuff like sign up for Netflix or get an auto insurance quote. You can earn two shells at a time by watching video game trailers, but even that is inconvenient considering one habitat will cost 100 or more shells.
Luckily, you don’t have to use shells to complete most of the tasks. You can definitely get by without having to buy anything through in-app purchases.
There are a few issues with the design that are lacking. For example, you can’t switch the direction that your building faces. All of them face forward, no matter what. It really puts a damper on park design. Also, there are a bunch of trees and rocks that get in the way when you want to build something. You can clear away these obstacles for a hefty price, but that is an unnecessary financial burden when you want to save your coins for things that actually earn money.
Overall, this game is very entertaining. You can get far without having to pay for in-app purchases. You can spend a few minutes every hour or so, collecting coins and experience points and sending your fisherman out for more food. Fans of city building games will enjoy this sea park.
What I liked: My favorite part of this game is building new habitats. The animals are adorable and make funny sounds when you tap on them
What I didn’t like: I hate that the buildings all have to face the same direction. Who was the architect on these plans, anyway?
To buy or not to buy: It is worth the download for fans of city building games. It is nothing fancy, but you can play for hours without having to spend a dime.
- Name: My Sea Park
- Version Reviewed: 1.1
- Category: Games
- Developer: Fuse Power
- Price: Free
- Score:
