Mars Attracts How To Open Park — Prerequisites and Step Order

The Short Answer: How You Open the Park

The documented answer is that opening the park is a management action, not a build action: once your first enclosure is populated and supplied, you open the gates from the management screen, and because entrance is free the park starts earning through donation boxes rather than tickets. That comes from a subtitled walkthrough of the tutorial mission, which describes the sequence as following the first hire and the first storehouse, and it is the only source in this page's material that walks through the opening step directly.

Two honest caveats belong at the top. First, the tutorial is the only documented context for this step, so if you are playing Sandbox or a later campaign map, the surrounding requirements may differ. Second, the exact label and position of the control on the current 1.0 build are unconfirmed — the walkthrough was recorded on the Early Access build, and the 1.0 announcement lists menu and UI clean-up plus an updated tutorial, so treat the wording, not the mechanic, as uncertain.

Question	Documented answer	Confidence
Where is the control?	Management screen of the park interface	Reported by one walkthrough (to confirm the label on 1.0)
What does the park charge?	Nothing at the gate; entrance is free	Reported by the same walkthrough
What earns money after opening?	Donation boxes first, then stalls, merchandise and paid rides	Walkthrough plus the official store page's amenity and ride list
Is it required to finish the tutorial?	Yes — the walkthrough treats opening the park as a required step that unlocks the rest of the mission	Single-source, to confirm
Does opening happen automatically?	No. Nothing in the sources suggests a timer or automatic opening	Not documented as automatic

What Has to Exist Before the Gates Open

Every prerequisite below maps to a step the tutorial walkthrough performs before it opens the park. The order matters more than the individual items, because each one feeds the next: humans need a habitat, the habitat needs supply, and supply needs staff.

Prerequisite	Why it gates the opening	Where it is documented
An enclosure with a door and windows	It is the building guests come to look at, and it is the only container humans can be placed in	Walkthrough tutorial sequence
Humans captured from a time period	A park with no exhibit has nothing to show, and the walkthrough starts with an Ancient Rome expedition	Walkthrough, plus the official store page naming Ancient Rome and the Wild West
Food and a feeding trough	Humans begin losing patience immediately, and the walkthrough places a trough with the first batch	Walkthrough
A storehouse for humans with a porter	Troughs and enclosure amenities only refill when stock is moved, and porters move it	Walkthrough
Utilities where the setup needs them	Toilets require water, which is why the walkthrough runs water pipes and a generator to the first amenities	Walkthrough
At least one staff member assigned	The walkthrough hires a porter first and only then opens the park	Walkthrough tutorial sequence

The order matters because each item feeds the next, and the walkthrough's own sequence shows the dependency chain rather than a checklist you can complete in any order:

• An enclosure is useless without humans in it, so the expedition comes before the amenities that keep humans calm.
• Food and amenities are useless without a porter, so the storehouse and the first hire come before the park opens.
• A working park is useless without research or income, which is why the scientist posting and the donation boxes follow opening rather than precede it.

Step-by-Step: From Empty Map to Open Gates

This is the tutorial order the walkthrough follows, with the part that matters for this page marked. It is a reproduction of one player's documented route on the Early Access build, not an official checklist.

1. Build the terrain and paths first, so the enclosure and amenities have something to sit against.
2. Place the first enclosure with a door and windows, sized for amenities and decor rather than the bare minimum.
3. Run an expedition for one human period — the walkthrough uses Ancient Rome — and wait for the mission to return.
4. Place the captured humans inside the enclosure.
5. Add the human essentials: a feeding trough, and the amenities humans need. Toilets need water, so run the water generator and pipes to them.
6. Build the storehouse and hire a porter, then assign that porter to the storehouse so stock actually moves.
7. Assign a scientist to an observation post if research is part of the current objective, because experiments and observation are how the tutorial's knowledge target is met.
8. Open the park from the management screen. This is the step that turns the build into a live attraction.
9. Place donation boxes immediately after opening, since entrance is free and donation boxes are the documented first income.
10. Monitor the overlays for the first few in-game days: guests arriving, humans losing satisfaction, and any maintenance job that appears on the enclosure.

If the Park Will Not Open: A Troubleshooting Order

Nothing in the material documents a formal error message or refusal state, so the honest position is that there is no documented "why can I not open" list. What can be done is to verify each prerequisite in the order the tutorial establishes them, because each one silently blocks the next.

Symptom	First thing to check	Why
No humans in the enclosure	Did the expedition finish, and are the captured humans actually placed rather than sitting in inventory	An enclosure with no exhibit is not an attraction
Humans are inside but the park still feels empty of purpose	Is there a feeding trough, and is a storehouse reachable	Unsatisfied humans do not stay content and the walkthrough treats supply as the step before opening
Storehouse exists but stock never arrives	Is a porter hired and assigned to it	Supply only moves when a staff member does the moving
Amenities will not work	Do they have water and power	The walkthrough's first toilet placement is paired with a water generator and pipes
Research or knowledge stands still	Is a scientist assigned to an observation post, and is a staff trait interfering	An early-access review lost half an hour of the tutorial to a scientist blocking knowledge generation
Build menu is missing the control you expected	You may be looking for a build item rather than the management screen, and the 1.0 UI was cleaned up	The documented route to opening is the management screen, and the current build's wording is unconfirmed

If all six checks pass and the park still will not open, the remaining honest answer is that this is undocumented — report it rather than guessing, because no source in this page's material covers a failure branch.

After Opening: Free Entry, Donation Boxes and First Income

Opening changes what your park is costing you. Guests start arriving, wages and maintenance begin draining the budget, and because the gate is free the money has to come from somewhere other than tickets. The walkthrough's answer in the tutorial is donation boxes, which convert visitor goodwill into cash without a price change.

The larger answer arrives with research. The official store page describes rides as the park's death-defying attractions and the official product page frames the budget as the central tension — "you will not last long if you can not turn a profit". Reviews of the Early Access build agree on the shape of the problem: rides and the themed amenities guests want drive revenue, while food and drink stalls only pay while porters keep them stocked, and one review describes restocking as a micromanagement step that never quite settles.

The documented income sources, in the order a new park tends to reach them:

• Donation boxes, which the walkthrough places at the moment the park opens and which do not depend on staff.
• Food, drink and merchandise stalls, which earn steadily but only while a porter keeps their storehouse stocked.
• Paid rides and attractions, which the walkthrough identifies as the largest profit source and which need an attendant to operate and a janitor to stay maintained.
• Research-driven unlocks, which do not pay directly but are what make the profitable rides, stalls and decorations available in the first place.