Had a gorilla called Harambe, trapped a ton of guests in the Gorilla cage, out of all the customers and the 4 gorillas only Harambe died. Great turnout at his funeral. I killed them all after.

I usually don't care for simulation games, but upon hearing here that you get choices like feeding bodies to animals for the mafia, I was immediately certain that if I had to check one out, this one would be it.

You see, my (now ex) wife wasn't really the type to play video games, but for whatever reason she obsessively played Zoo Tycoon ever since she was a kid. I first met her in probably 2005 when we were in high school and she passed away in 2017 and I can't ever recall a time where she didn't have it paused on her computer.

She would have loved everything about this game. The Tycoon games never really appealed to me (outside of Operation Genesis and Rimworld if they count) but since she passed away l've considered picking one up from time to time in honor of her. Between work and my backlog l've just never gotten around to it. Until I found this game.

Something about it just called to me. I liked the aesthetic a lot more than the old PC games and it looked like it had a lot of quality-of-life stuff not present in the old ones. It seemed pretty deep and engaging and I just had to try it. I don't know what I did to have this game suggested to me but I'm glad it was. I fell in love.

I loved the game’s aesthetic. The pixel art is lovely and takes me back to my days playing Theme Park when I was younger (yes, I’m old). Really charming and the animal sprites are well made. The music is fantastic and a varied, mixed bag of styles. I even found myself listening to the soundtrack on Spotify while at work.

The morality system is an interesting spin on the tycoon genre that’s rarely explored, and made for some fun twists. The general gameplay is also super fun, with the farming side of the game being a welcome distraction from the day-to-day zoo management. I also found it refreshing that the game turns a blind eye when it comes to the C.R.I.S.P.R. For some reason, not having recycling bins is a big moral no-no, but creating a walrus/owl hybrid abomination in a lab to display for profit is considered morally a-ok. In fact, the game continually pushes you to create hybrids and does not give you the option to decline.

As a capitalist, I found it rather thrilling that the game goes so far in allowing the player to create an evil zoo where players can systematically slaughter the animals for profit. I love how it gives more freedoms than usual for players, and it doesn’t seem at odds for me at all with the game’s generally positive “green” message. For a German like me, the overall tone of the game felt very wholesome in most places. I haven’t been able to stop playing.

Yes my zoo looks terrible in my current play through. Yes my progression is at a snails pace because I’m spending most of my time fiddling with things but I keep having a great time with it. I'm delighted at how kind this game is. We can build whilst the game is paused. We can release animals whilst the game is paused. We can move things whilst the game is paused and there is no financial penalty for it. It's a dream to people like myself who'd be otherwise overwhelmed.

I like to call my current zoo Drunk Land because most of it was made without any level of thought or planning and will probably have major consequences for everyone involved. I hope to one day learn this game properly, but for now I will enjoy the trainwreck that is Drunk Land and its infinite money that allows me to make all the mistakes I want and the only people that suffer are the employees, the customers, and the animals. So... everyone except me. But I am the Great Zoo God, so their feelings are irrelevant.

This one’s for you Janice. Rest in peace my love, you beautiful soul.

10/10

i could run a zoo irl

This game is everything I've been looking for. As someone who grew up with Zoo Tycoon and wanted to find a game akin to those vibes (and i feel like the Info Kiosk in this game is a subtle nod to the design of the Zoo Tycoon ones <3) this is everything. I tried Planet Zoo and found it overwhelming but this added a perfect extra bit with some cool choices you can make to be either ecofriendly or industrial, plus variant and breeding collection mechanics. It's great. I got sucked in immediately.