Do you find the management aspect deep and engaging or do you play purely for creativity?

[Flickmann]

Do you find Planet Zoo a good management game? It's certainly better at management than Planet Coaster I find.

[MrHappy]

It's interesting and challenging but ultimately with quite a few staff, animal and guest options switched off because it doesn't leave time to enjoy the creativity.

[Flickmann]

Originally posted by RCT Raw:

It's interesting and challenging but ultimately with quite a few staff, animal and guest options switched off because it doesn't leave time to enjoy the creativity.

Which options do you turn off?

[FDru]

For the most part I like it, but animals getting bored of their toys is really just aggravating.

[MrHappy]

Various, depemds. The only thing I have switched on all the time is slow animal ageing x5

[iloveyourzoos]

I enjoy the management side and do find it to be creative in and of itself.

Personally, I think there are creative builders AND creative managers (and all sorts of people who do parts of each in varying percentages). But it's always troubled me that that word "creative" has been kind of monopolized by just one portion of the community. I assume it maybe gets tracked back to some other game that didn't allow for such a mix of each. But as someone who enjoys both aspects of the game, it's always been strange for me to think that I'm supposedly being "creative" one minute -- and "uncreative" the next? LOL!

[MrHappy]

Originally posted by iloveyourzoos:

But it's always troubled me that that word "creative" has been kind of monopolized by just one portion of the community. I assume it maybe gets tracked back to some other game that didn't allow for such a mix of each. But as someone who enjoys both aspects of the game, it's always been strange for me to think that I'm supposedly being "creative" one minute -- and "uncreative" the next? LOL!

I honestly think that ever since Planet Coaster, the staff, guests and money have become known as the management side. This of course now includes animal management in Planet Zoo whereas the imagination side of things with building/construction and themeing came to be known as the creative side. I am sure it's just meant affectionately and not meant to segregate anybody or anything :)

[iloveyourzoos]

Originally posted by RCT Raw:

I honestly think that ever since Planet Coaster, the staff, guests and money have become known as the management side. This of course now includes animal management in Planet Zoo whereas the imagination side of things with building/construction and themeing came to be known as the creative side. I am sure it's just meant affectionately and not meant to segregate anybody or anything :)

Oh, Absolutely! Some of the nicest people I've met around here use that distinction and those terms. Very interesting to hear about the origins of it. Indeed, maybe at the time the folks who wanted to build were the ones who felt most left out, and so claiming a title helped to establish their identities as gamers.

To be clear, I love the creative builders, and am trying more and more to learn the tricks to be able to build like that myself. It's just that every once in a while I start scratching my head wondering how some of our terms have come to mean what they do.

[MrHappy]

Originally posted by iloveyourzoos:

Oh, Absolutely! Some of the nicest people I've met around here use that distinction and those terms. Very interesting to hear about the origins of it. Indeed, maybe at the time the folks who wanted to build were the ones who felt most left out, and so claiming a title helped to establish their identities as gamers.

To be clear, I love the creative builders, and am trying more and more to learn the tricks to be able to build like that myself. It's just that every once in a while I start scratching my head wondering how some of our terms have come to mean what they do.

Indeed, As an after thought, I kinda think Coaster and Zoo both do a really good job of creating two different gaming styles and when trying to work on both 'Management' and 'Creativity' together..... This is what makes a real challenge :)

[Starbucaneer]

For Me personally, Planet Zoo satisfies the creative itch, the management itch and the pure gameplay itch.

I just have to remember to pause when wearing my creative hat lol. My current zoo had 429 Alambra Tortoises! overpopulating their habitat and I could not get rid of them because they were still too young as well as a huge explosion of LLamas and Giraffes and Hippos while I was busy creating a huge (for me) Safari enclosure with ride.
I only bought Planet Zoo at the beginning of November lol and it is all I have played since.
It also helps take my mind off my DEEP disappointment that I cannot run Watchdogs Legions because they only saw fit to make it windows 10 compatible.....

[Overread]

I have to agree that PZ seems to find a nice sweet spot between creative freedom and management puzzles.


In the end management is about finding and solving puzzles within the game to provide for your facility. PZ presents a neat array of different puzzle layers between the staff, animals and visitor needs and how they interact with each other. You can't just throw down management buildings wherever you want; you can't just throw pathways anywhere etc... You have to think about each layer - are you going to find room to put a research building near to your pens so that your research isn't too slow etc...

At the same time the engine is fantastically creative and very open. You can build, move things and generally do whatever you want and they provide a wealth of parts within the core game alone.
This gives the game a huge amount of variety and style and lets you really go wild with designs if you want. Sure you have to learn to pause the game at times; or speed up to afford things etc... But that's part of it being a game and not just a creative building software suite.

Plus the two come together - your management puzzles creative issues that you want to solve with creative means. A big water pool that needs energy to power a water cleaning centre, but where you don't want it on the edge (outside boundary) and it needs to be within. Do you build a huge overpass for staff and then hide the functional behind a creative wall design; do you make a notch into the pen almost splitting it in two with over and under passes for animals; do you build the facilities underground etc....



Compared to games like Jurassic Park, where animals have a lot of very stunning visual designs (and are huge); the management is much deeper and far more engaging. I always got a bit annoyed in the JP game that basically the main reason for builidng the park (Dinosaurs) actually generated the least amount of customer satisfaction - they wanted food and drink and entertainment buildings - which kind of made it feel like you were building a theme park with a few dinosaurs rather than a dinosaur park.
Plus many of the management "issues" were more of the "oh that's annoying" becuase you had to manually tell staff to do basic things now and then or hop into a vehicle and do it yourself. Fun, but not as much of a management puzzle as PZ presents. Heck I'd love them to give JP the PZ treatment!

Meanwhile the management side is challenging enough that its nota simple walk in the park like Cities Skylines where you feel that there's no real chance to lose or challenge and its more just a timer as you wait to get enough money to do things. With most times you fail being when you do something outright stupid or such.



So yep PZ hits a very sweet spot in the balance between creative and management games.

[TheGameGotGary]

I tried to be creative, but I didn't like when tile parts wouldn't connect. This put me off somewhat of trying to design a great park, so I guess I fall on the side of management. Glad to see others can do the creative side easily with good results.

I have one small zoo in the online game in order to try to breed better animals (of the ones I have), because the money management side of this game is not difficult to achieve on the hardest setting.

I agree with the comment further up that the animals getting bored of toys is annoying..

[Starbucaneer]

Originally posted by Overread:

I have to agree that PZ seems to find a nice sweet spot between creative freedom and management puzzles.


In the end management is about finding and solving puzzles within the game to provide for your facility. PZ presents a neat array of different puzzle layers between the staff, animals and visitor needs and how they interact with each other. You can't just throw down management buildings wherever you want; you can't just throw pathways anywhere etc... You have to think about each layer - are you going to find room to put a research building near to your pens so that your research isn't too slow etc...

At the same time the engine is fantastically creative and very open. You can build, move things and generally do whatever you want and they provide a wealth of parts within the core game alone.
This gives the game a huge amount of variety and style and lets you really go wild with designs if you want. Sure you have to learn to pause the game at times; or speed up to afford things etc... But that's part of it being a game and not just a creative building software suite.

Plus the two come together - your management puzzles creative issues that you want to solve with creative means. A big water pool that needs energy to power a water cleaning centre, but where you don't want it on the edge (outside boundary) and it needs to be within. Do you build a huge overpass for staff and then hide the functional behind a creative wall design; do you make a notch into the pen almost splitting it in two with over and under passes for animals; do you build the facilities underground etc....



Compared to games like Jurassic Park, where animals have a lot of very stunning visual designs (and are huge); the management is much deeper and far more engaging. I always got a bit annoyed in the JP game that basically the main reason for builidng the park (Dinosaurs) actually generated the least amount of customer satisfaction - they wanted food and drink and entertainment buildings - which kind of made it feel like you were building a theme park with a few dinosaurs rather than a dinosaur park.
Plus many of the management "issues" were more of the "oh that's annoying" becuase you had to manually tell staff to do basic things now and then or hop into a vehicle and do it yourself. Fun, but not as much of a management puzzle as PZ presents. Heck I'd love them to give JP the PZ treatment!

Meanwhile the management side is challenging enough that its nota simple walk in the park like Cities Skylines where you feel that there's no real chance to lose or challenge and its more just a timer as you wait to get enough money to do things. With most times you fail being when you do something outright stupid or such.



So yep PZ hits a very sweet spot in the balance between creative and management games.

Beautifully expressed!!