gameplay

// tycoon management, research tree, animal collecting, oh my

Gameplay is pretty straightforward from a tycoon game perspective. You have two tasks: caring for your animals and managing your zoo. For your animals, build enclosures, obtain the animals by purchasing or trading for them, and care for them by providing them with water, enrichment activities, and zookeepers to provide food and clean up waste. For your zoo itself, keep it decorated and well-lit, clean by hiring janitors, and work through a research tree to find cool upgrades and make more money. Eventually you can create either an evil meat-farming empire or a self-sustaining eco-utopia, whichever you choose to do.

Animal care

There are a few ways to obtain animals.

• Purchase animals from the animal shelter for a nominal fee
• Trade animals for a pair of new male and female animals from other zoos
• Buy "animals" off the black market. Usually (always?) these are crispr amalgamations
• Occasionally get a morality event that allows you to take in animals from a disaster

Animals need enclosures that come in the following types:

• Grass: Already unlocked at the start
• Concrete: Already unlocked at the start
• Desert: Middle of the research tree, to the right of benches
• Mountain: top left-ish, up two and left 3 from benches
• Arctic: 3 down from benches
• Savannah: Middle lower area of the research tree, 2 below benches
• Tropical: Two squares below and 1 square to the left of savannah in the tree
• Forest: Top right of the research tree, 5 up and 4 right of benches

Animals require water. You must place a water pump within the vicinity of the enclosure (it will automatically work - you just buy water from the city with the pump), and then place water troughs inside the enclosure. I recommend leaving room for at least 2 troughs in each enclosure.

Animals also require enrichment activities. Eventually, they'll require a lot as your zoo grows, so plan ahead. See the tips section for more info about this.

Zoo Management

The game will walk you through the tutorial of hiring zookeepers, janitors, and so forth with the tutorials at the beginning. Follow the quests you are given until you are suddenly given a lot of quests, then you can slow down and take your time. The gameplay for zoo management follows other tycoon games pretty closely. Here are the main zoo management activities:

• Hiring staff: Hire staff like janitors to keep your park clean and zookeepers to maintain your animals. Unlike simpler tycoon games, you also will have to hire staff for every single one of your shops. Vending machines can be a good early-game option.
• Investing in research: Research happens automatically, so you just have to use the points to buy new upgrades.
• Checking every day for new animals: Collect animal variants to keep your zoo visitors excited, and splice genes to add fun little guys to your zoo, too.
• Decorating your zoo: So much fun! Unlock decorations and let your imagination run wild.
• Buying land: Expand your zoo
• Buying buses: This is how you can increase your visitors, so bus management is very important.