Planet Zoo [PC] - Autumn 2019

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Re: Planet Zoo [PC] - Autumn 2019

Post by Sly Boots » Thu Jun 20, 2019 10:33 am

DjchunKfunK wrote:
Thu Jun 20, 2019 10:14 am
When I started reading your message Sly I thought it was going to end with your daughter railing against the game, when you said pro-animal I thought animal rights activist. :)
Ha, no she's only 8 so I don't think she has that wider awareness as yet, she's just nuts about anything related to wildlife, which is cool as I was the same.

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Re: Planet Zoo [PC] - Autumn 2019

Post by Sly Boots » Tue Nov 05, 2019 10:56 am


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Re: Planet Zoo [PC] - Autumn 2019

Post by Snowy » Tue Nov 05, 2019 1:35 pm

It is definitely on my short-list, but they must be bemoaning choosing the same day as RDR2 to release, bet that puts the boot in on their Day 1 sales!
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Re: Planet Zoo [PC] - Autumn 2019

Post by Medicine Man » Tue Nov 05, 2019 8:57 pm


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Re: Planet Zoo [PC] - Autumn 2019

Post by Medicine Man » Thu Dec 12, 2019 7:55 pm


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Re: Planet Zoo [PC] - Autumn 2019

Post by Snowy » Wed Dec 18, 2019 9:04 am

I picked this up ahead of my forthcoming holiday yesterday, held off and bagged a bundle including the new Arctic content. There seems a LOT to it - the tutorials are horrendously twee, from the zoo owner and his shit jokes to the Welsh lady who shows you the ropes, but they do the job if in an overly saccharine way. I suppose the whole point it for it to be a nice game, so it kinda fits.

Anyhow as I say, a game with a lot of complexity. To set up an animal enclosure you might:
- Build fencing around the enclosure appropriate to the type of animal, both in terms of material (is it strong enough and can it be climbed) and height (can it be jumped).
- Consider the punters - do you need to put in glass sections to allow them to view the animals? If the animals are shy, does this need to be one-way mirrored glass?
- Put in sufficient stuff to make the animal feel at home, from terrain to water to shelter to foliage matching their indigenous needs
- Add feeding and watering options as well as things for them to interact with
- Do the animals live in hotter or colder climes to where you are based? Add heating or cooling if so.
- Buy the animals from the animal market, paying attention to lots of different factors in doing so - age, fertility, health, history etc
- Ensure that you have a power source nearby if needed, as well as somewhere close by for the keepers
- Set up screens and audio for the guests to learn about the animals
- Add donation points so that your guests can give money to the running of the zoo

That is without going near the genetics, veterinary treatment, breeding, dominance and loads of other stuff I have yet to learn much about.

Should keep me occupied!
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Re: Planet Zoo [PC] - Autumn 2019

Post by Medicine Man » Tue Mar 31, 2020 8:00 pm

South America pack coming on the 7th of April...



Alongside the free 1.2 update...

https://www.planetzoogame.com/en-GB/new ... 1-2-update

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Re: Planet Zoo [PC] - Autumn 2019

Post by Sly Boots » Sun Jan 24, 2021 12:25 am

So, bought this just the other day, went straight into a sandbox zoo to try to learn the various aspects and seems pretty fun. Got a few small exhibits and a couple of larger ones so far, and who should I spy queuing for snacks?

Image

None other than a Mr Ian Snowy! :o

Hopefully he was able to peel himself away from the concessions for long enough to see some of the exhibits ;)

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Re: Planet Zoo [PC] - Autumn 2019

Post by Snowy » Sun Jan 24, 2021 11:04 am

Funnily enough I happened to peer into my friend list on Steam yesterday and saw you playing that, so while I wan't actually in-game (still not worked out how I can visit others' parks directly) I did spot you and think "Oh yeah, must go back to Planet Zoo at some point".

For a while the animal market was completely fucked, buying animals was a nightmare, and I walked away from the game.
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Re: Planet Zoo [PC] - Autumn 2019

Post by Medicine Man » Sun Jan 24, 2021 2:41 pm

Have you tried this with your daughter yet Sly?

My youngest is similar in that he loves all things animals too. I'm sure he'd love this as he even put up with Zoo Tycoon on the Xbox, but I was wondering if its something he could happily putz about in on his own or if its something that would have him crying "dad!" "dad!" every 5 minutes?

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Re: Planet Zoo [PC] - Autumn 2019

Post by Sly Boots » Sun Jan 24, 2021 5:56 pm

Medicine Man wrote:
Sun Jan 24, 2021 2:41 pm
Have you tried this with your daughter yet Sly?

My youngest is similar in that he loves all things animals too. I'm sure he'd love this as he even put up with Zoo Tycoon on the Xbox, but I was wondering if its something he could happily putz about in on his own or if its something that would have him crying "dad!" "dad!" every 5 minutes?
Not yet, but will do soon, she's keen to see my inexpertly create a dog's dinner of a zoo :lol:

How old is your youngest? I think anyone younger than 10 or 11 would probably struggle with the controls, took my a while to get to grips with the main things, and still find path placement and landscape shaping a bit of a ballache.

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Re: Planet Zoo [PC] - Autumn 2019

Post by Medicine Man » Sun Jan 24, 2021 8:24 pm

He's 12. The things you mention are what concern me the most. He bounced off Planet Coaster when I got that for him a while back, but I'm thinking that perhaps the animal theme may help his motivation to stick with it this time. Maybe I'll pick it up next sale, like I say he did persevere with Zoo Tycoon on the Xbox and that was pretty rubbish. There's hope for him yet. :P

I hope you'll be sharing all of your future dog's dinner zoos with the class. I for one would love to see them.

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Re: Planet Zoo [PC] - Autumn 2019

Post by Sly Boots » Sun Jan 24, 2021 11:08 pm

Medicine Man wrote:
Sun Jan 24, 2021 8:24 pm
He's 12. The things you mention are what concern me the most. He bounced off Planet Coaster when I got that for him a while back, but I'm thinking that perhaps the animal theme may help his motivation to stick with it this time. Maybe I'll pick it up next sale, like I say he did persevere with Zoo Tycoon on the Xbox and that was pretty rubbish. There's hope for him yet. :P

I hope you'll be sharing all of your future dog's dinner zoos with the class. I for one would love to see them.
I picked it up for £16 from CDkeys, that's the cheapest I've seen it to date.

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Re: Planet Zoo [PC] - Autumn 2019

Post by Snowy » Mon Jan 25, 2021 8:00 am

Medicine Man wrote:
Sun Jan 24, 2021 8:24 pm
He's 12. The things you mention are what concern me the most. He bounced off Planet Coaster when I got that for him a while back, but I'm thinking that perhaps the animal theme may help his motivation to stick with it this time. Maybe I'll pick it up next sale, like I say he did persevere with Zoo Tycoon on the Xbox and that was pretty rubbish. There's hope for him yet. :P

I hope you'll be sharing all of your future dog's dinner zoos with the class. I for one would love to see them.
I will reinstall this and share some pics of one of my zoos - none of them are overly impressive, and the enclosures that do look nice are someone else's work I nabbed via the Steam Workshop (I know I could make something nice I just haven't the patience) :lol:

One thing I found quite overwhelming was the amount of stuff you need to keep control of. I liked making money by having a good breeding programme but holy crap does it add a lot of busywork. Large open enclosures with multiple species are particularly difficult; breeding too many of an animal can stress out the pack of those animals, adult males or females may fight, too many animals overall and they all get stressed, ones that are stressed can impact on those that aren't. Working out what you need to do (how many of which sex of which species you can have, who they can co-exist with etc) takes a fair amount of leafing through information on each species.

You can just whack contraception onto them all at the outset, or early on in the breeding programme, but if you forget to manage your populations it becomes very labour intensive.

On the flip, this is a stunningly beautiful game with animal behaviour that is clearly a development labour of love. Keep on top of things and I am sure that the game remains as enjoyable as the early days in building the park.

An alternative might also be Jurassic Park World, similar game but with dinosaurs but which has less busywork attached. The challenge with JPW is the whole 'nature finds a way' which basically means the bastard things are always escaping and you are sending teams out to repair enclosures and tranquilise the escapees before they eat/squish too many guests.
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Re: Planet Zoo [PC] - Autumn 2019

Post by Sly Boots » Wed Jan 27, 2021 10:31 am

Enjoying this. Ended up starting a franchise park to give myself a bit more challenge - the infinite resources of sandbox mode are good for learning the ropes, but ultimately it all feels a bit pointless - and almost went bankrupt after the first few years.

The one thing sandbox mode doesn't do, you see, is get you used to the game's economics. At one point I was -£13k in the red and with a grand total of 47 people in my zoo. I'd just finished paying off a big loan that I'd used to build some nice animal enclosures to try and bring in more visitors, but after some internal debate I took out another one, and this time used it to fund a TV advertising campaign (having finally discovered the marketing tab :lol:). A bit of tweaking of entry prices - having noticed swathes of people trying to enter the zoo and then turning back at the gate - and a few years later I'm debt-free, £200k in the black and have 2,000 visitors.

I'm actually at the point where I've bought all the animals with cash that I want to, and all the best ones can only be purchased for conservation points, so now I'm mainly breeding them and releasing back to the wild as and when I can. It's slow going, but, again, it's better to have a challenge than not.

I'd eventually like to get some of the animal pack DLCs, but I'm not paying £8 for each one. Hopefully they'll drop in a sale at some point.

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