Game:

Zoo Tycoon (2013)

Duration: 3:38:30

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Zoo Tycoon: Ultimate Animal Collection (30.09.2023) First try (Training+Sandbox)
Experimenting with (I think) latest in the Zoo Tycoon series from 2017 called "Zoo Tycoon: Ultimate Animal Collection".
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Tutorial:
The Tutorial kind of follows a very strict step-by-step objectives list. Eg. go to this animal, feed that animal etc. Wanted eg. in the middle of tutorial to know how to clean the toilets, because I could see green smoke from the them (apparently very smelly). But those options to clean the toilets were ghosted. And game basical just waited for me to eg. feed the giraffes, before it wanted to give me another task to do.
Don't mind to do a little tutorial in order to learn the basics of the game. But I think the tutorial should have been made more flexible, if a player wants to try to learn things in another order than the game suggests. It could be eg. a list of objectives, and whatever order you wanted to complete them would be fine and work. Other step-by-step obejctives seems a bit strict and a bit old-fashioned.
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Sandbox:
Took quite a while to get into it. Doesn't felt that intuitive to me with placing feeding stations, decorations, and enrichments (eg. playground for animals). I think I would have made it a bit different in the game. First of all, there should not be any restrictions where you place your different items for the animals. You have eg. 3 different fixed spots for feeding stations, and maybe 2-3 fixed spots for enrichments. That's also an okay number of items, but I would perfer to choose the placement of each item myself. And also the option to place bushes, trees etc. inside with the animals, instead of only place various vegetation along the path for the visitors.

Slowly get the feel for it, and nice to see the Zoo grow. But still a lot to learn I think. BTW, in the Sandbox mode, I could not see that Research menu, like when I was doing the Tutorial. And still not sure, when or how the Zoo are able to get donated animals (animal as present from another Zoo (or company?))

And the details of how big area the janitors are cleaning, are still unclear to me. So I started with one Janitor's office, located in the start of the zoo on left side. And later added another Janitor's office close to the big Giraffe area, in the buttom of the Zoo, because I saw some litter in the walking path and a trashcan not emptied.

When hiring new staff, IMHO, I think it should also be more clear to what animal they (each person) are responsible for. You just get the names of the various locations where each animal are. Could be more clear if eg. you would get "Send Brian to the Tigers" or "Send Sandoz to the Chimpanzees" instead of "Assign to Exhibit Tropical Medium 01"

Also curious about, if it's possible to add different variants of animals together. Eg. Ring-tailed Lemurs with eg. Red Lemurs.
Or if the game would allow crazy combinations of eg. Tigers and a weaker animal like eg. a Lama, so it would be a bloodbath :-D
Don't think the game will allow it, since it's build as a family game. It will also makes no sense, because you would just loose money (if in normal campaign mode) if animals are being killed. But entertaintment value would be priceless :-D
But interesting, if game developers have done a lot of research, if two spices of eg. Lemurs could stay together without problems. And if two species can't live together because of a lot of fighting or killing, they just might promt the gamer that it is not possible. Looking forward to investigate that. To see how they managed to that. Or perhaps the game are just very strict with only species together. So even sub-species can't be mixed together.
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Campaign:
Haven't tried compaign yet. But I could imagine, that mode would be much more difficult than Sandbox, because in Sandbox you have unlimited amount of cash, but not in Compaign. I could imagine you only have the money from your earnings from Zoo ticket sale, and from the various food (burgers, popcorn etc.) and soda sale. So one have to be more carefull where to upgrade with eg. new animal(s), food stands. And I could imagine, one had to also monitor ticket price a bit more. And perhaps at times when cash are low, to raise the ticket price, or food prices.
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Chapters:
00:00:00 Begin
00:45:41 Exit the Tutorial
00:47:03 Starting New Sandbox mode game
01:13:35 Adopt Lemurs (Ring-Tailed Lemur)
01:17:15 Adopt Grizzly Bears
01:34:40 Adopt Central Chimpanzees
01:52:40 Adopt Domestic Llamas
02:16:57 Adopt Kangaroos
02:25:34 Save and Exited to Menu by mistake
02:26:26 Back again
02:32:24 Adopt Jaguars
03:02:18 Added Kagaroo Topiary
03:09:10 Adopt Red-footed Tortoise
03:17:19 Adopt Masai Giraffes
03:33:11 See some litter on the ground and trashcan full
03:34:41 Building new Janitor's office
03:37:09 Thanks for watching. Regards Krusty

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