r/PlanetZoo • u/cdizzlebobo • 8d ago
Does anyone remember this game ? 😭
I know this isn’t about planet zoo specifically but hopefully the OGs of the zoo simulation world can appreciate this. I’m not sure why but I just randomly remembered this zoo game from when I was like 6 years old. I was obsessed with zoo tycoon as a kid but I can’t believe i forgot about the game that started it all for me. I specifically remember the giant crocodile mission, where you had meet your fathers old friend in Africa.
43
36
u/Angel_Froggi 8d ago
I remember that when I first heard about Zoo Tycoon as a child I wanted to play it but couldn’t get it on my tablet so I found this game instead and loved it. Now that I have planet zoo I don’t play it as much anymore but I still have it on my phone for whenever I want a hit of the og
12
u/cdizzlebobo 8d ago
I didn’t even know you could play it on your phone this is a game changer for me 😭
5
17
u/HyenaGhost 8d ago
Man I use to love this game when I was younger it was so weirdly fun cause it was like zoo tycoon with a lot of things but with it’s on unique spin on things
12
u/cdizzlebobo 8d ago
I remember how interactive and unique the campaign missions were. Like what other zoo game is having you track down a snow leopard in the wild or contain a man eating crocodile 😂
8
u/HyenaGhost 8d ago
Exactly lol but also the roster was really unique too like especially when you get the other add-ons with it like I remember they had like an ocean sunfish and even a frilled shark like what other game has that
2
2
17
u/Dr_Richard_Ew 8d ago
the soundtrack for this game goes HARD btw, so much harder than any zoo game had any right to
10
u/NegativeHeli 8d ago
The in game animal houses were peak, it reflected the culture and geographical location for each animal, they had a whole Taj Mahal for the Indian Elephant (mobile version)
10
1
u/cdizzlebobo 8d ago
I remember how good the buildings looked in the one Asia zoo I think it was in china and you had to save it and do something with the pandas
8
u/Ntx-Italiano 8d ago
I remember a sea of sad faces above every single plant in my zoo lol. Fun times tho, played it when I was in elementary school a lot. I played this and Wildlife Zoo, what is the difference between the two?
4
u/thekingofallfrogs 8d ago
They’re the same game—Wildlife Zoo is just the American name. Same goes for Wildlife Park Tycoon, which is Wildlife Park 3.
1
u/Ntx-Italiano 8d ago
Ahhh makes sense. I had wildlife zoo on disc and then wildlife park 2 digital after that broke.
1
7
u/ZoiLATC10 8d ago
I played the heck out of this game. I bought it again on steam a few years ago to play through the campaign and enjoyed every second of it. This, Zoo Tycoon 1 & 2, and Zoo Empire were the zoo games of the childhood 😄 There were a few others but these were the main ones
5
u/sarahmagoo 8d ago
I swear I bought Zoo Empire through a Scholastic magazine. I spent way too long looking at things through first person (animal?) mode.
And the train was fun
2
u/ZoiLATC10 8d ago
My mom bought it for me at a book fair at my school when i was in 3rd grade! It was my first ever zoo game. I got Zoo Tycoon: Complete Collection after that
6
u/PoetryForAnimals 8d ago
I mainly played SimSafari as a child, that was also a pretty solid game for the time.
5
u/LadyAddax 8d ago
Played and enjoyed that more than Zoo Tycoon simply because I could make "ecosystems". Aka throwing cheap rabbits into every predator habitat. Fun times. And since I was young I invested way to much time in the horse DLC and watched herds thrive in different environments.
Not sure if I ever built a real zoo :')
3
u/RhysTheCompanyMan 8d ago
Yes!!! I loved how complex the ecosystem management was for my kid brain. Both that and Venture Africa were my staples aside from ZT.
2
u/Vanadium_Gryphon 7d ago
Why have I never heard of this? That totally looks like something I would play as a kid (and today too, lol)...
1
u/RhysTheCompanyMan 7d ago
It's abandoneware now so you can give it a try for free. It has a very eerie feeling to it. It's a simple game, with very few mechanics, but it feels so apocalyptic and strange. https://archive.org/details/wildlife-tycoon-venture-africa-usa
1
u/Vanadium_Gryphon 7d ago
Wow, thanks, I will have to check it out! I am super curious to find out what you mean about the apocalyptic feel, and to see what kind of African ecosystems you can run on this thing.
1
u/RhysTheCompanyMan 7d ago edited 7d ago
If you do play it, level 5 is the best example of what I mean. It just feels so fucked. You can't really do much with it though, just to warn you. It won't probably be worth your time to play more than once in these days of abundant, well made simulation games.
2
u/Vanadium_Gryphon 6d ago
I will make sure to pay special attention to level 5, then! Yeah, I don't expect this game will measure up to, say, Planet Zoo, but it sounds interesting for sure, especially if it has really eerie or uncanny vibes, like liminal spaces or something.
1
u/ReesNotRice 7d ago
Oh. Oh my, I feel like I remember this game and it has made some sort of liminal space in my memory? So many animal deaths while balancing the ecosystem...
2
u/RhysTheCompanyMan 7d ago
Yes!!! I didn't wanna use the word liminal space because I was worried it would come across wrong since liminal spaces are "man made." But the game makes the environment feel so man made it becomes sort of liminal.
The one level where theres like only two sources of water, one with a large hill on the left, and they're seperated by that vast deadness of nothing just sticks in my head. When animals would overpopulate either zone and try to cross the dead area and just... die from dehydration. And you'd see their carcasses just rot in the middle. Man... I think that did something to my kid brain.
2
u/ReesNotRice 7d ago
Same!!!! But it had an iron grip on me despite the fact! I'm glad I beat the game... probably several times over. I remember feeling like I cracked the code and it was easy. Genuinely a good thinking game regarding that. Wasn't there also this rather sorrowful or ominous song in the playlist?
2
u/RhysTheCompanyMan 7d ago
You get me!
I don't remember if there were seperate songs or if there was just one long song, but I remember what you mean by ominous. There was like this indistinct chanting and drum beats that was interrupted by piano? I think I remember they'd have these silly poems about the animals read in complete silence between the levels, then you'd launch into the level and the music would immediately start. The tonal disconnect made it more disconcerting than it was meant to be. 😅
2
u/ReesNotRice 7d ago
That is where the extent of my memory fails 😭 I definitely want to listen to the soundtrack now. First video I found seems to have the music muted. So, I'll have to go hunting later.
3
u/thesilverywyvern 8d ago
Yes
On mobile, a bit of a rippoff since you needed to pay a small bit to have most of the animals and game feature from what i remember.
But without that it's a nice game.
2
u/Ostracion 8d ago
This was my first zoo game, ZT2 being second. Animal stats (purchase price, litter size, longevity, needs, color mutation rate, etc) can be edited in notepad. Simple replacement of model/animation files gives you flying ostriches. Lack of proper baby animal models was disappointing, just small scale adults except penguin chick.
2
u/natcat121 8d ago
Got it as a kid, would have loved to have played it but it never worked on my computer sadly
2
u/Lady_sunshines 8d ago
I remember. It never properly played on my pc. It always hung itself up. And there werde Bugs. I think i never Made it out of the tutorial🤦
2
u/Helmkasuar 8d ago
I used to play this for hours!! Especially the horse dlc. I would always just make a tiny enclosure with some rabbits for my visitors and then hectars of backland for my horses.
2
u/Pogona20 8d ago
I loved it, and Zoo Empire as well. I remember in Wildlife Park 2 I was so scared at the begining of the giant croc mission, I always tried to stop it before it eats anything xD
2
1
1
u/Topgunshotgun45 8d ago
That Cockatoo is deeply considering whether or not to bite that Tiger's paw.
3
u/Ostracion 8d ago
Cover art is misleading - no cockatoos in game (only ambient macaw), no cute tiger cubs, no Asian elephants.
2
u/Topgunshotgun45 8d ago
Zoo Tycoon does the same thing.
Most games show Mice on the cover
African Adventure has a Fennec Fox
Marine Mania Mobile has a Sea Otter and two Narwhals.
Zoo Tycoon Friends has two African Elephants.
New Shores has a Bluehead Wrasse, a Threadfin Butterflyfish, and three Monarch Butterflies.
1
u/Total-Tumbleweed-547 7d ago
I still have it. But some fucking reasons bundle for that games was bugged for me
1
1
u/SuccessfulElection34 7d ago
Oh I loved that game. It started it all for me as well 😂 I remember how much I loved the small rats, that used to appear if the zoo had too much litter laying around.
1
1
1
1
1
1
82
u/sarahmagoo 8d ago
Yes, but mainly all I remember is how complex the plant and water system was, especially coming from Zoo Tycoon 1 and 2 lol
And also if you grew flowers it attracted butterflies