With Kinect, you can feed the animals, wash the animals and make faces at the animals and oh my gosh they make faces back it's so cute I'm just going to die. The tycoon character exists to help you better engage with the park and its dozens of creatures. Zoo Tycoon's best trick, and the reason I enjoyed playing it in a big room with lots of people, is the ability to switch at any time into a third-person character - a zoo tycoon, if you will - and roam the park you've constructed. While squinting on the couch, it was easy to imagine the game would be more enjoyable at a desk. The design calls to mind simulation games on PC. The screen is often overtaken by tiny pop-up updates written in tinier text not ideal for a television screen. Using the simple menu system and a circular cursor, you select a new display or restroom or concession stand and plant it wherever you'd like on a flat grassy map, gradually creating a sprawl of restrained wildlife. With zoos streamed on Twitch pretty regularly, players doing complete playthroughs of almost 60 episodes, and an active modding community that can be found on forums across the world, it’s safe to say that the Zoo Tycoon community has staying power for years to come.Much of the work can be done from an omniscient, birds-eye-view. Players have stayed with and returned to Zoo Tycoon over the years for a number of reasons: nostalgia, a love for animals, and a community that keeps love for the game going. Erectus commented on the fact that their return to the community “was very welcoming,” and that the Zoo Tycoon 2 modding community “is one of the most loyal fanbases I know of.” It goes to show that the community around these games is welcoming to new and returning fans while also steadily creating their own content years afterward. Zoo Tycoon has continued to engage players to this day, sharing the game, their ideas, and their own zoos online. Zoo Tycoon plays host to memories and inspires passion in the community that remains around it, even when there are a plethora of other titles out there.
This longevity really speaks to the power that it has as a comfort game to players. The Zoo Tycoon community grew in the game’s early years, and the enthusiasm has carried on into 2020.
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Though Blue Fang shut down in 2011, the series it created has long kept fans invested. He explained that teams were sent out to visit zoos and research the animals they planned to add into the games. The games have some basis in reality (minus things like dinosaurs, seeing a witch fly over your zoo on Halloween, and even a killer penguin in the extinct animals expansion), with lots of research put into the development for each title, as game developer Blue Fang art director Fred Galpern commented in an interview with Polygon. The first two titles in the series, Zoo Tycoon (2001) and Zoo Tycoon 2 (2004), both had a few expansions that added additional options like marine wildlife, dinosaurs, and endangered species. Zoo Tycoon has all kinds of possibilities for players. Freeform mode lets players go completely wild, with unlimited money or their choice of the map that they’d like to start on.
Scenario modes offer various objectives for the player/zoo manager to meet, ranging from displaying a set amount of animals to registering a certain amount of guest happiness. Success in Zoo Tycoon can mean creating a zoo that features all species or turns a massive profit, or, in Zoo Tycoon 2, achieves a coveted 5-star zoo rating. Initially released in 2001, Zoo Tycoon allows players to completely create and manage a zoo with the intention of it becoming a success. Simulation games run the gamut across several subgenres, including the business simulation game Zoo Tycoon. It’s a unique genre that pulls several real-world skills like strategy, planning, and analysis into a wide variety of games that cover everything from controlling and operating a plane to constructing vast cities. Simulation games have always been popular, from well-known titles like The Sims and Planet Coaster to recent indie releases such as Esport Manager.