Zoo Tycoon 2: Welcome to the zoo

Sunday, October 28, 2007

We were watching "Killer Elephants" on Animal Planet, and sure enough, the desire to play Zoo Tycoon built up in me like, well, a killer elephant. I call my creation the Bloggersville City Zoo.

I haven't done much to start, but I wanted to introduce it anyway because I'm sure I'll be coming back to it over time. I'm playing the large city zoo map as a freeform game. I removed all the existing pathing, then added some restrooms by the entrance. Then I added a pen using the low wooden fence, because I wanted something right there at the entrance that didn't have a high fence to block the view of the rest of the zoo. Then came the hard part of figuring out what kind of animal to put in it.

I started scrolling through the available animals, reading the Zoopedia entries on some of them, even placing a few to see how they liked it. Most wanted "more space." Heh, don't we all. Others I ruled out because the low wooden fence wouldn't hold them or might pose an issue with fingers being bitten off. I also ruled out the peafowl because I'm going to have a few of those free-ranging around the zoo. So I chose the Nile crocodile.

And I named him Lyle. That's right. Lyle the Nile Crocodile. I named the resturant after him because, at the moment, he's the star of the zoo.

So much for fingers, by the way, but then again the game doesn't seem to make an issue of it. (Though real life experience recalls the ostrich that wanted to eat my son's worm-like fingers. Yum.) I may replace the fence with the brick or something, but I'll still keep it low. Right now it seems to do an all right job keeping Lyle contained, and Lyle seems to be pretty happy in his enclosure.

Finally, just for fun, I threw a guest who had the audacity to yawn while viewing Lyle into Lyle's pen. I was hoping Lyle would gobble her up, but no such luck. Instead, he was automatically crated (inside the pen, no less) and the guest disappeared (I think she left the zoo or something). Not as exciting as I hoped, I'll admit. Maybe I'll stop feeding him for a while and then try again.