Let’s build a Zoo is a game by Spring loaded. The game starts you off with an empty plot of land and gets you up and running to build and manage your own zoo. A bit like a “tycoon” game but I feel that this game has a little more depth. You decide 100% how everything looks and feels in your Zoo. Do you want to give a huge enclosure to one single goose? Sure, do you want to keep a lion in a cage in which it can’t move? Well, you can but there is a morality meter that keeps you in check.
Let’s build a zoo features a 16-bit art style and a great soundtrack. The tutorial is great and let’s you learn the basics fast. That does not mean that I stand behind every user interface decision. There is a management building where your investors ask you to do specific tasks. This is however not the place where you hire or manage your employees. You need your ticket booth to hire and later speak to the individual employees to manage them, this doesn’t sound too bad but try finding that freaking 16-bit zookeeper running through hundreds of visitors. This does not take away from the depth of some other features though.
One of the other aspects of the game is gathering animals. You can procure them in a bunch of different ways. Rescue animals from a shelter, trade certain animals for others with different zoos from across the world, buy them from a shady black-market guy… The most interesting mechanics are breeding and DNA splicing. you can breed animals to get slight variations of them to get a more diverse set of animals. These animals are then in higher demand by other zoos and let you trade. But what if your visitors are sick of regular cows and chickens? Well, splice their DNA to make a chickow, not fancy enough? get a crocoduck. The devs claim to have 300,000 different types of animals.
I really enjoyed this game and for a zoo-builder/simulator game it feels at least a bit more unique than most others. The user interface is not the best in the genre, but you get used to it fast. If you are into this genre of game, I highly recommend checking it out.
