How do you start your zoos?

sockeyejo

sockeyejo
After several months away from PZ with an injured tendon in my mouse hand (from playing too much PZ :eek:) and mucking about with several practice zoos to reacquaint myself with the mechanics of the game, I'm currently boring myself silly with what feels like endless terrain modification and smoothing (why oh why aren't I building a nice, flat city zoo?) at the start of a new wildlife park and got to wondering how you all begin your fresh zoos. Do you plan it meticulously beforehand? Do you pick a biome at random? Do you set the scene and then see where inspiration takes you? Do you know what animals you want or do you see what looks good and start there (sandbox rather than franchise)?
 

NZFanatic

NZFanatic
Usually I open a blank temperate map, stare at it for a while, mess around with some building pieces, get frustrated that I'm not inspired, close out of it, get inspired, go back into it, be unable to get my brain to translate my idea into the game, get frustrated again, close it again...

In my newest zoo I just saved an older entrance I built as a blueprint and transplanted it to avoid my borderline OCD desire to build an entrance first. Then I briefly thought about some of the concepts I wanted to include and just started. I don't muck around with terrain modification too much because the scale is so large that it would take far too long to do it all at once at the start (instead I'll do the terrain changes as I go).
 

Aidan635

Aidan635
I can safely say that I've started probably 100 zoos since Planet Zoo launched, probably more. The hardest thing about starting the zoo, for me at least, is the entrance. More specifically, transitioning from your entrance area to the rest of your zoo; you need to blend it in so well so it looks natural. Personally, I think the New World theme is the best for building entrances (just look at the Woodland Park Zoo's entrance and you'll see why). It just works, it flows nicely, and also looks amazing too.

As for planning the zoo, in definitely one of those people who plan the entire zoo before they start building it. Right now, I've got plans for the next couple of months, in what order I'm gonna do things, where I'm gonna put things, how I'm gonna do it. Some things are undecided, like what to do with the damn Himalayan Brown Bear and Snow Leopard. If your wondering why I'm building a habitat for the Himalayan Brown Bear, it's because I'm building a zoo with all 122 species. Now, those plans could be gone tomorrow, and new ones will be in place immediately. I'm constantly thinking about what I'm gonna do next week, next month, next year even.

Anyway, I would start your zoo with some miscellaneous animals, as I like to call them. You could make this one big area or just kinda make individual exhibits for these animals. To me, these animals don't really fit into a geographic area, or just seem like they would fit into something like this. Examples include Flamingos, Camels, Lemurs, Llamas, and the non-reptile/amphibian exhibit animals. Now, you can do whatever you want with this, but this is just how I do it. Then, break out into different areas. I prefer to break them up by geographic area, but I've recently accepted the idea of like a Great Ape area, or just a general Rainforest area, or a Reptile House, things like that.
 

DarthQuell

DarthQuell
I do, what I call, a rough draft plan by roughly planning my animals and theme. As I build it, if I ever notice something new I could do, I go ahead and put my big plan aside and do whatever I just noticed (say I wanna do a South America section, but then I notice the perfect spot for an African themed restaurant. I go ahead and build the restaurant first, then keep going with my plans).

I basically just let the zoo go with the flow, starting with my entrance
 

Karen F

K
I don't really plan much. I never stick to the plan anyway :) . First I decide the location of my zoo and what climate, vegetation and landscape come with it. Then I make groups based on regions: North-America, Europe, Congo... I select animals for each group and think of a theme and style in which I will build. I always place similar groups next to each other, Europe + N-America, Africa + Congo + Madagascar. I usually start with the regions that are well represented in the game, since there are less new animals to be expected from those regions. And I don't like to change much. But for building, I just start and see where it takes me.
 

Ztlabraptor

Ztlabraptor
I generally pick some kind of theme I want and make a plan. I choose a biome, a foliage pallet, a building style and a setting which is what gives me the inspiration to build. From there I get a rough idea of some themed areas, fill out a loose species list that I often ignore part of and build as much as I can before lag annoys me to the point of moving on to the next project
 

GRAMPERS62

G
Often, I make up a story and plan the theme around it. From there I can plan the terrain and building style or even what creatures will be there. Still writing a story for a zoo called Jaguar River that has almost been completed to a point where I will put it the Steam workshop. Perhaps with the abridged version of the story.
 

Laura_91

L
NZFanatic said:
Usually I open a blank temperate map, stare at it for a while, mess around with some building pieces, get frustrated that I'm not inspired, close out of it, get inspired, go back into it, be unable to get my brain to translate my idea into the game, get frustrated again, close it again...

In my newest zoo I just saved an older entrance I built as a blueprint and transplanted it to avoid my borderline OCD desire to build an entrance first. Then I briefly thought about some of the concepts I wanted to include and just started. I don't muck around with terrain modification too much because the scale is so large that it would take far too long to do it all at once at the start (instead I'll do the terrain changes as I go).
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😂 im the same. I think about it all day at work then get home and im like cant do it. Had enough 🤣
 

Britches

Britches
Aidan635 said:
The hardest thing about starting the zoo, for me at least, is the entrance. More specifically, transitioning from your entrance area to the rest of your zoo
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This is exactly the same stuff I'm always struggling with. I never make plans, either. I just pick a biome and start from scratch. Success rate 50/50. Often I don't like it from the beginning and start over again.
 

Jeeminee

Jeeminee
Usually I open a blank temperate map, stare at it for a while, mess around with some building pieces, get frustrated that I'm not inspired, close out of it, get inspired, go back into it, be unable to get my brain to translate my idea into the game, get frustrated again, close it again...
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This is so recognizable! 🤣

At night in bed, I have got the most beautiful ideas sometimes; even knowing how to make the entrance or habitats,
finding myself having a complete blanco head sitting in front of the pc the next day! 😆

At the other side it happened a few times, that after a long struggle while thinking it was gonna be nothing, I did got two really nice zoos.
Somewhere down the line I got feeling with it and some new ideas , and than I realised that it was gonna be really nice!
(Although totally different than the starting idea. But that didn't matter anymore at that point)
 
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Dylan Smith

D
I find it really important to just start and do ‘place fillers’ for buildings and then let it grow organically. I always go back and do things properly with context around it, because the first thing you do will always be terrible. Especially starting from scratch.
 

Aidan635

Aidan635
Sometimes you here of people saying they lack of inspiration when starting a zoo, but I, and I'm sure many others can agree, have the exact opposite of that: too much inspiration. I have so many ideas brewing in my head at one time and actually sitting down and executing them is pretty difficult. Sometimes they work out, but most of the time they don't, which leads me to start a new zoo. I remember I was building a reptile park and it was all going great until I attempted an otter habitat. I didn't even put them in the exhibit, not even the water in there, and I had to abandon the whole zoo! This pretty much happens every time. The never-ending cycle!
 

SotF

SotF
A lot of it depends upon if I'm just messing around or have an idea first...or if it's when I get a new pack and want to experiment with the specifics of the new stuff.

With the new packs, it's mainly just messing with the new animals and how new stuff interacts with the old in different ways.

Just messing around is more of a just going with the flow and what I want each time which tends to quickly devolve a zoo into a convoluted mess

If it's working from an idea, I tend to focus and work through it, normally I've also sketched out some ideas beforehand that I work from to get it functioning in game. Mainly because I've tried to make what I want for it. Things like my canyon zoo project is something that I've done this with since it is a lot more intricate in design than most, a lot of sightline manipulation and vertical space use along with tunnels, bridges, and other things that is still a pain to get straight and not leave just a mess behind. And I'm contemplating scrapping it to rework due to the europe pack because the entrance that I'd put together has a lot of issues...
 

markun

markun
Aidan635 said:
Sometimes you here of people saying they lack of inspiration when starting a zoo, but I, and I'm sure many others can agree, have the exact opposite of that: too much inspiration.
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Same here. I have pages and pages of layouts, species lists, enclosure ideas and so on and a long list of zoo names. They all have a fairly realistic style and location in mind. The problem comes when I try to put it into practice. I sometimes feel overwhelmed by a blank map, sometimes struggle with building and very often realise that the biome textures and map backgrounds just don’t work for what I’m aiming to do.
 

jcp011c

jcp011c
I'm all over the place. On franchise I have tended towards zoos that are either continent themed or "general" zoos, that I basically put whatever I feel like in there. I do have a couple that are biome themed though. Sandbox though, so many different ways. Those three ways, I've been working on a Christmas village, a Bavarian village, an African Village with a good balance of buildings/animals, and then my wildlife preserves, with most every option turned off, so I can have animals and guests walk around freely with no issues.

In all cases I have a basic idea of a theme, except for my general zoos. and honestly even those are the ones I have the most trouble starting, they end up being my largest and favorite zoos.

One thing I haven't done that that I really do want to at some point is a city zoo. I need to watch a lot of videos to learn how to do that though. I'm not patient enough with building. My villages are small scale so I can work with that, but large scale work with lots of buildings, I'm not sure I can handle lol
 

L_Aeterna

L_Aeterna
I start of with building an entrance with a little habitat (usually tortoises), staff facilities, places to eat and drink for my guest and go from there. I make a plan beforehand what themes I want to use and what animals I want to have in my zoo. Normally I group them by region, so I start with one region and define a specific building style I stick to. And I found out it helps me if I build no more than one habitat a day. Today I wanted to build a habitat for bengal tigers, so I started on that one and I will continue building it until I am satisfied. When I'm finished with one habitat, I go on to the next. When the game frustrates me to much, I close it and when I want to play again, I open it up. Repeat XD
 
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