Just for Fun: How did you get into Nature and Planet Zoo?

Aramar

Aramar
I have always been a city boy and I didn't have much contact with nature growing up. My parents don't like animals (not that they hate them, just that don't have an interest in them). I think I only went 2 or 3 times to zoos during my childhood. As a young adult I started traveling abroad and visited several zoos, not because I really wanted to visit them, but because the travel guides said they were great (like San Diego Zoo). I always enjoyed my zoo visits, but they were like going to a museum or a castle or any other tourist attractions.

However I always liked building stuff and as a kid I was always building with toys. I also liked theme parks (especially Disneyland). So among my first videogames I got Rollercoaster Tycoon. I loved that game. That lead to Zoo Tycoon. Years later I got Planet Coaster, but then I started moving abroad for work and had to use an old laptop which didn't allow me to play videoogames anymore. I remember I saw an add for Planet Zoo, but I didn't pay attention because I had no computer to play it. Months later the pandemic arrived and I was bored at home, so I installed Zoo Tycoon 1 (in 2020!). I was saving a lot of money and I don't know how I found Rudi's videos of PZ. Suddenly I wanted to play Planet Zoo, so I bought a new gaming laptop and joined the forum. I haven't stopped playing since then and I've learned so much about animals that visiting zoos has become my new passion. I have visited more zoos since 2020 than in my whole life before.

And that's my background!
 

Villanelle

Villanelle
I think I was just born an animal lover. We lived near London Zoo so my parents got me membership and they would take me there most weekends from babyhood; my mum's best friend also had a baby boy and they'd take us there just to hang out. I'm still really good friends with that boy even though he now lives in Scotland and I'm still in South england, but in countryside now :)

Growing up my favourite toys were my cuddly animals, favourite tv shows were wildlife documentaries, favourite games were all animal-related, and favourite things to do all involved the hope or promise of seeing an animal of any kind.

When I was 4 I decided I wanted to be vegetarian. I couldn't fathom why we would want to eat animals. My parents generously respected my wishes and I never went back.

My favourite thing was getting out of the city and into nature, any nature. I had American family so I got to go mountain hiking and loved having to hang our food up in trees in case of bears. I'd stay up all night hoping to see a skunk or raccoon. Sometimes I got lucky and also saw sealions, elephant seals, sea otters, marmots, bobcats, once a lynx and once a bear from a distance. In England I'd be thrilled to see hedgehogs, deer, foxes, rabbits, birds, bugs, frogs, newts, even just sheep or squirrels. Still am!

My favourite trip of all time was to the jungles of Borneo - I saw wild orangutan, crocodiles, all kinds of monkeys, incredible birds, water monitors, babirusa, huge butterflies, great insects, snakes, spiders - loved them all. My next trip is a safari in South Africa this winter - I could not be more excited.

So of course, I was so hyped when I saw the first ad for PZ. I remember that long wait for its release and how exciting it was the first time I played.
 

abigenius

abigenius
All started when I was a baby, my parents always brought me toys of animals and dinosaur and I love them so much, my old toys still are with me, my parents I get a lot of Baby Einstein and Disney's World videos and where I learned a lot about animals and in fact also about English, practically my parents have taught me English since I was 1-2 years old together with the animals, like I mentioned before I'm from Mexico and in Mexico there are a lot of fauna here So, being from a very biodiverse country, my culture greatly appreciates nature and animals, even here we have raccoons and when the people see one everyone gets excited and takes photos, I have never heard that they are considered pests or something like.

Although given that it is somewhat dangerous to explore the jungle myself because of the 5 species of felines that we have among jaguars, pumas and jaguarundis being the most dangerous, still I love reading about nature here, and I would love to visit many zoos but the zoo culture in Mexico is very bad, I like to watch videos from zoos around the world.

Since I was kid always I wanted be exotic veterinary and this year I finished the high school so I'm going to go to university to finally study veterinary medicine.

As for PZ, where it started since I was playing Zoo Tycoon on Xbox, and then I moved on to JWE1 and right in the middle of the development of the game, the next expansion and also Planet Zoo were leaked long before You didn't even have a name, and well the rest is history, so basically PZ has been with me since long before it was announced, in fact I've been on the forums since the launch but I wasn't very active before
 
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markun

markun
I have always loved animals and was obsessed with zoos from an early age.

For a long time I was limited in where I went and zoos I visited as I didn’t have the confidence to do things by myself and I don’t have any zoo fan friends but I have a lot more confidence now and have been to many zoos, mostly in Europe.

One of my biggest regrets is that I never went to Healesville Sanctuary when I visited friends in Melbourne when I was younger. I went to Melbourne Zoo with them though and I did go to Taronga Zoo and Sydney Aquarium.

Perhaps because of my autism I get very intensely interested in particular things and my favourite animals are from colder parts of Europe and Asia, and on the other side of the world, Australia and New Zealand.

All my life I have designed and built zoos in various ways, from Playmobil to Planet Zoo.

I was actually designing a zoo on paper and googling visayan warty pigs and an image of the ZT2 mod Island Excursions came up which got me into ZT2. I’d never played games before that.

I found out about Planet Zoo when someone mentioned it early on in a ZT2 forum and I’ve been with the game pretty much from the beginning.

It took me a while to figure out how to achieve my ideas in Planet Zoo but I finally feel I can do most things that I want to and I couldn’t imagine the last few, very strange, years without it.
 

Fallax

Fallax
I don't remember a time I wasn't interested in animals honestly. I'd probably put it down to a mixture of visits to Chester Zoo (quite lucky to have this as my home zoo) and BBC nature documentaries...

As for Planet Zoo, well I really loved Zoo Tycoon 2 as a kid so when I heard of Planet Zoo I was interested immediately, though I didn't get properly into the game until 2022 as I initially had trouble with some of the mechanics and didn't think the roster was very good so I went back to ZT2. By 2022 I quite liked the roster so I bought all the DLC and learnt the mechanics and now I really love the game.
 

Villanelle

Villanelle
Well aren't we just such a cute and wholesome bunch of people 🥰

Animal/nature people are the best people.

When someone says "I don't really like animals..." or "eww, mud" my brain just switches off and I walk away. We will never understand each other.

Honestly just lather me in mud and roll me into a snake pit and I'll be grand.
 

Cynogale bennettii II

Cynogale bennettii II
Nature: Being autistic, loving nature just came naturally to me - unlike people, the animals outside weren't expecting anything of you. I guess at first, my interest was solely in animals, but it became more broadly nature-based enjoyment as I became older (I think my parents found the best way to keep me occupied on a rainy day was to plonk me down with an Eyewitness VHS on, so that almost certainly helped).

Animals: Again bringing up the autism, but I was very lucky that my obsession was animals as, I found early on that you could never find out everything so you'd never be bored. I think from infant school age I was filling my head with the names of animals (I vividly remember giving the springhare as an example of a two-legged animal in an infant school lesson after I saw it in an Amazing Animals episode I had on VHS, and none of the teachers having any idea if it existed or not). Every holiday had to include some zoo or aquarium visit. Did my school work experience at a little local zoo, did a zoology-based course at both university and masters levels and have also attempted to get work in the wildlife filmmaking sector. No matter what happens, I think I want to work with animals in some fashion.

Zoo games: My mum told me about Zoo Tycoon, having heard it from other children at the school she worked at. Got the game and all its subsequent expansion packs, and then moved onto Zoo Tycoon 2 when that came out.

Planet Zoo: Found out about Planet Zoo before it came out (I think from a forum on ZooChat on the subject), found the forums here and the rest is history.
 
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Spiderhawk

Spiderhawk
Here’s my stoeyu
I always had a passion for animals since I was young. Loved going to zoos and aquariums. Growing up where I did, most other kids in my area had different passions. Most kids went home and watched power rangers, I went home and watched animal planet.
I liked the tycoon building games such as roller coaster so when I sow that there was zoo tycoon, I spent a lot of time on that game and its expansions. I would get bored of the game when it started getting ridiculous with fictional animals and it was turning over to ZT2 which for some reason didn’t have a strong appeal for me.
Eventually I turned over to playing Wow and counter strike with high school friends.
At some point I lost the games, years later I had this desire to play the game again. Couldn’t find any place that sold the game. Eventually I got a MacBook amd therefore I wouldn’t be able to play the game. As years went by I was hoping for an updated zoo building game. Finally in 2019 it happened and I needed a new labtop and I got the one I have now and I immediately downloaded it and soon joined the insanity that is these forums.
I had some career idea changes over the years, working with alpacas, working on whale watching boats in Alaska, Hawaii and currently in Maine. Having gotten alot of experience working at the Alaska Sealife Center as an educator, now I am narrating tours showing people gray seals, Atlantic puffins and more.
Some people want to grow up to be the next Steve Irwin, I ended up the next Ace Ventura.
 
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Markiz

Markiz
It was my late grandfather that got me into nature and animals since the earliest days. I remember he read to us from a thick book by Alfred Brehm. But also closer and wider family always had some type of affinity for animals in one way or another.

Animal Planet and National Geographics were always "on" on TV as filler when nothing special was watched.

From there it only continue to develop. I think it helped that I grew up in fairly small town (bordering on village) encircled by mountains, hills and forests, so a lot of spare time with peers was spent in wilderness.

As for Planet Zoo it was just a natural continuation to Zoo Tycoon games which weren't hard to come by to someone with our interests
 
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