Hello everyone!
Welcome to September's Catch Up! We will use this post to look back at the last month, at all the news and reveals to make sure you are all caught up. We are currently in Planet Zoo's Beta period, which you can take part in by purchasing the Planet Zoo Deluxe Edition! The Beta will run until the 8 October, and during that time, you will be able to take part in the Community Challenge, the forum competition and some social media fun! If you would like to purchase the Planet Zoo Deluxe Edition, which also gives you access to three Deluxe animals, a set of high quality wallpapers and the original soundtrack by JJ Ipsen, you can do so by visiting the Planet Zoo Steam page or the Frontier Store.
Some members of the Planet Zoo team have just returned from Twitchcon, where they were streaming Planet Zoo on the showfloor with a large group of content creators. Were you able to catch any of the streams? If you missed any, you can watch them back! Use our Twitchcon streaming schedule so you can find out if you were able to catch all the streams you'd have liked to. We showed the first scenario of Career Mode and Franchise Mode, which you can play in the Beta.
However, on 3 September, we showcased an Official Gameplay Reveal over on YouTube, where Lead Community Manager Bo was joined by Community Manager Chanté, Senior Artist Liesa and QA Tester Sam to show off the Savannah Biome, the Indian Subcontinent theme, and some new animals that hadn't been revealed yet. Were you able to spot them all? Check out the video here:
Next up this month, we held an AMA (Ask Me Anything) over on Reddit on the 18 September, where we invited our community to ask Game Director Piers Jackson; Art Director Marc Cox; Lead Programmer Andrew Chappell and Lead Community Manager Bo any questions related to Planet Zoo. If you missed it, fret not, all the answers are available here on a thread thanks to Moderator Joel! We will be revealing more and more closer to the launch of Planet Zoo, but we hope we were able to answer a few questions you may have about the game.
A great way of finding more information out about Planet Zoo is by reading our Developer Journals. This month, we spoke to Game Director Piers Jackson and Principal Designer Jim Stimpson about Franchise Mode, the brand new mode to Planet Zoo that features trading. "Franchise Mode is our new online mode for Planet Zoo; a franchise allows you to open up a series of connected zoos all over the globe. As you can open your zoos on different continents and in different biomes, you'll face different challenges in each with the temperature and weather!" This mode is full of challenges, and you will be need to trade your animals and purchase some to ensure diversity in your zoos. You can read all about this new mode here.
We had a second Developer Journal, which focused on the Facilities in Planet Zoo with some of them being new to the Planet Universe. For this Journal, we spoke to Senior Artist Fearn Hilborn, Lead Designer James Taylor and Senior Artist Joanne Taylor. They revealed all the Facilities you will be able to use in Planet Zoo, and what their purpose on the zoo is. It is important to remind the community that the Facilities have a radius around them, which will affect your guests, so you will need to plan your zoo layout to ensure you maintain a good level of happiness among your guests. Have a read of this Developer Journal here.
On 21 September, better known to our community as Red Panda Day, we held a special reveal over on our Instagram. Did you catch the full image? These cute, small mammals have been a community favourite, and we are proud to welcome them to the Planet Zoo roster!
That's not the only special reveal we had this month. On 24 September, we revealed the Western Lowland Gorilla! The Gorilla is the largest primate species, and these majestic animals are incredibly important to the forests in which they live, because their feeding and roaming habits disperse fruit seeds.
We'd like to thank our community for taking part in the Zoopedia Fact polls on Wednesdays, as we are learning so much about the animals along with you! You can take part my heading over to our FaceBook, Twitter and Instagram and voting on which animals you'd like to learn more about. This month, we have learnt:
That's all for this month! If you are taking part in our exclusive Beta, make sure you check out our Animal Architecture, or social channels and our Community Challenge in game for maximum fun! You can also visit our dedicated Beta Feedback Forum to let us know of any bugs or glitches you find while you're playing, so we can work on resolving them before the release of Planet Zoo on the 5 November. Don't forget, if you currently don't have access to the Beta, you can do so by purchasing the Planet Zoo Deluxe Edition any time before the beta is over on the at 5PM BST on 8 October.
Thank you for reading!
Welcome to September's Catch Up! We will use this post to look back at the last month, at all the news and reveals to make sure you are all caught up. We are currently in Planet Zoo's Beta period, which you can take part in by purchasing the Planet Zoo Deluxe Edition! The Beta will run until the 8 October, and during that time, you will be able to take part in the Community Challenge, the forum competition and some social media fun! If you would like to purchase the Planet Zoo Deluxe Edition, which also gives you access to three Deluxe animals, a set of high quality wallpapers and the original soundtrack by JJ Ipsen, you can do so by visiting the Planet Zoo Steam page or the Frontier Store.
Some members of the Planet Zoo team have just returned from Twitchcon, where they were streaming Planet Zoo on the showfloor with a large group of content creators. Were you able to catch any of the streams? If you missed any, you can watch them back! Use our Twitchcon streaming schedule so you can find out if you were able to catch all the streams you'd have liked to. We showed the first scenario of Career Mode and Franchise Mode, which you can play in the Beta.
However, on 3 September, we showcased an Official Gameplay Reveal over on YouTube, where Lead Community Manager Bo was joined by Community Manager Chanté, Senior Artist Liesa and QA Tester Sam to show off the Savannah Biome, the Indian Subcontinent theme, and some new animals that hadn't been revealed yet. Were you able to spot them all? Check out the video here:
Next up this month, we held an AMA (Ask Me Anything) over on Reddit on the 18 September, where we invited our community to ask Game Director Piers Jackson; Art Director Marc Cox; Lead Programmer Andrew Chappell and Lead Community Manager Bo any questions related to Planet Zoo. If you missed it, fret not, all the answers are available here on a thread thanks to Moderator Joel! We will be revealing more and more closer to the launch of Planet Zoo, but we hope we were able to answer a few questions you may have about the game.
A great way of finding more information out about Planet Zoo is by reading our Developer Journals. This month, we spoke to Game Director Piers Jackson and Principal Designer Jim Stimpson about Franchise Mode, the brand new mode to Planet Zoo that features trading. "Franchise Mode is our new online mode for Planet Zoo; a franchise allows you to open up a series of connected zoos all over the globe. As you can open your zoos on different continents and in different biomes, you'll face different challenges in each with the temperature and weather!" This mode is full of challenges, and you will be need to trade your animals and purchase some to ensure diversity in your zoos. You can read all about this new mode here.
We had a second Developer Journal, which focused on the Facilities in Planet Zoo with some of them being new to the Planet Universe. For this Journal, we spoke to Senior Artist Fearn Hilborn, Lead Designer James Taylor and Senior Artist Joanne Taylor. They revealed all the Facilities you will be able to use in Planet Zoo, and what their purpose on the zoo is. It is important to remind the community that the Facilities have a radius around them, which will affect your guests, so you will need to plan your zoo layout to ensure you maintain a good level of happiness among your guests. Have a read of this Developer Journal here.
On 21 September, better known to our community as Red Panda Day, we held a special reveal over on our Instagram. Did you catch the full image? These cute, small mammals have been a community favourite, and we are proud to welcome them to the Planet Zoo roster!
That's not the only special reveal we had this month. On 24 September, we revealed the Western Lowland Gorilla! The Gorilla is the largest primate species, and these majestic animals are incredibly important to the forests in which they live, because their feeding and roaming habits disperse fruit seeds.
We'd like to thank our community for taking part in the Zoopedia Fact polls on Wednesdays, as we are learning so much about the animals along with you! You can take part my heading over to our FaceBook, Twitter and Instagram and voting on which animals you'd like to learn more about. This month, we have learnt:
- The name for a group of Common Warthogs is a 'sounder' or 'sounding'.
- Snow Leopards are crepuscular animals, meaning they are active at dusk and dawn.
- Gharials’ snouts contain sensory cells that detect vibrations in the water, making them excellent fish hunters.
- A group of Baird's Tapirs is known as a 'candle' of Tapirs.
- Unlike most cat species, the Cheetah cannot retract its claws; an adaptation to give it better traction on the ground when running at speed
That's all for this month! If you are taking part in our exclusive Beta, make sure you check out our Animal Architecture, or social channels and our Community Challenge in game for maximum fun! You can also visit our dedicated Beta Feedback Forum to let us know of any bugs or glitches you find while you're playing, so we can work on resolving them before the release of Planet Zoo on the 5 November. Don't forget, if you currently don't have access to the Beta, you can do so by purchasing the Planet Zoo Deluxe Edition any time before the beta is over on the at 5PM BST on 8 October.
Thank you for reading!
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