I should have posted this weeks ago to be honest, but I just beat the "gold" standard of the last career level. And after 332 hours of gameplay since launch, I think it's time for my feedback.
Thank you so much for this game.
I've waited over ten years for another Zoo Sim this good.... and it's an absolute success. There are still problems, yes, but it's overall a great game and I'm sure with further fine-tuning it'll exceed expectations.
Now that I've beaten the career campaign I can say for a fact it's my favorite mode so far. (I haven't spent much time trying out franchise, challenge, or sandbox mode, because I got so addicted to career!) I've played through them all, though in some I've only beaten the bronze or silver ranks. And I strongly request you release more career in DLC! No joke, I'm as excited at the idea of more career levels as I am for new animal species.
My favorites were definitely the scenarios where you fix a failing zoo. Getting a basic layout and getting to clean it up, decorate it, save the animals, and bring the zoo to success is so rewarding. (Like the Meyers zoo levels, especially the Sunshine Happiness Zoo.) Even the levels that aren't so disastrous, like the second-to-last level where you're given a beautiful Japanese zoo to fill out, are just as wonderful-- mainly because you get something so gorgeous to work with. Great for those of us who find building too tedious, or don't have enough time on our hands. I cant imagine how much time and effort was spent building these amazing layouts. The Frontier employees who built the zoos in career mode deserve so much praise! they're stunning and so fun to explore and play in. Let your builders know that I appreciated every teeny tiny detail in them!
The management aspect is super engaging and rewarding to me, because it makes my brain work in a way that's not too hard, but still requires thinking. It's rather meditative. Breeding animals and keeping a lineage going, building multiple habitats for one species for breeding purposes, training staff, researching, plotting the zoo out, seeing if I can squeeze in bigger habitats than the zoo plotted out for me... these are just a few things, off the top of my head, that make me put hours into this game.
There's one career zoo that gave me significant problems, which may have been already patched in a previous update.. though just in case, I better let you know:
The level with the African zoo in a crater, with a big lake in the middle, was particularly frustrating. The zoo is laid out so several habitats have access to the lake in the middle. But with so many animals using it for bathing/drinking water, it gets dirty constantly and can't even be kept clean with multiple filters. This causes all your animals to get sick. Even if I didn't add more animals, the habitats you put in yourself are already too much for that lake to handle. I had to construct a fence around the lake, making the lake itself only 1 habitat. I put hippos in there and it was fine. But this is quite ugly, and also way too hard for an early level. Most newbie players would probably rage quit. Perhaps this has been fixed? I understand a tiny pond not being able to handle several elephants, giraffes, and zebras. But a lake that big? It shouldn't get so dirty. Or maybe the problem is a large body of water needs too many filters? Either way, I think there's a balancing problem here.
I also got fed up with the level Emma Goodwin gives you, where you have a beautiful desert plot of land for a zoo. It seems great, before you realize you are forced to build your habitats around the lake, because almost all the species given to you require water... and you are not allowed to use the water tool. I appreciated how some scenarios would limit your use of the water or terrain tool, (great idea!) but here it just didn't work, because the rest of the beautiful landscape was basically off limits. It was, again, forcing you to build something rather ugly, that you never want to continue after you beat the bronze rank. And I knew I'd never get to use the rest of the landscape, because you rarely get more species than what is originally shown to you.
Edit: I just found out you can use this land (and all career zoos) in challenge mode! (See, I really was too addicted to career mode to even look at other modes!) I appreciate that we can now use any terrain tools whilst using those zoos. I still think it would be great if all restrictions were released after beating the gold ranks in career mode, so we can continue our beautiful zoos any way we wish!
But that being said, I LOVE that career mode includes challenging terrain and different landscapes! It brought me back to Roller Coaster Tycoon 1 and Zoo Tycoon 1, having to build parks on mountain sides, around lakes, on rivers, in craters... it's so much better than getting a boring flat square on land, and I can't thank you enough! I think some of them could be improved by simply limiting what land formations and bodies of water can be changed, instead of disabling use of the tools entirely. Leaving certain areas off-limits, while still giving players more creative control and work-around, would be a perfect balance. I also think, once you beat the gold rank of a level, it should open everything up to you: the terrain modification freedom and animal species. It was a shame when I beat a career level, but I still couldn't fill it with more animal species than the ones originally allowed for that level.
But overall, career mode is still fantastic. I love the zoos themselves, and the personalities of the characters. The story was legitimately engaging, and made me care a lot! I am eager to see more of Emma, Bernie, and Nancy (Meyers maybe not so much! Though a cameo would be funny) and meeting more characters would be more than welcome. I would recommend having people from different parts of the world as characters. After all, you are given zoos all around the world. So meeting characters who are also from those places would make sense.
But this is already very long! I think that's enough feedback for now. I hope Planet Zoo continues its success, as I can't wait for news on DLC.
Thanks again for all your hard work!
Thank you so much for this game.
I've waited over ten years for another Zoo Sim this good.... and it's an absolute success. There are still problems, yes, but it's overall a great game and I'm sure with further fine-tuning it'll exceed expectations.
Now that I've beaten the career campaign I can say for a fact it's my favorite mode so far. (I haven't spent much time trying out franchise, challenge, or sandbox mode, because I got so addicted to career!) I've played through them all, though in some I've only beaten the bronze or silver ranks. And I strongly request you release more career in DLC! No joke, I'm as excited at the idea of more career levels as I am for new animal species.
My favorites were definitely the scenarios where you fix a failing zoo. Getting a basic layout and getting to clean it up, decorate it, save the animals, and bring the zoo to success is so rewarding. (Like the Meyers zoo levels, especially the Sunshine Happiness Zoo.) Even the levels that aren't so disastrous, like the second-to-last level where you're given a beautiful Japanese zoo to fill out, are just as wonderful-- mainly because you get something so gorgeous to work with. Great for those of us who find building too tedious, or don't have enough time on our hands. I cant imagine how much time and effort was spent building these amazing layouts. The Frontier employees who built the zoos in career mode deserve so much praise! they're stunning and so fun to explore and play in. Let your builders know that I appreciated every teeny tiny detail in them!
The management aspect is super engaging and rewarding to me, because it makes my brain work in a way that's not too hard, but still requires thinking. It's rather meditative. Breeding animals and keeping a lineage going, building multiple habitats for one species for breeding purposes, training staff, researching, plotting the zoo out, seeing if I can squeeze in bigger habitats than the zoo plotted out for me... these are just a few things, off the top of my head, that make me put hours into this game.
There's one career zoo that gave me significant problems, which may have been already patched in a previous update.. though just in case, I better let you know:
The level with the African zoo in a crater, with a big lake in the middle, was particularly frustrating. The zoo is laid out so several habitats have access to the lake in the middle. But with so many animals using it for bathing/drinking water, it gets dirty constantly and can't even be kept clean with multiple filters. This causes all your animals to get sick. Even if I didn't add more animals, the habitats you put in yourself are already too much for that lake to handle. I had to construct a fence around the lake, making the lake itself only 1 habitat. I put hippos in there and it was fine. But this is quite ugly, and also way too hard for an early level. Most newbie players would probably rage quit. Perhaps this has been fixed? I understand a tiny pond not being able to handle several elephants, giraffes, and zebras. But a lake that big? It shouldn't get so dirty. Or maybe the problem is a large body of water needs too many filters? Either way, I think there's a balancing problem here.
I also got fed up with the level Emma Goodwin gives you, where you have a beautiful desert plot of land for a zoo. It seems great, before you realize you are forced to build your habitats around the lake, because almost all the species given to you require water... and you are not allowed to use the water tool. I appreciated how some scenarios would limit your use of the water or terrain tool, (great idea!) but here it just didn't work, because the rest of the beautiful landscape was basically off limits. It was, again, forcing you to build something rather ugly, that you never want to continue after you beat the bronze rank. And I knew I'd never get to use the rest of the landscape, because you rarely get more species than what is originally shown to you.
Edit: I just found out you can use this land (and all career zoos) in challenge mode! (See, I really was too addicted to career mode to even look at other modes!) I appreciate that we can now use any terrain tools whilst using those zoos. I still think it would be great if all restrictions were released after beating the gold ranks in career mode, so we can continue our beautiful zoos any way we wish!
But that being said, I LOVE that career mode includes challenging terrain and different landscapes! It brought me back to Roller Coaster Tycoon 1 and Zoo Tycoon 1, having to build parks on mountain sides, around lakes, on rivers, in craters... it's so much better than getting a boring flat square on land, and I can't thank you enough! I think some of them could be improved by simply limiting what land formations and bodies of water can be changed, instead of disabling use of the tools entirely. Leaving certain areas off-limits, while still giving players more creative control and work-around, would be a perfect balance. I also think, once you beat the gold rank of a level, it should open everything up to you: the terrain modification freedom and animal species. It was a shame when I beat a career level, but I still couldn't fill it with more animal species than the ones originally allowed for that level.
But overall, career mode is still fantastic. I love the zoos themselves, and the personalities of the characters. The story was legitimately engaging, and made me care a lot! I am eager to see more of Emma, Bernie, and Nancy (Meyers maybe not so much! Though a cameo would be funny) and meeting more characters would be more than welcome. I would recommend having people from different parts of the world as characters. After all, you are given zoos all around the world. So meeting characters who are also from those places would make sense.
But this is already very long! I think that's enough feedback for now. I hope Planet Zoo continues its success, as I can't wait for news on DLC.
Thanks again for all your hard work!
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