Money is a tool, but an oddly corrupting one. Give someone a hammer and most people will think “nails” rather than “skulls”, but money is a different thing entirely. Running a zoo takes boatloads of cash, and the general method of financing it is thousands of happy people wandering the paths, gawking at nature’s rich variety, and buying as many snacks and souvenirs as can be crammed into their arms. The inviting park is a work of creative design, lining trails with lights, benches and decorations that keep the zoo lively even when between one major exhibit and the next. Getting the most exotic animals will most likely involve dealing with the black market a little bit, but it’s for a good cause so that’s ok. Let’s Build a Zoo has all the standard functions and features one would expect of a zoo-sim, all rendered in a colorful and playful pixel-art presentation, and keeping the tone happy is just a matter of resisting its darker temptations.
Even if you stick to the path of good, though, there’s always the fun of genetic tinkering. The animals combine in thousands of ways, so if you want a truly unique zoo there’s no reason to hold off on putting a lion’s head on a giraffe’s body, or vice versa. There are a couple hundred thousand combinations to splice so every zoo will be its own unique creation, whether that be a shining beacon of animal welfare that contributes to the rediversification of endangered species throughout the world, a horrible cesspit supplying exotic meats to the black market, or some kind of bipolar hybrid attempting to justify its dark fortune with animal altruism. It’s your zoo so might as well go nuts.
Let’s Build a Zoo came out today and launched with the traditional trailer. Give it a watch below, and mind the walrus-giraffe.
