Planet Zoo

If you’re expecting a relaxing zoo management game where you build habitats, watch animals, and enjoy a cozy experience, this is not that game. Planet Zoo is a building simulator first and a zoo game fifth or even sixth. The construction tools are complex and unintuitive. You seriously feel like the game is fighting you for no reason. Unless you want to CAD engineer every little piece of the scenery, the building system will drain your energy and make you sad. The game was marketed as a spiritual successor to Zoo Tycoon 2, but it doesn’t capture that spirit at all. ZT2 was cute, relaxing, and accessible. Planet Zoo is rigid, punishing, and expects you to wrestle with its systems just to place a straight wall or connect a building to a path. The management side isn’t any kinder, as the economy is harsh and unforgiving, and the staff AI is pretty dumb. The overall experience just screams THIS IS A SECOND JOB!!! If you want a pleasant zoo game, this is not it. If you want a technical building sandbox with animals somewhere in the very distant background, look no further.

I love penguins. This game has penguins. Monkey bounce on trampoline make serotonin go brrrr In the vein of Zoo Tycoon back in the day, this game really scratches my itch of wanting to perfectly plan out my zoo. My only complaint is that, unlike Zoo Tycoon, I can't release the animals to strike havoc, or pick up guests and put them in animal cages. Not that I would do that. A good zoo owner wouldn't do either of those things. At least I can say I prevented another Harambe episode. This better count as independent study for my zoology degree! Full disclosure, I’ve been in love with this game since it came out. My favourite part is the sheer amount of creative freedom the game gives you. No two zoos will ever be the same. There's virtually no limits on how much you can build your skills in regards to decor, habitats, nature, realism, etc. On the flip side, there's no limits to the amount of utter chaos you can create. You can set up an animal battle royale next to a McDonalds and a mountain with Shrek's face carved into it if you so desire. My least favourite part is paths. Also detest the fact that guests moan about staff facilities. "I DiDn'T cOmE hErE to sEe tHe sTaFf FaCiLiTiEs" yeah well I didn't come here to hear you moaning about them, now shut the f** up about it. Planet Zoo is somewhat unique in that it offers a complete, detailed business and animal management simulation in a world that is completely customizable by you. It’s not just that you can choose where to place buildings and animal habitats, but rather every part of the zoo, from the enclosures to the various guest and staff facilities, can be built piece by piece to be exactly how you want them. This may seem overwhelming to those who would rather have a pure simulation game, or a pure design-focused game, but Planet Zoo balances the two aspects excellently. For those who would rather focus on running the zoo, the game offers prebuilt facilities to use, and the Steam Workshop is filled with countless options of just about anything you can imagine. Conversely, for those who enjoy the building aspect more, Creative mode allows you to alter the challenge of managing your zoo to the point where it will pretty much run itself. The game is also a gem if you actually dig into the information about the animals. I started reading about the animals that I wanted to breed, listened to documentaries while playing and learned an awful lot. The game is not difficult at all. It just needs patience. And yes, it will not be super rewarding if you don‘t dig into the information about the animals. I mostly view it as a gamified learning experience now. Learning how to edit terrain, build paths etc. does have a learning curve, but you can do awesome things with it. To me, this is not really much of a game you play to “win“, but rather an enjoyable way to chill and learn something along the way. I like it a lot. In short, you should buy Planet Zoo if you enjoy creating a world precisely to your liking, making realistic looking habitats for your animals to live in, utilizing a vast amount of player made content, caring for animals and balancing guest satisfaction with the animal’s own needs. It’s very much worth it. It’s the best building sim I’ve ever played. It really lets you run away with your imagination, and there’s a lot of YouTubers who make amazing builds and share useful tips and tricks. That plus mods gives the game a pretty healthy community. Overall I've spent many hours in the game and do not regret a single one. 8/10

Fellow autistics, this game is peak and i have spent many hours playing and modding. just buy it

[h1] 7/10 [/h1] I liked the game, got it on sale for 1 dollar. It is not as casual as it looks there are a lot of elements that are unforgiving: building scenery, staff management and AI being really dumb, i had only 2 habitats and 4 mechanics still my walls broke and I had to manually assign them. The economy is unforgiving too, if you make small mistakes in the beginning you need to restart basically. On sale it costs 1 dollar so it was worth for me but if it wasnt on sale I probably wouldnt get it because it is not as relaxing as it looks.

Very fun and very addicting! The animals are cute and are appealing to watch. The baby animals are so adorable. I just can't get enough of them. I like making different habitats for the different animals, but I feel like you start with very few options at the beginning—like the enrichment options—and it kinda takes a while to research stuff. There are two negatives that come to mind immediately, and they are: 1. The amount of DLCs and the price that they cost. $10 is absolutely absurd for a few animals. (And a ton of scenery pieces apparently.) I got a few DLCs because they're on sale for $4 each, which is still pretty expensive IMO. And there are like 20 animal DLC packs, which is crazy. Not quite on par with EA or Paradox, but they definitely have similar ideas... 2. Some animals seem to cost only conservation credits on Franchise mode, meaning you are unable to buy them with cash, and only with a currency that seems very annoying and grindy to get. I don't know if this game is worth the full price, but you can get it on sale for a very good deal. I got the deluxe edition for $2.74. So there's no arguing there about wasted money.

Pros: - cute animals - Creativity - Fun to play around with - Amazing community Cons: - A bit of a learning curve - A bit on the higher end of price - Needs a decent computer to run Rating: 8/10 still learning but love the community around this game!

Es ist eine UNVERSCHÄMTHEIT, dass ich gezwungen werde, bevor ich auch nur eine Minute in das Spiel geschaut habe, UNGEFRAGT!!! ein Mitgliedskonto vom Spiel erstellt wird. Ich habe es als Einzelspieler gekauft und möchte kein erzwungenes Konto erstellen. Nur ohne Konto startet dieses Spiel gar nicht. Und da es höchst wahrscheinlich im 2ten Teil nicht anders ist, hat sich der Kauf damit von vornherein erledigt. Bevor jemand die Augen verdreht und sagt: "Halb so wild, wo ist das Problem?!" Wem es egal ist, soll das Spiel nutzen. Ich möchte aber selber bestimmen, ob ich ein Konto anlegen möchte oder eben nicht. Und das ist hier leider nicht der Fall! Bin ich froh, dass ich diese Spiel nur für sehr kleines Geld gekauft habe!

動物に癒されるのがメインではあるけど、それ以上に経営ゲーとしての側面が強いのでやることは忙しめ。 サンドボックスモードでやらない限りは軌道に乗るまでのんびり飼いたい動物を飼ってぼーっと眺めていられるゲームではないです。もちろん何か一つでいきなり経営が傾いて悪化するものではないので、よほど放置でもしない限り動物を眺める時間はたっぷりとあります。 あと動物によってかなり飼育の難易度にばらつきがあります。飼いたい動物を飼うのが一番ですが、動物によっては最初から好きな動物だけで経営というのは厳しいかもしれないです。 サンドボックスモードなら資金無制限なので好きに動物愛でて、最初から資金を気にせず人員雇いまくり、建築しまくりで理想の動物園を作ることも可能。 [h3] 操作 [/h3] プラネットコースターと操作やUIが似ているので所有者であればわりとすんなり入れると思います。 操作の難しさが指摘されますがチュートリアルで全部覚える必要ないです。基本操作だけ覚えてしまえばあとは遊んでいるうちに覚えるし、大体は画面上のアイコンやオブジェクトをクリックすることで解決します。わからなければゲーム内ヘルプがあるし、少しずつこの操作は良く使うからショトカ覚えようとなります。 なので個人的には最初からキャリアモードを全部やる必要はなく3つくらいやったらフランチャイズなりサンドボックスなりで好きにやるのが良いと思います。 最初から全部覚えて理想の動物園を作ろうとしない方がいいです。慣れたら少しずつ歩道の設定でこんなこともできるんだなーとかこの建築パーツでこんなこと出来るんだなーと引き出し増やしていけばいいです。 操作以外で何かが上手くいかないと感じたら大体のことはゲーム内ヘルプとズーペディアを隅々まで読むことで解決します。というかズーペディアが普通に読み物として面白いし完成度高い。色々な動物のことが知れて勉強になります。 [h3] 総評 [/h3] ベースゲームだけでも充分遊べるので最初からDLC込みよりもベースで会う合わない判断するのが良いと思います。合わない人はおそらくチュートリアルの時点で操作や管理が面倒になってくるかと。わりと人選ぶゲームですが完成度はかなり高いと思います。

The game is great, would recommend as long as you don't plan to put effort into it. The game has numerous blueprints and pre-designed structures so your zoo doesn't look like stupid boxes. The animal variety and little interactions make the whole thing great to have fun with and the gameplay mode, especially franchise mode is an interesting way to go about things. The moment you step outside of the rails, be prepared for a damn migrane. Every edit of any structure enters building mode, with a convenient hotkey to ONLY enter that mode, no quick exit. Moving a single solar panel? Be prepared for it to terraform everything because it has been placed into the ground instead of on the ground, because it is moving 'in relation' to itself, because it forcefully opens up that building group. Any minor change, any small extra tweak, any additional fun you want, and the GUI and design flaws skyrocket. If you spend hundreds of hours with the tools, I'm sure you get past most of the issues, but it is the most anal and stupidest system ever. Placing pathways without them curving shouldn't require multiple tabs and menus to 'snap to grid' which might be a different grid between these same two paths, which connect elsewhere perfectly. The whole game tests my damn patience and every time the novelty and fun I could be having, wears very thin. It does everything great, except the parts I would love to actually use, in which case I have a migrane and stop bothering with it because it actively angered me through it's poor design choices.

I have played a lot of Tycoon/City Builder/Resource Managements etc games. Like a lot, a lot. Never in my life have I experienced such an obtuse, finnicky, clunky, building system. From the way barriers are placed, to the terrain and pathing system, ever single part of the experience was absolutely miserable. Every other aspect of the game is great and I'd really like to be able to enjoy it but I just cannot. UPDATE: As seen from my playtime since the review, after 3 hours of Youtube tutorials, I have at least learned to manipulate the pathing and grid system. I still utter "I hate this game" at least once every 30 mins, but the rest of the game really is so engaging that we manage.