The Planet Zoo Files - Part 1.
Jun. 16th, 2022 10:49 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
tigeranne
Yes, I admit it. I've become addicted to this game! It's just so pretty, and so immersive, and so much fun! Of course I've got around 500 screenshots of the goings on in my test zoo. I'm going to be posting them in batches of around 50, over the coming weeks. Unlike with Sims, there's not much story going on here. 50 pictures will be enough, even if all the animals are disgustingly cute.
My two original cheetas only had one litter of cubs. I'm trying to breed for the best possible genetics, and I had a female with very good stats. Unfortunately it took a while to find a male that was deserving of her, and she became infertile either before or right after her two cubs matured.
That's one of the cubs. I think it's the one called Inco, because I seem to remember it being him from when I took the screenshot. It could also be his brother Ricky. I couldn't tell them apart in any way.
My lions - Kira and Sebastian - had two sets of cubs. First time it was two boys, Samson and Iforgothisname. Oliver?
I love the behaviours coded into the lion cubs. They prank on their parents by biting their tails, jumping right into their faces, and bouncing on them while they try to nap. Planet Zoo Lions are very laidback parents though, so that kind of manners get a pass.
Here's Kira, the mom. If you notice that she's got scratches on her, no the cubs didn't do that. She was discovered to be injured when she arrived at the zoo. It's not uncommon to receive an animal that's been hurt during transportation, roughed up at their previous place, or carries a disease. Having them quarantined is good practice.
Ohai, little bundle of almost offensive cuteness! I think this is my original female fennec. Her name was Lina. She had a red tint to her coat, which made it possible to tell her apart from yellow-beige Ren at a distance.
At first I thought the dog house I built for them was overkill, because it's very large and the fennecs are so smol you need to really zoom in on their habitat to even see them! But these guy breed like rabbits! Soon there were 12 little scamps running about.
The lions seem to really enjoy sleeping with their hindquarters in the drinking fountain. O_o They do it all the time. Maybe it's how they cool off. I never thought about putting coolers into the African animals' habitats, because I figured they liked it warm.
Winters come suddenly in this game, and they don't follow the seasons of the in-game calendar. It can start snowing in the middle of July. The temperature suddenly starts dropping quickly, and all the animals that are out swimming get very upset. :(
I almost got into the Christmas spirit watching this scene unfolding. Even with all the palms, and the African aesthetic that's usually associated with warm weather, I kind of felt like I was watching some kind of animated holiday feature.
The guests were not dressed for attending a Christmas market.
The stone elephants seemed to like the snow. It kind of reminds me of this one holiday farm in the original Farmville game, that was supposed to be themed as Christmas in the Alps. I suspect they ran out of time on that one, and just threw in a bunch of animals that were supposed to be in a different theme entirely. There were elephants, and crocodiles, and a tropical beaver with flowers growing on it. x) Their farms were very hit-or-miss, but I still hope someone's going to bring back the original game as it was before all the expansions happened.
"Hey! Who let the witch back in?!"
Thank goodness the winters are short, and don't happen that often. This little guy looked a bit cranky the next morning, because he probably didn't sleep too well. It's not my fault that Kira and both of the cubs chose to sleep outside of the heated cave.
"Raarrgh!"
"Oooooh, scary!"
The red ruffed lemur baby wanted to sit on mom's back. It looked a bit like when a Sim toddler grows up while someone's still holding them.
My park was still missing most of the traditional zoo heavies, like elephants, hippos and giraffes. Rhinos turned out to be a perfect fit for the savannah habitat I already had, however. My first rhino was a female named Cedisi, and she's still around as of the writing of this post. She seems to be a gentle giant, wandering slowly through the crowds of smaller animals while minding her own business. I've said it before and will say it again, though: I wish there was more acknowledgement between animals of different species when they actually get along. Different species can fight and hunt each other, but not sniff each other or play chase. New stuff is being patched in all the time, so I still have hope that it'll be a thing one day.
Yeah, I definitely think they like sleeping like that.
Aww.
The moment I figured out how to make caves in this game, I went nuts and dug out rock arches and caverns in all the habitats. Most of the animals still have a wooden shelter in addition to that, including the cheetahs, but the lions only have this cave with many doors.
The square thing on the wall is a heater.
Just when I thought the game couldn't produce anything more ridiculously ~kawaii~ than the fennecs, they had pups. Kits? Babies. And yes, it was possible to be even cuter. Just barely.'
Is it even legal? <3
The zebras really love swimming, just saying.
Then I found a man for Cedisi. This unit here is Bogosi. He's around the size of a steam locomotive, and I wouldn't mess with him, but so far he's been very chill.
The African wild dogs are still by babbys, though.
They love taking the chew toy with them for a swim. Then they drop it into the water when they're about to climb up on the other side of the pond. I keep having to reset it, because they can't retrieve it from the bottom. It's fine in sandbox mode, but in a challenge where finances are tight I hope it won't cost money every time I have to reset it. Yeah, I'll probably be playing a challenge or five once I've fully got the hang of all the animals.
Don't worry doggos, you're not being replaced as my favourites. Although you may have to share the number one spot.
The fennecs remind me of cats! I think that's part of the reason I love them so much.
Yeah, I used to think the Wildebeest were big.
The animal on the right is a young sable antilope. They've got enormous, curved horns as adults.
The lion cubs are too cute, and they "emote" very well. There's some opinon among PZ players that the lions and hyenas both look a little too "Disney," that they seem to be modelled after the character in The Lion King. I can sort of see it, but I'm happy about the way the cubs and females look. There's an amazing default replacement for the adult male lion available, and I really want to get it, but I have no idea how to install mods in this game yet.
"Hiiiii! Did you all forget us? It's been like.... two minutes!"
These little guys are incredibly active. They run around all over the place, all the time. Their habitat isn't all that big, but they're so tiny it's almost like they're crossing a vast desert when they go out on their little expeditions.
Then I got a notification that Ayla was about to pass away from old age. The game zooms in on them, so you can take a final picture to remember them by.
Frannie and Ray also passed on, aged around 30. I had no idea hyenas got that old. These two are their successors, Brenda and Hank. Yeah, those names may sound a little familiar. Old Bray was still around at this time. He seemed to get along great with the two younger rascals.
It didn't take them very long to get down to business, and have their first cub - Yazo.
At this point, my previous breeding pair - Natasha and Mattias - had both passed away. The pack only consisted of their three daughters. These guys are very social, so I thought they'd be happier if I added a couple of new pack mates.
I'd had this big female called Asha in my inventory for a while. She had really high genetic stats compared to my earlier generations of dogs, but I'd never used her. By this point I had better potential mates, so Asha got to be a beta roomie.
Asha was huge!
I mean, really. It almost looked as if it was just funky perspective in the first picture, so I took another one from the side to show that she really was a unit. I think that's Omani next to her. Most of the Natasha x Mattias offspring were smallish, because I've been focusing mostly on bringing the longevity up. Once that's stable on a high level (83% -100%) I'll start breeding for best possible fertility and immunity towards disease. Size is my ~smallest~ concern about my animals, LOL.
One of the enrichment toys for the fennecs is this little "curio lamp." I set it next to their little pond, along with a palm, so they could have a small beach party going. The most baffling animals turn out to be swimming fiends in this game, but the fennecs aren't among them. They do wander out into the pond, but they swim in a vertical position, with their ears flat agains the head. It doesn't look like they enjoy it at all. I tried making the pond more shallow, so they'd be able to stand on the bottom, but all that did was making them swim in the same uncomfortable position with their back half submerged into the sand. Maybe they'll be able to handle a really shallow wading pool.
Their next-door neighbours are a huge gang of lemurs. There are three different species in this habitat. There's the red ruffed lemur, the black and white ruffed lemur, and the classic ring-tailed one that everyone thinks of when they hear "lemur."
This is the black and white type.
Oh, and I think I'll have to build them another shelter, because this one messes with their animations. It wasn't a good idea to use a pre-made shelter as the base, it was climbable. They keep trying to balance on the support beams and clip right through the walls. So far none of them have escaped that way, but I've had them get stuck and so hungry the Fella Muupi people came.
The zebra herd has gotten pretty big. The really good ones go into storage, so they can bring forth a new generation later. Less good females stay in the habitat on birth control, and I get rid of most of the males. There's a "release into the wild" option that I've been using frequently, because the zebras are not a chill species.
"You're not my baby."
"Sorry, I'm pregnant. I have cravings!"
I love how they all hang out and have parties. You see an adult sable antilope in the back there. The black ones are males, the females have a reddish-brown coat.
Bray? You okay there, buddy?
Bray wasn't a big guy, and female hyenas are larger than males, but Brenda is also huge!
There's a really nice hyena default replacement available too, but I actually like the design of these guys. It looks like they're constantly laughing dorkily at some in-joke that makes no sense to anyone else.
I put a zebra piñata on top of a very much climbable ramp, to see if the super-smart hyenas have the AI necessary to go up there and throw it off. So far I've never seen it be missing, and the ramp is visible from most of the park. It's really tall. Uneaten food rots, and green miasmata starts covering the surrounding areas. The keeper can get up the ramp just fine, so I think the hyenas technically can too. One day they'll figure it out!
I used to really not like hyenas at all, but darn if this game isn't making me change my mind!
They've got large enough mouths to carry the chew toy without it clipping through their heads! It kind of annoys me that there isn't a smaller version for the dogs, because it clips kind of badly for most of them.
There haven't been any meerkats in this chapter. That's not fair.
A whole bunch of them have moved in with the aardvarks. Meerkats are super sociable, aarvarks are NOT. They beat each other up all the time, if there are more than two adults in the same habitat.
The zebra lying down was either about to have a baby, or had just birthed one of the two foals outside the shelter. I'm guessing it was the one who hadn't had time to use the mud bath yet.
I don't remember who this little dirty one is. It could be Charlie, the current alpha male. He was born around this periode. I'll start writing down the names of the animals I think, mostly just for my own sake. x)
That's some amazing yoga skills.
Anyway, that's enough for now! Enjoy this beautiful sunset that comes every night in the game! TTFN!
no subject
Date: 2022-06-19 07:25 pm (UTC)"Almost offensive cuteness." I think that describes the fennec very well!
THOSE SNOWY NIGHTTIME SHOTS ARE LOVE.
Yeah, I definitely think they like sleeping like that.
Maybe they have hemorrhoids, lolnotlol!
Love the sunset shot, too!
no subject
Date: 2022-06-19 10:48 pm (UTC)I'll take more snowy pics next time there's a winter. :) It may be a bit closer to a real world winter, though! I don't want to force such a heavy game on my poor compy when it's so hot. But there's an older zoo game available very cheaply on Steam, that I may be checking out!