REVIEW | Let’s Build A Zoo

Let’s Build A Zoo review |

Let’s Build A Zoo is an awesome tycoon management game with so many different animals. 63 to be precise, and each has 10 different variants you can unlock. And if that wasn’t enough, it also gives you the ability to combine 2 different animals into one weird creature. To give an example, you can combine a rabbit and a snake and you’ll get a Rabbake.

It is very impressive how many animals/creatures, decorations, and other upgrades the base game already has. There are more than 200 things to research and those vary between new designs of existing buildings/ new decorations but also buildings with a totally new feature. The game also has a morality system, in which it pays off to be totally evil or totally good.

And if the game wasn’t big enough, there is already a DLC that adds dinosaurs. And they announced that there will be a new DLC soon that adds water animals.

What we Liked!

• So much variation and the option for unique animals | It is so impressive to see how many variations there are, between the animals, but also the buildings and just everything. Let’s Build A Zoo will keep you busy for hours. It is also crazy how there were able to add the option to combine animals and has sprites for all those options as well.

• It runs so well | Let’s Build A Zoo does such a great job with optimization. I have no stutters or crashes or anything while having over 2k visitors, my own staff which is over 100 men, and add to that an impressive number of animals. It just runs so smoothly. It reminds me a lot of the old school Rollercoaster Tycoon which also always worked even with how much was going on.

• How it keeps track of your progress | Let’s Build A Zoo does a good job showing your progress toward achievements, as well as your moral standing and how to improve/decrease it. It also shows you which variation of each animal you have found and in the breeding menu in an enclose it shows you how to unlock the next variant.

• How it teaches you about real problems| The morality system does such a good job of teaching you so much about nature and animals that can extinguish. You’ll definitely feel better when going for the good morality versus the bad morality. For example, you’ll get good morality points when you choose a sustainable energy option, like running your zoo on energy generated by wind power. Reporting the black market trading guys, and paying your staff the maximum salary. To get negative points you have to do the opposite of those things, trading with the black market trader, underpaying your staff, and stealing the energy from the lanterns close by.

Mixed Feelings

• The tutorial is not the best | The tutorial in Let’s Build A Zoo will absolutely tell you the basics and will get you on your way to playing the game. But I had so many questions left after completing the tutorial and most of them you won’t find inside the game. It lacks some logs to look up the details. For example, I learned from the internet that you can make the road you’re placing smaller and bigger with the – and + buttons on your keyboard, but the game didn’t tell me.

• It has a lot of menus but it is also missing a few | Let’s Build A Zoo has so many menu’s that you can get lost in them and where to exactly find them, but it is also missing a few. For example, one of the menus I’m missing is an in-depth overview of what costs money and what makes money. I had no idea what really gave me a surplus. Is it the ticket price? Or my shops inside the zoo? And how much did the Mascot generate, which should make money following the in-game description? However, I have no idea if they are really worth it, and what happens if you go for the maximum salary, are they still worth it? Another menu that is missing is over an overview of how much each of the different types of shops is making, and maybe a general option to set the prices for all shops to a specific amount instead of having to do that for each shop type, and having to find them all on the map to click on them and setup those things.

What we Disliked

• No undo option | There is no undo button. If you made a mistake then you have to deal with that. There is also no option to destroy a lot of items at once. This might be good without an undo option, but still, I would love to destroy more trees Simultaneously instead of one by one.

• So much micromanagement | Some things take so much time to do because you have to micromanagement them and there are not really shortcuts to get easy to a specific menu. For example, when you want to fire someone you have to go through 4 menus. Or when you want to hire one you also have to visit 3 or more menus to get there. There are also a lot of pop-ups and some will stop the gameplay like the daily information pop-up, so even if you’re waiting for money to come in, or a specific animal to get pregnant, you can speed up the time but you have to still be active in the game and click those screens away.

• Tedious achievements | Let’s Build a Zoo has a lot of great achievements but also a few that are just tedious and boring. Getting the totally good or totally bad moral just takes time and a lot of clicks (for planting trees, or for firing people). Getting all the 10 variations of 63 different animals takes a lot of time and dedication and what to think about buying every land plot in the game, when you can’t even hold that amount of money all at once to be able to buy them, so you have to keep an eye on your money before it maxes out and quickly buy land so you can earn money again.

How long to beat the story | Around 30 hours
How long to achieve 1000G | Over 40 hours for the base game, the DLC also has achievements
You’ll love this game if you like these | Planet Zoo, Parkitect, and Parkasaurus

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