Category: Gaming

Right now my internet speed is 5mb/s – and it has been for almost two years. When you happen to be a nomadic gamer, this becomes VERY painful, especially given the fact that there’s more than just me in the house. We don’t have cable, so if the children are watching TV we can’t download. My husband is also a pretty big gamer and he has games that require patching too. These days, games are HUGE, and they have LOTS of patches, which is great – when you have great internet but not all of us have that available, and I never realized just what a big deal it was until we moved out this way. Hopefully it’s just a few more months to go and then we can enjoy ‘regular’ internet once again. Until then, my steam library is looking a bit bleak.

My husband gifted me this adorable little (not so little) game called ‘Let’s Build a Zoo’ – and I have absolutely fallen in love with it (it’s not perfect, there are some UI issues). Like any other ‘build’ game out there, you start with a blank slate and some cash. You acquire animals by rescuing them or by creating a valuable DNA version of an animal that another zoo wants. You min/max everything about the zoo, what you feed your animals, what staff to hire, who runs your shops, and whether or not you’re going to paint a goose to look like a peacock or use dead animals to create robots.

Yep. It gets awesome.

The game lets you splice and join together unlikely animals, like a capybara and a snake. You can also clone animals, and your park has a morality rating. You can go down a ‘good’ moral path that focuses on bettering the environment and doing good – or you can go down a more evil path, where you produce animals and then ship them off to factories to become beautiful objects. Or eaten.

The game is deceptively complex, and the bigger your park, the more complex it becomes. That’s where the game also has a bit of a downfall. The UI is not exactly friendly – if you have 10 soda machines in your park and you want to adjust the cost, you have to toggle each machine individually. Same with staff salaries, and adding salt to food stands. When you’re first starting out this isn’t that big of a deal, but as you buy land and expand, it becomes a huge hassle to micro manage everything to such an extent.

Despite that issue, I’m a few hours in now and having a lot of fun. There are TONS of animal combinations, different habitats, decorations, and moral components. The price is reasonable, and if you’re looking for a little builder game, this might be one you want to look at.

As always, happy gaming no matter where you find yourself!