Particle's Projects

[Fern]

6 minutes ago, Particle said:

A rock or a tree that guests could walk through would be a great entrance, and also just awesome for anywhere in the zoo.  Has anyone ever done that?  I don't think I've seen it.

There isn't one as far as I know so go for it.

[(Designer)Particle]

Something else to play around with, I guess you'd do them as arches and or observation areas.  Anyhoo, I love your ideas, thanks for sharing with us!

[(Designer)VeganCannibalism]

Wow, so many cool ideas bouncing around in this thread! :D Particle, your scenario idea had me at "story mode"! I don't know what you have planned for that, but it sounds like a blast. I'd also be very interested in more varied zoo entrances and walls, or maybe a makeover for the admission booths?

[(Designer)Particle]

29 minutes ago, VeganCannibalism said:

Wow, so many cool ideas bouncing around in this thread! :D Particle, your scenario idea had me at "story mode"! I don't know what you have planned for that, but it sounds like a blast. I'd also be very interested in more varied zoo entrances and walls, or maybe a makeover for the admission booths?

Well, actually Vegan (do I call you vegan or cannibalism I'm not sure) I think you already saw my idea for the story, because I talked about that in another thread that only you and a couple other people have seen... but that was like over a year ago so I'll recap, this is almost a straight copy paste from that thread:

 

In 2020 the zoo is becoming a bit outdated.   We still have zoos, but the times are changing, and now just keeping animals in cages makes us all cringe.  This is why we're going to make a wildlife refuge instead!   Our goal will be to (from wikipedia:) "administer a network of lands and waters for the conservation, management, and where appropriate, restoration of fish, wildlife, and plant resources and their habitats for the benefit of the present and future generations."  In most scenarios, the idea will be to take an animal that is struggling to survive in its current situation, and to give it a habitat that allows it to prosper.  Then when you have reached a certain goal in the scenario, you will  reintroduce your animal to the wild.

 

So the difference between a zoo and a wildlife refuge is very small really.  Most of the changes to the story can be handled in the info panels, help panels, scenario descriptions, goals and awards, etc.  But there are some gameplay differences.  First we need to create the illusion of a giant area of land, with no walls.  So we will use the invisible wall for the zoo wall on our maps.  To do this we will need to create ways to mark the boundaries of the wall, without making it look like a wall.  This will be fun to figure out, but it is doable.  Then we will use something like invisible shelters to make it appear that animals leave the map and come back every so often.

 

Of course we will need to flesh this out a little, one example will be the zoo entrance.  Every expansion gave us a new zoo entrance, so this will have to be a part of this expansion, a new entrance, along with new ticket windows, etc.  Instead of a "ZOO" sign it might say "Wildlife Refuge".  (Something like that).

 

Another gameplay difference is that we will now be encouraging shared exhibits.  The old way of making an exhibit (if you want a good rating you need to keep it to one type of animal) will still work exactly as it did, so you can still make an exhibit with one animal, but we will make it so that most animals can also go into shared exhibits and still get high ratings.  Think of the savannah hack, and then apply that to the entire game.  What we want is to make a habitat for an endangered animal like say the florida panther.  To do that you need to add lots of things to that exhibit, like animals/foliage/rocks etc that fit the habitat.  I'm going to make it so variety is allowed, and encouraged if possible.  In other words, to get 100% ratings now, the easiest thing to do is just use one kind of tree, the animals favorite tree.  But that is boring.  I want people to have to make exhibits with many types of trees, and I think i can do that with the scenarios goals and awards.  So it won't be bad to use one kind of tree.  It will just be better to use many types of trees.

 

The goal here will be to make huge exhibits that have variety, because that is fun for people.  Think of a marine wildlife refuge, with a giant ocean exhibit full of different whales, dolphins, jellyfish, etc.  :)

 

Wow just reading that makes me realize how much I've already changed the scope since I wrote it.  But that is still the basic idea.  One thing i guess I would say is that when I wrote that I hadn't experimented with scenarios at all, and I was just thinking of doing this as an expansion, or basically a giant hack.  Now I'm sort of hoping I can do all that, without actually any of it being a hack.  It would all just be in scenarios.  But that is actually better because, one thing that is great about scenarios is the ability to tell a story.  When you play the tutorial scenarios, for example, you can see this in action.  You can use pictures with panels and text that pop up after the player does a certain thing.  That is just not possible in freeform mode.  So what a typical particle scenario would look like is you would have a narrator, say a young zookeeper named Tom or Bob or Jill or whatever, who has been given the task of bringing wolves back to Yellowstone.  (Obviously this is based on the real world example of this exact scenario).  You would be helping Tom do this, and as the scenario went along, he would pop up and guide you through this.  Or say you have a story where there is an ape named Harambe... OK lol I think I may be over explaining this, you all know what a scenario is, but I just think that many of the scenarios in the game are too easy, and not enough story.  Like "build a zoo in 6 months, with 6 exhibits:, that is sort of small potatoes, considering how much control you have over scenarios. 

 

Then on top of all that, you want some replayability, so that after you finish it once you might think, well that was fun, but I could do it better or differently.  This is done in different ways, but usually involves some sort of score, or measuring stick, that you want to improve on.  For zoo tycoon the score is probably going to have to be money, or zoo value, or guest happiness, or something like that, but I can tie all those into the scenario goals, so that those things are important or not, depending on what the story is.

 

 

[Fern]

Have you played the scenarios that are at ZA. I know somewhere there rescue ideas.

Like it or not Zoos are still needed or we will lose things like the Sumatran tiger and the orang-utan. Now it seems like climate change could wipe out polar bears.

I know the Zoos here are part of international breeding programs for endangered species.

The big problem with scenarios is the amount of ids needed and that there is only a limited amount available.

[(Designer)VeganCannibalism]

You can call me whatever you prefer, most people around here just stick with VC. :D

 

Aha, I remember you talking about all that now. I like your idea of a rescue/wildlife preserve, but Fern also has an excellent point about Zoos. That said, I agree with you 100000% on the issue of mixed exhibits and variety. I'm also hyped about expanding R&D! Much more incentive to keep a zoo running for a long time.

[(Designer)Particle]

I have played quite a few of those scenarios at ZA, but not all of them.

I realize that the way I wrote that whole post makes it sound like I'm not a fan of zoos.  But really, I am.  :)  I love zoos, I just think that we've changed the idea of what a zoo is or can be since BlueFang made this game 15 years ago.

I don't know if you've seen the movie the one and only Ivan yet?  That sort of is what I'm getting at, I won't give away the ending but let's just say the movie makes the case for a type of zoo that is better for the animals than the old type of zoo that we are used to.  Basically a habitat as opposed to a concrete cage.

As for the scenario ID's I won't need many, if any, because you really only need an ID for the title of the scenario, and since it is only for a string, (not really used as an ID) then I can use any strings from any dlls for this, so like, for example, I could name a scenario "Ecology Education Centre" which is already a string (2771) or perhaps "Totally Batty" which is from your dll (2703).  :)

 

@VC I will call you VC!

 

Remember I'm not talking about replacing the old scenarios, you can still build a regular zoo anytime, I'm just saying I'd like to build a storyline to be more relatable to the young folks of today.  Specifically I 'm thinking about my nieces and nephews, and I've actually had conversations with them about this.  I think whether you agree with this or not, it is still something interesting to discuss.

[Fern]

Be careful and get Jay to test if you use Totally Batty as that has 3 ids connected to it.

Haven't seen that movie.

Our zoos here tend to be open habitats where possible and they do a lot of enrichment stuff too. I went one time and they had the elephant in the baboon area having fun rearranging all the rocks to give them something new to explore when let back out. the elephant was enjoying itself too.

[(Designer)Particle]

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Be careful and get Jay to test if you use Totally Batty as that has 3 ids connected to it.

lol ok I promise whenever I do anything with strings, I'll test thoroughly, and get Jay to sign off.

 

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Our zoos here tend to be open habitats where possible and they do a lot of enrichment stuff too. I went one time and they had the elephant in the baboon area having fun rearranging all the rocks to give them something new to explore when let back out. the elephant was enjoying itself too.

That is awesome.  In fact I know of a zoo that is a wildlife refuge type zoo that I think does it right.  Here is the link:

https://zooatlanta.org/conservation/

So yes, that is the kind of zoo that I'm thinking about, and it is still technically a zoo, even though they specialize in bringing in threatened species, or animals that need a home.  The fact that they need guests to make money to feed the animals is all part of the plan, to take care of the animals.  But on the other hand, the zoo I have been to the most (I won't mention it by name) they need to rethink the way they do things because the animals don't even seem happy.

 

So to be clear, as I said a year ago:  The difference between a zoo and a wildlife refuge is not much, and most of what I'm talking about is just how you tell the story.  Let me point out here that if you look at the scenarios that bluefang made, one of the best ones is that panda one, and the story is pretty simple.  Save that panda.  The reality of that scenario is you don't actually save anything, you just build a zoo in a video game... but you FEEL like you saved the panda, and that is what makes it fun.

 

[Fern]

They have our Kunekune pigs there.

I do love Maras. We had some here at Auckland Zoo for a while. They are so strange to look at. We are doing well at breeding red pandas too.

I went to San Diego Zoo and San Diego Wildlife Park while there. The sad thing about the zoo is there is no area to expand into from what I saw but I did enjoy it. We don't have snakes here so it was interesting to see them. I also went to Homosassa Springs in Florida which does natives only. Plus they have manatees there.