ZT1 Cheats and Easter Eggs

[Goosifer]

With Fern and Jay's help, I found the function that Blue Fang created that controls all of the easter eggs in the game. It's just one giant switch board where if a guest is named X or Y then it does whatever the game needs to do to make it  happen. Sadly no new easter eggs that aren't already found but I also wasn't trying to find new ones. I can post the code if anyone wanted to find out for sure.

 

I found it by accident because I was looking to identify one of the functions that messed with the game's budget. It turns out that Blue Fang created one function specifically for one man named Jonathan Gilmour, where if you were to name a zookeeper by that name you got $10000 added to your zoo budget.

 

Jonathan Gilmour was winner of Microsoft's 2001 Ultimate Zookeeper contest and was put in the game as an easter egg as part of the prize.  Sadly he's since passed, but it seems he lived an awesome life. Here's more information about his legacy at the zoo he worked for: https://www.zoonewengland.org/act/ways-to-give/jonathan-gilmour-memorial-scholarship-fund/. Credit to Jay for the story, I had no idea.

 

I just think it's really cool that he gets his own easter egg not just in the game, but in the code as well.

[jbl89]

@Goosifer any reference to "Marwan Jubran" ?

[Goosifer]

@jbl89 Yeah, there's a reference to a Marwan Jubran. Surprisingly, no explicit reference to Jonathan Gilmour but his function is called from within. I've DMed you a copy of the code if you'd like to see what else is in there. I use a tool named Cutter that sometimes tries to reimagine what the real code looked like but it's never much better than the actual assembly code.

 

When I get home next week maybe I can try to prod the easter egg stuff and see what I else I can tell you.

[jbl89]

I once saw it, but you go way deeper in the code. I think it may be a cheat which is undiscovered till this day. It's also a real life person linked to the Zoo Tycoon franchise.

[jbl89]

So...

 

Someone enlightened us on Reddit:

The Marwan Jubran cheat removes all cars from the map :P

 

 

[(Admin)Savannahjan]

Is this for real?

[Truly_happy]

"Cars" = carts??

 

If not, "cars" as in the developer cars outside of the playable area?

[Fern]

From Jay: I confirmed that renaming any guest (male, female, adult, or child) to "Marwan Jubran" will remove any of 5 vehicles from the zoo map that exist: Sedan, Tractor trailer, SUV, Van, Genetic Laboratory Vehicle. If those vehicles are outside the zoo wall, they are removed. If those vehicles are inside the zoo wall, they turn to rubble. So that "Easter Egg" may have been to help them test things turning to rubble. I checked a huge amount of other things to see if anything else would turn to rubble with that renaming, and nothing else did: not boats, not airplane, not cart, not anything else I could find. I also tested renaming all types of staff, a couple buildings, an exhibit, and an animal to that name, but that didn't do anything. Those vehicles can be placed inside the zoo walls using the Developer Menu (which I always keep active in my ZT), and the "city" freeform map has vehicles outside the zoo walls.

[Truly_happy]

Being there for testing makes sense. Not sure at all why else you'd want cars destroyed or missing. 

[pukkie]

Who needs cars when you have zebra's ?