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.