The extinction zoos saga

[cadaverine]

As Jeff gazes upon his photos, he realizes that they're all corrupted. Huh. That's not good.

 

Well, after these initial images for the first year, the rest will not, in fact, be a corrupted mess. I didn't want to trash all the progress shots -- I can't exactly go back in time to take them again-- so alas we will have to deal. I'll try and make them clearer. This was supposed to be a relatively simple thing D:

 

I want to try actually making something zoo-like, since usually I play scenarios and just slap some paths and exhibits wherever. It may not look good, but it gets the job done. I'm not playing a scenario, though, I want to do freeform. So it may not be perfect, but I'd like to try actually making actual zoos with particular focus -- in this case, a set of small zoos of extinct animals. Right now it's only one, but we'll move on to other zoos as I deem them completed.

 

Anyway! Moving on! Into character.

 

 

Finding funding -- and space -- for a dinosaur zoo is rough, if you weren't aware. Especially if reviving extinct animals is a known practice and not just the work of science fiction novels. Thankfully, we got a small plot of mostly-empty jungle and $20,000 from a kind, public benefactor. One caveat, though -- they didn't want any kind of negative public image reflecting on them if a spinosaurus or some other large theropod managed to escape and eat people. So... we are only allowed, quote, "only small dinosaurs." Very helpful.

 

 

First order of business: new paths and some kind of amenities. One* amenity. At this point it was determined that we would be getting incisivosaurus -- they are definitely small, and not likely to break out of an exhibit or chew on guests. Plus they are rainforest creatures, so that's one way to cut costs.

 

 

Basic frame of the exhibit is built, plus a raised viewing platform. Two eggs and a scientist to care for said eggs. At this point, we were running low on money and only had a few thousand to our name.

 

 

They hatched, and the exhibit was created. The corrupted images make it hard to tell, but they ARE in there. At some point we added another for a total of three. We also fired the scientist because we simply couldn't afford to pay them $1000 a month. The second those eggs hatched, they were gone.

 

Money was very, very tight. We earned some more and even managed to get, at one point, back up to our starting $20,000. Of course the incisivosaurs couldn't just be ignored, but by that point we could buy a compost building to help with paying the scientists. We also built a newsstand for zoo and dinosaur info, though I confess I have no idea when that was added.

 

 

With a somewhat stable amount of money, the second exhibit was planned out. This would be another member of oviraptorosauria... oviraptor. I assumed rock fencing would be enough to keep them in, as oviraptor species are not exactly large. This would, later, prove to be a bad idea. For now, though, everything seemed to be fine.

 

 

Oviraptors -- a pair -- hatched. The exhibit was built. Thankfully they are rather low maintenance and don't want a thousand plants. We had to build the exhibit in stages, fence and terrain before pausing to wait to get cash... then the oviraptors, then all their required items when they hatched. 

 

Anyway, at this point I wanted a change of pace. I was tired of making oviraptorosaur exhibits. I begged. I cried. I pleaded with our benefactor to please let us put some kind of modern bird in. They're dinosaurs! Everyone knows birds are related to dinosaurs and that's an oft-repeated fact, but they are quite literally therapods in dinosauria. Dinosaurs aren't extinct, technically! Let us show the public this -- these birdlike dinosaurs alongside modern ones!

 

I eventually got them to agree. We could have turkeys. :/ And only turkeys. Honestly I think some family member had birds they didn't want anymore. Whatever the reason, I disappointedly accepted this and made a turkey-aviary. I wanted some kind of bird of prey, but whatever, fine I guess.

 

 

Except right after accepting the four turkeys, the oviraptors clawed out of the solid rock and into the zoo. That was not pleasant. That led to emergency fence-reinforcements, dinosaur capturing, and guest-soothing. With a grand total of $8 left in the bank. That was mostly because I didn't notice we had run so low on funds. Isn't that kind of person who you want running YOUR zoo? :D

 

Finally, though, here's where I am now (isn't color beautiful?). This is the second year of the zoo, with $2000. This might not seem like a lot, but honestly, the zoo has been sitting at the $4k--$8k mark for most of its operation. The turkeys will get foliage soon, and we can start planning some non-exhibit areas. Maybe a garden? Or some other kind of entertainment? Hm... maybe I'll spend some time just landscaping the area. It's looking a bit bare.

 

[(Admin)Savannahjan]

Really enjoying this story.  Can't wait to see/read more. 

[cadaverine]

1 hour ago, Savannahjan said:

Really enjoying this story.  Can't wait to see/read more. 

Ah, thank you! I've been having a lot of fun with this zoo so far. Finally gives me an excuse to use all these extinct animals mods I've been hoarding.

I wanted to play some more before another post, but I accidentally closed out of the game. Whoops! Posts come early I guess. At least I just saved beforehand.

 

Ahem.

 

With the oviraptor escape over and done with, things are uneventfully chugging along. Our money has returned quickly, thanks to the enthusiastic guests. 

 

 

With it, we were able to landscape a little -- not perfect, but a touch of greenery does a lot for the area and makes it look more complete. Even if it's only ferns and trees. I mean, we're in a jungle! It should feel more lush. And less... well, less like a flat plane with exhibits.  More flowers were considered as an option and quickly discarded -- that made it feel too manicured.

 

 

All the incisivosaurs gathered around the food. Nothing much is happening here, they're just so small and rarely congregate together that I had to snag a photo before they vanished into the rainforest grasses again. There's five -- four adopted, and one that was born.

 

Of course, as fun as it is to look at small dinosaurs, we need to continue our expansion.

 

 

An added viewing area for the oviraptors, and a food court.  It'll be empty for some time, but talking to some guests has revealed that by the time they get over to this area they're hungry and thirsty. With expansions and more exhibits planned and underway, it really feels inevitable that this could potentially become a future problem area. Especially since the only place to get food, drink (and a bathroom but that's not important) is still that one rainforest restaurant. It has to be crowded by now.

 

Though at this point it was determined that we should continue with the oviraptorosaurs. There's quite a few more, and while some of them are definitely larger in scale, the majority of them seem to be on the smaller side. While a zoo only filled with them is probably not viable, it's a fun idea to play with while we can. Maybe I can beg for another modern bird to fill the gaps.

 

 

After lowering the ground for purely aesthetic reasons and building an equally low viewing area for them, the next oviraptorosaur was added: chirostenotes. I was not aware of how expensive deciduous ground was, which led to an awkward patch of rainforest right in the middle. It was quickly filled in, but the blunder was embarrassing on my part.

When the money recovered somewhat, a second scientist was hired. While there are only two chirostenotes(es?) and two oviraptors, there are five incisivosaurs making a mess all the time. I am regularly notified at the exhibit having no food. But with a mostly stable budget, another thousand is no issue.

 

 

... make that six incisivosaurs. With a bonus peek at the rapidly-multiplying turkeys. While I lost count at some point, I do believe we are, in the present, up to about twenty of them. If they mind the increasingly small space, they haven't shown any signs of it. This angle also makes it easier to see the fencing that's been added to the path edges!

 

 

It is year three. I guess I didn't pause to take any photos of the completed chirostenotes exhibit... oops. With a decent amount of money consistently coming in, though, my mind has been on expanding, and when I finished the last exhibit I went almost immediately to the next. When you have money, it turns out, it makes the whole dinosaur zoo thing much easier to manage.

The next area under construction is what will be the caudipteryx exhibit. As you may have guessed, it is also a member of oviraptorosauria. It's in a bare-bones state, not even a full exhibit yet... but it's coming along. Construction will be finished soon for sure, seeing as how we presently have more than $2,000 to our name.

 

 

Here is an overhead view of the entire zoo, where you can see the finished chirostenotes area, the soon-to-be fifth exhibit, and the current turkey horde. I suppose january is a fine enough place to stop for an update, but being briefly kicked out against my will to do so is certainly an irritant.

The western side of the zoo will have greenery added sometime after the caudipteryx area is finished.

[cadaverine]

 

A fresh new day, fresh new dinosaurs. Caudipteryxes are snugly tucked away in their new pit exhibit, which right now resembles a flat empty plains area. That's fine; they'll get more when they hatch. We won't know what they like and react well to until then, after all!

 

 

And there's the exhibit -- mostly finished, as some things will be refined at a later date. That isn't important, though. All in all, I am pleased with this -- it's a rather nice place. It also seems like I'm unintentionally doing an oviraptorosaur biome tour -- the plan is to do protarchaeopteryx next when it comes time for that, so hopefully that trend kind of continues. I think it's a creature of the rainforest, alas.

 

 

The turkeys continue to haunt me.

 

 

There were a few new additions to old exhibits, to set up stronger populations (and because we all have no idea how long these creatures live, or if they will breed). Two chirostenotes were added...

 

 

... As well as two new oviraptors. This seemed logical to me. We've had them for a while and they don't seem especially keen on making more oviraptors, so we will have to do the work instead.

 

But this peaceful silence was not to last. While I quietly puttered away at my own projects, easy and content, I ignored most of the messages my staff desperately sent my way. I hired a new scientist when it seemed necessary and restructured so that the other two focused on two exhibits each, with the new hire wandering around as needed. More maintenance workers, with the food court getting more traction and the other staff busy fixing fences... it was simply necessary.

I headed to the front of the zoo.

 

 

Hm. That's a lot of turkeys.

 

...

 

"You know what? Not my problem," it said, the man who was meant to be running a zoo. "It'll be fine."

 

The zookeeper looks at me with desperate eyes, begging for some kind of assistance with the fifty-odd birds surrounding them. I pretend I can't see.

 

 

Anywayyy, construction time!! We're adding some things behind the incisivosaurus exhibit. We have to move this way, and it feels like a decent enough central point to do so. We now also have a gift shop after three years. Up until this point, people have been taking home zoo magazines and informative pamphlets on dinosaur revival as souvenirs.

 

With some negotiation, I managed to convince our good friends the Unnamed Mystery Investor (UMI) to let us have another modern bird. Again nothing too raptorial, as we got golden pheasants. Still, they are quite beautiful birds, so I won't complain about them.

 

 

A secondary aviary -- this time, you can actually walk into it -- has been constructed, right across from the incisivosaurus backend and against the zoo wall. I think I'll build pit exhibits on either side of it, but we'll see how that ends up.

 

.... do you guys hear something?

 

 

.... yeah, I bet it's overcrowded, Wild Turkey 56 (why did we name it that). Frankly it's probably time to deal with these guys, this is absolutely some kind of animal rights issue. I am amazed that we've managed to fit over 60 birds in here (I think we were at 61?) with nobody saying anything about it, or the birds actually being unhappy. Looking at the logged list of animals, we have about 80 and most of them are turkeys. There's also the golden pheasants which are already multiplying -- honestly I should just keep on top of that.

 

So commences The Great Bird Sale of July, Year 3.

 

 

This is after. That looks so much nicer. I named a lot of them beautiful things, like all the zoo creatures, so it was hard to choose who to keep. I didn't mention this but I've been naming all the animals; the chirostenotes are, as an example, all named after various peppers. It would break my heard to decide if I should sell Carolina Reaper or Jalapeno.

 

This is why I decided to keep some of the most important birds, like AGONY, Horse3, and Thanksgiving. I just couldn't let them go.

 

 

And this is where we end it for today. Not a lot done, and it's not quite the end of the year, but I feel like this is a perfectly good spot to relax for a while. I think the protarchaeopteryx exhibit will go in that northwest corner. Maybe not filling all of it, but it seems like a nice empty spot for another oviraptorosaur!! Give it up for oviraptorosaursia, which is full of small feathered birdlike guys! I think this is the last one, but there may be one other hiding away somewhere I have yet to notice on our lengthy list of potential animals.

 

While the images likely do not show it well, decorative foliage (and fencing) has been added to the other side of the zoo -- it just isn't trees.

 

[Fern]

Yep some breed like rabbits. One way to earn money when needed is put one in that breeds fast and sell the offspring for that extra cash you need. And if you choose something that does not fit the theme, when all the others are done, sell the lot and put something else that fits better in that area. Zoos do that on a regular basis in real life.

[Truly_happy]

Thank you, Cada, for sharing this. You are so creative, witty and humorous that it's been a delight to read.

 

It was also nice to meet someone who not only puts dinos in "pits" but also names the animals. (Every zoo needs a turkey named "Thanksgiving"!)

[Fern]

Thing about using pits for Dinos is that you can get away with using ZT fences rather than Dino fences in some cases. It depends on the depth. Am enjoying your storyline.

By the way in case you did not know the rock walls are climbable so be careful what you use them for.

[cadaverine]

13 hours ago, Fern said:

Yep some breed like rabbits. One way to earn money when needed is put one in that breeds fast and sell the offspring for that extra cash you need. And if you choose something that does not fit the theme, when all the others are done, sell the lot and put something else that fits better in that area. Zoos do that on a regular basis in real life.

I'm learning that, haha. I guess I'm used to zt2 where even a lot of the modded animals are made to only have 1-2 offspring occasionally, even if that isn't especially realistic. Not all of them, obviously, but many.

 

I'm not complaining though; despite having basically trapped my poor zookeepers in those exhibits forever with their respective birds, I end up with plenty of compost-based money, not to mention the profits of bird-selling.

 

I'll probably keep them for this zoo; if I do something like this later on (or during one of the scenarios I'm putting off) I'll probably swap them out, but I feel it's probably fine for the "Amateur Zoo 1" narrative I have going :^)

 

 

2 hours ago, Truly_happy said:

Thank you, Cada, for sharing this. You are so creative, witty and humorous that it's been a delight to read.

 

It was also nice to meet someone who not only puts dinos in "pits" but also names the animals. (Every zoo needs a turkey named "Thanksgiving"!)

 

Ahh ty! I'm having fun doing this. I like making up little stories as I go. If I don't give myself a storyline or "goal" I've discovered that I quickly drop games, including freeform zoos! While some of the campaign scenarios can drag on, the set-in-stone goals keep me playing.

 

As for dino pits... they're useful AND fun  <- oh wow I forget that I'm in a real forum again...

 

36 minutes ago, Fern said:

Thing about using pits for Dinos is that you can get away with using ZT fences rather than Dino fences in some cases. It depends on the depth. Am enjoying your storyline.

By the way in case you did not know the rock walls are climbable so be careful what you use them for.

Thank you!

 

Yeah, I made great use of them during the DD scenarios, particularly the one where all the dinosaurs in your previous zoo had escaped -- forget what that one is called, but it was a great way to save money. A Spinosaurus Pit with some low fencing was very attractive when compared to electric fencing that they would shock themselves on constantly and get angry about.

 

I've been trying to be careful with the rock walls since the oviraptor escape. I initially thought that had been the issue and they'd climbed out, but they had destroyed the fencing entirely. Maybe it was decayed.

Between me and you, I've been "cheating" ... I'm too dedicated to my semi-natural rocks aesthetic, so some exhibits (I don't think the incisivos do, and neither do all the pits) have invisible fencing. That was the "reinforcing" I referred to with the ovis, actually!

 

I don't mind fighting with break-outs later on with other animals in the future -- if your big dinos aren't ready to escape at any second where's the drama? -- but maybe not with the oviraptors XD

 

[Fern]

If you want to really cheat you could get the Super Hack that is here at Tek. I do believe one thing it enables is for you to delete poo yourself which is handy at times.

Also are you remembering to do the Research for Scientist and Keeper training. The good thing with the Research tab is that you can unclick the things you don't need. Like for this zoo I would unclick all that MM stuff.

You could always try a contest or two.

[cadaverine]

17 minutes ago, Fern said:

If you want to really cheat you could get the Super Hack that is here at Tek. I do believe one thing it enables is for you to delete poo yourself which is handy at times.

Also are you remembering to do the Research for Scientist and Keeper training. The good thing with the Research tab is that you can unclick the things you don't need. Like for this zoo I would unclick all that MM stuff.

You could always try a contest or two.

I actually did consider the Super Hack, but eventually decided against it. I don't remember why though, since most of it seems like something I'd be interested in. Maybe I just didn't want free staff? Or to delete poo? That's my best guess. Sometimes my past self is a mystery to me. 

 

Did kind of forget the research for a while, though, I'll admit. I'm halfway through the next update and only at ~year 4 did I remember I could buff my staff and animals. I have had marketing running at the lowest possible level ($200?) for most of the place's runtime, which I normally don't bother with.

 

Took a peek at contests when I first joined out of curiosity, and I like keeping an eye on them, but they do make me a little nervous, lol. I'm not great at aesthetics.. or deadlines.. or (friendly) competitions. I mean, up until recently, My main zoo-creation method was basically to just slap everything down in a straight line... But maybe in the future when I figure that stuff out! :D

 

I'll start finishing the next parts of the zoo. That update post will probably be put up tomorrow... it's very late/early here.