zoo tycoon 1 A bittersweet final update to my Africa Zoo

[Mugcake]

Previous post 👈

 

Hey everyone! So, haven’t posted or been around much in a while, and it’s because I’ve been quite busy with Uni up until lately. This will definitely be my last update on the Africa Zoo, and I’ll get into why at the end, but for now we’ll take a look at what I put together 

 

I last did this work in April, where funnily enough I managed to bash it out in just a few hours. For the connecting expansion, which would finally reunite both sides of the zoo at the far end, I decided to make a warthog and baboon land exhibit. Surroundings this would be an islanded flamingo exhibit, mainly since that was the only amphibious African animal so far not represented in the zoo.
 

The flamingo one is inspired by wetlands, specifically beachey areas with sandbanks. In that regard, really wanted to experiment with introducing terrain height for an animal that normally doesn’t require/like it in an exhibit.

Was going to split the two land-animal enclosures, but decided to try them as one:

 

 

I definitely wanted to make this one a bit more dynamic than the last few expansions, so designed these boardwalks that “push-in” to the space. It also helps make it a bit more rounded and intuitive for guests, and as the animals were smaller space was less of a concern 
 

Once everything had been sorted out design wise, I set about adding the amenities. Even with plenty of those on either side of the zoo, it wouldn’t hurt to make this a mini central hub:

 

 

Then it was on to the flamingos! I did have to do some terrain editing and remove the various water reeds I’d added to each corner, but otherwise they were happy enough (and thankfully the raised island didn’t seem to bother them):

 

 

Baboons came second. I’d forgotten that they need a wooden shelter, but other than that they were quite satisfied:

 

Warthogs came next, and were even more suited to what I’d made. That being said, there was a discrepancy between the baboons and warthogs on exactly how much dirt there should be, but I managed to find a happy balance in the end 

 

 

Once all the animals were settled, there wasn’t anything else to sort out. With the game left unpaused, both sides of the zoo filled in to view the latest arrivals, as well as see the elephants and giraffes side by side:

 

 

Now onto the bad news: I didn’t boot up the game for some months after this whilst I finished up my University work (it was my final year), and once I tried to again the game wouldn’t launch 

 

It wasn’t the fault of the game though (trust me, tried repeatedly reinstalling and patching and all sorts). Rather my Windows laptop was starting to fail, and was becoming borderline unusable for anything.

 

Sadly, it’s now become so bad that it no longer even turns on. I do have a MacBook Pro so my computer needs are sorted, but as Mac isn’t typically backwards compatible I’m not sure if it could run its port of ZTCC (and I’m generally unfamiliar with gaming on Mac as a whole) 

 

Will try and look into it, but right now my only real output is the DS version. But as everything runs from an external drive, I’m happy to announce that all the save files are safely backed up in multiple places 

 

My only regret with this zoo is that I never figured out a good way to include leopards, and the two grassy spots near the entrance remain completely empty. I’ve bounced around the idea of making them into scenic mini mountains (perhaps with a public walking path) or maybe leopard and atlas bear exhibits, but that’ll have to wait until I can get back to it :T

 

Still, I’m glad I saved all these screenshots. I didn’t run the game for too long after, so never got to see the flamingos multiply (or introduce the modded cranes that I was considering), but as a proof of concept it works super well, even for a small expansion like this 👍

 

 

In terms of future posts, I have some insights into ZTDS that I’d love to share with you at some point. I’d also love to share the save files I have for this zoo, is there a specific protocol for sharing those here or could I attach them to this post? 
 

EDIT: Sorry for the odd discrepancy at the beginning. The first half of the post vanished for no reason, so had to hastily redo it 

 

I also have no idea what these screenshots at the bottom are doing here. I’ve tried deleting them multiple times but they’re constantly there, so enjoy them I guess? 

[Firehawke]

This zoo is so beautiful!  Sorry to hear about your computer!!!!

[Mugcake]

On 8/26/2025 at 7:11 PM, Firehawke said:

This zoo is so beautiful!  Sorry to hear about your computer!!!!

 

Thanks Hawke! Honestly I’m glad I was able to get this last extension in before it stopped working, it really ties everything else together nicely 

 

I looked into how it would work for Mac, and compatibility between old and new Mac software is so disconnected that I’d apparently be better off emulating the Windows version. So that may be an option for the future, although it’s gonna need some setup 

also I’m curious, do people normally share their save files here? I have multiple files for every stage of the project and would love to share them, in case people want an easy way to adapt this into their own zoo builds? :/

[pukkie]

It might not be normally in this thread but no reason why you couldn't 

Just click in the choose files then to click on the files you'ld like to share and then attach to the post