So ZT2 just helped me pass a test.

[Guest greenpangolin]

It's been a really hot day today. A really hot week actually. It's that kind of hot that makes you sweat a lot, but not hot enough to sit around and get a tan. It's a really annoying type of weather and that's why God chose it for the day that I did my final GCSE.

 

Before I go on you're probably wondering "What's a GCSE?". GCSEs are horrible abominations summoned by the dark followers of Shoggoth designed specifically to torture and annoy British teenagers between the ages of 14-16. They take many different forms by disguising themselves as courses, when in reality they're just a way to measure the success of schools. I've heard rumours about government projects to stop them but I guess it's too late since I've already done mine. Suppose I should have sympathy for the young un's who will have to endure them next year but I'm going off-topic so back to the story.

 

I'm sat in a big hall waiting for the signal to open a booklet on my desk. I'm surrounded by about 20 other people with the same booklet. Some of them looked like they were going to collapse from heat exhaustion. To be honest it was probably only 25 degrees so those of you from hot and sandy places like Arizona are probably laughing at me right now. Bear in mind that this is the UK and we spend 90% of our time complaining about how the weather is too cold, so when it gets a bit warm we all complain about the heat until it goes away. Then it gets too cold so we complain again and the cycle starts anew.

 

For once the weather wasn't on my mind. I was about to take on my final GCSE, geography to be exact. The examination bloke who bears an uncanny resemblance to Bill Oddie gave us the signal and I opened my booklet to find an Iberian Lynx staring at me. Not a literal one of course (although that would have been awesome) but a photo. And I instantly recognized it, thanks to a little game you might have heard of called Zoo Tyccon 2 which has them in it.

 

"But dinorhino" I hear you cry via my telepathic connection to the internet "How did that help you complete the GCSE?". Well I must recommend you to be patient because I'm getting to that. Anyway yeah. The theme of the whole paper was Portugal. Most of the question were about the Cork Oak and sustainable resource management. Simple stuff. Then came the final question. "Almost done" I think. I open the page and find a two-page spread of dots. After briefly trying to translate the thing from morse code I noticed a short paragraph at the top explaining that I am to write a letter to the Portuguese government suggesting ways to attract tourists to the area.

 

"Are you joking" I asked the paper. Literally. I believe I got a few odd looks from those nearby at that point. I looked at the clock, 45 minutes left. I couldn't just sleep for the rest of it since this one question took up 1/3 of the marks for the paper. I had to do it. Then it hit me like the K.T. Impact.

 

"Iberian lynx" I thought. "Guests on Zoo Tycoon love those little furballs. They're pretty rare. Presumably tourists would like to see them too!" That exclamation mark appeared out of nowhere by the way. I am not a fan of them and believe that their ways of making things sound exciting are a bad influence on children.

 

So pretty soon I had a plan set up. Build a massive exhibit and call it a nature reserve. Charge guests/tourists 5/6 euros each to get in. Place donation boxes around the park, build hidden viewing shelters to allow the animals to roam around undisturbed. Maybe build a skytram to let tourists see the animals from a different view without disturbing the lynxes. And of course, place a gift cart near the exit to make a bit of extra revenue. Pretty soon I'd filled the two pages just by thinking in zoo tycoon mode.

 

So thanks Blue Fang Games. You've helped me get a GCSE hopefully. Turns out all those hundreds of hours I've spent perfecting elevated viewing areas and tweaking habitats actually came in useful. I probably could have spent them on something a bit more productive, like learning mandarin chinese or building a time machine, but hey. Life goes on.

 

Anyway that's the end of my post. If you excuse me I need to go find my sense of grammar because it appears that I have dropped it. Somewhere. Probably slipped under the bed.

[Firehawke]

Fun!!! I love when things like that happen :th_hapydancsmil:

[Fern]

:glitter_happy: What a wonderful report you give. I hope you used that humour in the test too :th_hapydancsmil: Hope you get high marks for this.

[(Admin)Savannahjan]

That was immensely entertaining, you are an excellent writer, dinorhino. ZooTycoon is fun for sure, but it really is educational. So we should all feel so enriched that we've spent hundreds of hours playing it, our IQs are probably bulging with increased knowledge. Hope you get top marks on your test!

 

And dinorhino....embrace the exclamation point. :laugh:

[Ashea]

Sounds like you had quite the plan laid out Dinorhino - I am sure you had a very unique letter to turn in on your test. If nothing else they should give you marks for being creative. And they say playing games is waste of time....

[pukkie]

this is just wonderful Dinorhino

I had much fun reading this and could just vision how this happened

Thanks for sharing