Zoo Tycoon beta

[Eragon845]

That's right, only a few days ago, someone uncovered the beta version of ZT and has posted it for download at Zoo Tycoon Hideout. It contains extra foliage, terrain, and more, and I think you should all check it out. You have to register to access it. It's a 124 MB download, and it is in .rar format, simply decompress and you can play it. I'm eager to see what it has. It may thouroughly enhance our understanding of ZT as we know it, so I highly recommend you check it out.

 

Here's the link to Zoo Tycoon Hideout.

 

http://s4.zetaboards.com/ZTHR/index/

 

Anyone discover anything neat inside the beta, feel free to post so here. I will be doing so. :D

 

A screenshot of the foliage unlocked immediately at the beginning of the game. Important things to note are that there is only 1 freeform map, guests automatically begin visiting the zoo, and sound effects are much different for the ambient guest noise as well as ambient background nature noises. Some of the foliage is recognizable yet some of it is very crude in appearance or slightly different. The object names are also different. The infamous shift+4 cheat is even here, but it's much different. Many different icons as well.

[Eragon845]

Here's the limited selection of rocks available in freeform gameplay. I have now unlocked the globe willow tree so I'll see if that's any different or not.

[Eragon845]

This shows you many things. For one, the Research and Conservation do not make a pop-up window, simply, they appear unobtrusively in the overhead bar. I prefer that. :P Also, you can see the animal selection screen, as well as the animal info tab, which is extremely detailed. It has tabs of various info on each animal describing their habitat, possible exhibit mates, and behavior.

[Eragon845]

Here's a variety of objects available from the beginning of a freeform game. For one, while most of the original ZT objects can be found in the menu, they have generic placeholding icons and they do not work as they were not implemented at the time. The guest buildings, scenery, shelters, and animal toys are all found under one menu. Personally, I think the lean-to looks pretty good, it's to the left of the concrete shelter.

[Eragon845]

The deletion tool is also significantly different. For one, you can not drag it to delete multiple objects at once, every object must be deleted individually. Also, it gives you a confirmation message when tryig to delete animal shelters and toys now.

[Eragon845]

Here's the object selection screen. Anything with the panda icon is not yet implemented into the game, and when placed, they come out as burger stands with corrupted graphics, and it is interesting to note that the man at the counter repeatably slams his head on the counter.... :P

[Eragon845]

Here are the fences and the two paths available. One very interesting thing to note is that you can "filter" between high and low fence types, kind of useful if you ask me.

[Eragon845]

Next, the terrain types. The names for many of the terrains are different, and there are two that seem to be scrapped. There's also "running water", "waterfall", and "colored tile", which aren't implemented, and when placed, show a panda and "ZOO". The most interesting things to note are the "swamp" terrain, which was definitely scrapped, as well as "forest floor", which I believe probably became deciduous floor. Swamp is below the "ZOO" area and forest floor is to the left of the sand. It is also of note that freshwater is "shallow water" and saltwater is "deep water".

[Eragon845]

The aviary is shown here, its graphics having minor differences in that there is more than one entrance,as you can see. You also cannot change between the type of "exhibit" inside as you can in the final version of ZT.

[Eragon845]

Here's some scenery I neglected to show earlier. You can see the infamous "binocular stand" which did not make it into the final.