Linda Currie, lead designer at Blue Fang Games, answers a few questions about the new features in Zoo Tycoon 2: Endangered Species.
What are the most noticeable changes in Endangered Species?
Currie: Our new transportation options and elevated paths ought to leap right out at Zoo Tycoon fans! Players can now build sky trams and Jeep® vehicle tours through their zoos and place elevated paths up and over everything. Building options are almost limitless, and players can now build zoos that just simply weren’t possible before. Of course, the 20 cool new animals are hard to miss, and these new animals are sure to be a hit! And, speaking of those new animals, endangered animals are more sensitive to their environment and to the guests who view them. With the new building features—sky trams and elevated paths in particular—players can give guests great views of these more sensitive animals and still give them more privacy.
Zoo Tycoon 2 marked the first jump to 3D. Are there any graphical tweaks or improvements in the expansion? Also, some players found the sound effects in the last version annoying ... are there any improvements on that front?
Currie: There’s a very visible change to the water, and it really looks fantastic now. This is probably one of the most significant visual changes, and there’s no mistaking the improvement. Also, many animals have texture variations; for example, you’ll have zebras and tigers with different stripe patterns. And we’ve added even more cool behaviors so you’ll see animals doing more things ... and more realistic things as well, like basking in the midday sunshine. As far as sound goes, Zoo Tycoon 2: Endangered Species features a new exotic version of the Zoo Tycoon 2 theme that’s awesome. We also spent some time equalizing sounds to ensure that the soundscape feels more consistent.
What are most exotic animal additions? How do they fit into the gameplay? How many new animals are there, all told?
Currie: Twenty new animals have been added to Zoo Tycoon 2: Endangered Species. The bulk of them are endangered or critically endangered, and there is gameplay designed around this in challenges, awards, and scenarios. The animal list is largely made up of well-known animals or those with conservation success stories, though there are some that are less well known. The Baird’s tapir is pretty “exotic,” but there are a lot of very cool new animals.
Personal favorites for me are the Florida panther, the Spanish lynx, and the wolverine … and it’s hard not to get a kick out of the crested gibbon. The fennec fox and koalas are adorable, and did you know that the markhor can climb trees? It’s great having such an interesting variety to choose from! Of course, breeding endangered animals is a pretty big deal. Since endangered animals are more sensitive to their environment, players will need to pay extra attention to how they create their exhibits to ensure that they can successfully breed these rare creatures. And, speaking of breeding, now you can see each animal’s family tree … and family units are an important concept to keep in mind when breeding your animals.
Have there been any changes to the interface? Are there any new features for designing a zoo?
Currie: There have definitely been some interface conveniences added to Zoo Tycoon 2: Endangered Species. The Quick Stats panel shows you a list of all of your animals; guests and zookeepers can now be resized and moved around onscreen, and (where it used to pause the game), now you can leave the panel up and keep working in your zoo. There’s a Guest View filter, which allows you to determine what a guest can see from the path outside your exhibits. This can be a big help in determining good places for binoculars. All of the Buy panels now have filters that players can use to sort what they want to purchase for their zoo. Interested in your zoo’s aesthetics? Just choose the Statue filter from the Scenery Buy panel to see all the statues that are available for purchase. And there’s the Family Tree panel so you can see the relationships between the animals in your zoo.
Of course, there have been a lot of interface changes to support the new transportation and elevated path features. You can create elevated paths of varying heights and ramps up and down to make some pretty interesting path networks. Roads are an easy click-and-drag to place, and they smartly curve to try to reach your desired placement location. You can alter the height of sky tram poles to make them soar high over your zoo or swoop down low to the ground.
When you build a tour, you need to complete a circuit (no stranding guests out in the middle of nowhere)! One thing we added that we find ultra convenient is an “under construction” icon at the end of any circuit that isn’t connected. You can click on this icon to automatically (and smartly) select roads or sky tram poles for purchase. It may sound like a little thing, but we really love identifying shortcuts like this that make it more convenient to build cool things easily.
How do the new transportation options work? How close can zoo guests get to the animals?
Currie: Players can use Jeep vehicles and sky trams to transport guests from point A to point B, either to move them around faster or to far-off or isolated places. If you make the effort to give guests interesting things to see while riding on your transportation, they’ll use transportation to take tours and be entertained. There are even new tour objects that have the sole purpose of giving guests cool things to see while on tour. The geyser and bat cave are a couple of my favorites! The more guests see while riding around, the more they’ll be entertained. Guests enjoy taking tours and will give you extra donations for their experience … make a great tour and you can really capitalize on your investment.
You can adjust the height of your sky tram to make it high or low, and you can create a Jeep tour that travels right through your exhibits. When that Javan rhinoceros plants itself in the middle of your road or the African wild dog playfully chases your Jeep, your guests will get really up-close and personal with your animals. And you can get up-close and personal too since you can ride around in your Jeeps and sky trams in first-person Guest mode and take the tour yourself. It’s very cool to really see what your guests see!
What are you most proud of bringing to Zoo Tycoon 2: Endangered Species?
Currie: What I’m most proud of is the impact that the new features have on your building options and interaction with the new animals. Your choices of how to build a zoo, entertain your guests, and get them around your zoo have more than tripled; and using these new options to give your guests great views of your endangered animals really lets you create the ultimate zoo. Use elevated paths to create catwalks into your endangered animal exhibits, or make bridges that your guests can walk over. Even better, combine them with a Jeep tour and make bridges that your Jeep can drive over. Island zoos, mountain zoos, chasms, and rivers are all things that you can incorporate into your zoo landscape—and, more than ever, each zoo is different from the last. Of course, it’s also really nice to have been able to give fans something that they’ve been asking for (we really do listen!), and we hope that they enjoy these new features as much as we’ve enjoyed being able to add them.