Steven Serafino, Senior Game Designer at Blue Fang Games, answers a few questions about himself and the Zookeeper mode included in Zoo Tycoon 2.

What are you responsible for?

Serafino: User interface design and implementation, various systems design, and the sound design.

How’s a day in your life?

Serafino: A designer is spending a ton of time in Microsoft Word and Excel creating spreadsheets and specifications for the game engineers and artists to use. For me, the fun part is learning about the subject matter in question, in this case animals. The last four years I have gained more knowledge about animals and where they come from than I would like to admit.

How can players interact with the animals in  Zookeeper mode?

Serafino: When we began developing Zoo Tycoon 2, we wanted to allow the player to go right into their Zoo and interact with zoo animals up-close. We also wanted to let gamers perform all of the duties that the staff can perform, whether it be cleaning up trash or taking care of the animals.

Zookeeper mode lets gamers go into a first-person perspective and perform all of the zookeeper activities. You can refill water containers, food containers, wash and groom dirty animals and even clean up poo, just like real zookeepers.

In addition to being a really cool game feature, there are strategic gameplay elements embedded in its functionality. For example, each task the player performs in Zookeeper mode takes a certain amount of time to complete. A player with a struggling zoo could conceivably decide to care for all of the animals in their zoo themselves and never hire a zookeeper or other staff member. While this approach could save the zoo a ton of money in staff salaries, it will take time away from the player's other zoo management responsibilities. Neglecting these responsibilities may make the zoo less appealing to guests. In the end, the player needs to find the right balance to make their zoo successful.

What was the inspiration behind Zookeeper mode?

Serafino: During the design of Zoo Tycoon 2, we assembled all of the feedback and feature requests from the fans of Zoo Tycoon. Once the data was organized, it was apparent that our fans really wanted to get closer to the animals. While we explored various camera angles it became obvious that guest mode would be a really cool feature. From there the idea grew to include the Zookeeper mode, and we thought, what better way to get closer to an animal than to actually care for them. It was really that simple. The best ideas usually are.

How realistic are the animal behaviors? How do you “tune” an animal to represent its real-world counterpart?

Serafino: The animal behavior in Zoo Tycoon 2 is far more advanced than that found in the original Zoo Tycoon. We've spent a great deal of time developing an entirely new needs-based artificial intelligence system for the animals that allows for a much greater variety of realistic behaviors.

We spent the last four years researching animals and zoos using various media, books, and visiting zoos around the United States. Many of the staff here at Blue Fang have gone to several zoos to study animals, their habitats, and behaviors. On several occasions, we were invited to have a behind-the-scenes look at what goes on at zoos, on a day-to-day basis. All this information was used when we were designing and implementing the artificial intelligence for the animals in Zoo Tycoon 2.

Here are a few examples of what behaviors we have included in the game: Lions stalk their prey from a certain distance but once they get within closing distance, they run to pounce on the prey. Young and very old prey animals move slower than animals in their prime and are more likely to be attacked. If you manage to keep carnivores well fed, they live in peace with other animals that would normally be considered their prey. If you don't keep the carnivore well fed there could be trouble for their prey! If an ibex comes across garbage, they will eat it (though they clearly prefer eating hay or grass). Beavers will collect sticks and carry them to the water, where they will construct a lodge. A male adult gorilla will call over his troop of gorillas. They assemble in a rough circle around him and they all go to sleep.