I used cheats to have infinite money, and I never had to worry about guest satisfaction. But the reason many latched onto the game is because they could play it however they pleased. There is, of course, a technical way to win: engage in the capitalistic practice of increasing profits. Players could pick and choose how to play. Zoo Tycoon was popular for plenty of reasons, among them the ability to curate your own experience. I tested out scenarios, adding gazelles and other animals to the enclosures. I spent hours constructing the perfect environment from them: all the right trees for shade, lots of dirt, and plenty of food. In particular, I remember building a single enclosure the size of the lot for a pride of lions, my favorite animal at the time. I was enamored by Zoo Tycoon and the freedom it gave me to create something in a way I’d only ever dream about. I wanted to be a veterinarian - someone who helped injured animals, the wilder the better.

Many wild animals won’t thrive in captivity - there are many for-profit zoos that are, frankly, inhumane - and being a zookeeper certainly didn’t mean we’d be petting wild animals day-by-day. For many of us, we realized the unlikeliness of these dreams becoming reality. We lived out these fantasies in books and by playing pretend, dreaming up the research centers we’d fund, the animals we’d rehabilitate, and the fur we’d snuggle up to at night. This is a normal day at work in Blue Fang’s Zoo Tycoon, the management simulation game published by Microsoft in 2001.Īs a kid, I wanted nothing more than to be in the presence of all the animals I loved, whether that was scooping their poop or studying their movement. Maybe you can’t keep up with the animal poop, and now the zoo’s patrons are throwing up, too. Sometimes, it’s because the wrong food has been placed in their habitat. You can tell because of the tiny, red frowning faces that have popped up above their heads.

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