building a Zoo Tycoon

Way back in the year 2003, I bought a complete set of Zoo Tycoon and am still enjoying playing it. It expands one's creativity by matching and mixing different zoo animals, marine animals and the most interesting, is the dinosaurs! Each scenario earns zoo rating and donations from the guests. My target goes as high as 90% zoo rating when there are more exhibits especially for good mixtures of animals. For example, hippotamus with flamingo, and ostrich family consists of common wildbeest, and thomson gazelle. Sell away their babies each few months to earn extras. Twice the 8x8 exhibits for Africa buffalo for ten members surrounded with tall grasses and small rocks. They are savannah animals which are easily tended by zookeepers.

There are few scenarios that reaches 86% (zoo rating) such as lochness monster, giant tortoise, stegosaurus, camptosaurus, western manatee, and common sawfish; the former four animals are dinosaurs while the last two are marine animals. As more and more exhibits are being added so does the zoo rating increases. For example, after putting bottlenose dolphin, dolphin show, and ostrich family, the zoo rating is 86%, then adding another three zoo animals, such as, hippotamus family, black buck, and spotted hyena, the zoo rating is increased by 2%, then add four dinosaurs, the final score is 90%. Another scenario for this kind of zoo rating will be: bottlenose dolphin with its show, ostrich family, Africa buffalo, hippotamus family, and beluga, and the four dinosaurs. There is once when the zoo rating reaches 92% for 13 exhibits -- bottlenose dolphin, lochness monster, giant tortoise, stegosarus, camptosaurus, ostrich family, hippotamus family, plain zebra, beluga, black buck, spotted hyena, black rhino, and wild dog.

The best is to modify the Kids themes by removing all the existing objects except the bottlenose dolphin and its show. With just six exhibits, the zoo rating goes from 93% onwards -- ostrich family, plain zebra, western manatee, beluga, and black rhino.

You can also mix sea turtle and barracuda with whale shark family. What a challenging game!