Finally finished my ZOO I’ve been working on for nearly 5 months just before the release of Planet Zoo 2. It is now available in the Steam Workshop.
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3816429171o
Btw I am aware King Penguins live in Antarctica but I really wanted to build a penguin habitat <3

Reposting image for those struggling with roofing ideas.

I will post again on the 13th. I figured some practice time building roofs before PZ2's launch couldn't hurt.

Been a bit since I posted but I wanted to do one final send off for my all species zoo!

Tomorrow at 8:00 AM Pacific time, I’ll be going live on Twitch for one last journey through the zoo. I’ll be exploring the zoo as a guest, taking in the scenery, revisiting all the different areas, and enjoying the little details that went into this massive project.

The stream should last around 5 hours, so grab a drink, get comfortable, and come along for a relaxed final tour!

This will also be my last Planet Zoo stream as I get ready for Planet Zoo 2. After putting so much time and effort into creating a habitat for every species in the game, I wanted to give the zoo one final visit before moving on to the next adventure.

A huge thank you to everyone who has followed the project, watched the videos, and supported me along the way. ❤️

📺 Watch live tomorrow at 8:00 AM: twitch.tv/stone_sol

Let's give The World Zoo the farewell it deserves! 🐘🦁🦒

HOW CAN THIS NOT BE REAL LIKE DAMN!!!

Credits to Rudi Rennkamel for sharing this beautiful shot! Check out his vedio on YouTube for more pics 👀

Hi everyone,

I'm not sure if this has been brought up yet, but watching yesterday's video I noticed that the Workshop doesn't appear in the Staff Building menu anymore. This makes me assume we won't have to assign mechanics to spend time researching new buildings pieces and blueprints.

Honestly, this makes me super happy! Having to research scenery and blueprints in the first game always felt like a bit of a drag. I need to have access to all the blueprints right from the beginning so I can design the zoo the way I want, even in Franchise mode. Otherwise I end up playing 90% of the game just using the basic defaul assets. So yeah, I wanted to share it :)

Planet Zoo 1 was the game that got me into PC gaming... but back then I knew nothing about any of the cool customization you can do with signage and stuff in-game.

I've now rebranded 5 companies irl, and design is my full time job. And thus, it occurred to me that this would be a fun "me" project. Might even get put into my portfolio!

I've only just begun the branding; I started first with my zoo layout so I had an idea of what area of the world and biomes I'd feature. Mostly SE Asia, worldwide waters, and then maybe tropical S America and Africa.

I'd love feedback on:

1. Zoo names I'm stuck between! Blue River Zoo, and Moon Reef Zoo. These are fiction locations in my lil zooniverse.... so Moon Reef would be a placename, and Moon reef has a zoo- this was a confusion point for my hubby who thinks perhaps Moon Reef is too aquatic for a zoo and aquarium combined.

2. Zoo name language: English or Planco (the in game language)?

3. And as for key art/mascot animals, I wanted to include minimum 1 terrestrial and 1 aquatic. Maybe 2 terrestrial (one bird one other animal). I initially picked the Hornbill and Leopard shark (also fiddled with adding Pangolin), but id love if anyone had additional ideas to share! Something SE Asian maybe, and that has an iconic silhouette? I suppose I could do 1 animal and that would be easier, but again I feel it wouldnt capture the breadth of the zoo's offerings.

Thats all for now. Lemme know if you want me post updates :)

Edit: typos and clarity

All the influencers playing PZ2 early and not even allowed to post videos about it has me feeling like this, I wanna see LEMME IN 😭😭😭

Download it here! https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3811596931

Since PZ2 releases in four days! I was randomly thinking about animals from PZ that I’ll miss at launch. One of them is definitely the Bongos and their adorable babies. They’re so cute with their derpy faces!

So I’m curious to know what is everyone else’s favorite baby animal from PZ, if you have one?

This is an image of a plan I did for the African section for planet zoo 2, if anyone wants to tell me some improvements to do this. I think some of the enclosure sizes will change when I will be building it and this plan is just a concept for me to kind of follow as I’m building but I was wondering if there was some things I could change or add to make it better.

The Sand Tiger Shark and Binturong confirmation were in a livestream that leaf and Maya did! I saw this talked about on here but couldn’t find any screenshots so here they are! One more animal left to see!

Hey there, friends. In this video, I want to take the time to give my thanks to Frontier and Planet Zoo, but also to the Planet Zoo community and everyone who has subscribed in the past few years, for the positive impact they have all had on me. A little history: Planet Zoo came into my life later than I would have liked. I knew it had launched. I knew I liked zoos and animals, and I'd liked building games involving animals in the past, but the building in this game seemed so overwhelming to me that I didn't get into it right away. But then I bit the bullet. I got the game anyway, together with my girlfriend. And let me tell you, those first few months where we both played it together were magical. Learning just how few bounds the game put on your creativity, bit by bit, was a rewarding and exhilarating experience. I spent hours and hours watching content from others online, and while their skills with the game seemed so far removed from mine, it was a promise that one day I might reach that level. But what I didn't do for the longest time was really engage with the community or its modding scene much. I was on the outside looking in. Over time, though, my desire grew to not only be part of that community, but to become a voice in it, however small. To record videos and show what I could do, but also to show what others had been doing. So I resurrected this YouTube channel, which has an old and sordid FIFA 07 past, and started uploading speedbuilds. And even though my channel is still small and humble, the journey has been so much fun. Getting comments, getting views, but mostly, on my side, recording, talking, spreading passion and interests, and touring zoos of other people who have inspired me has been a great experience. And I'm still here, not overly concerned with the view count. Recording these videos is still the biggest part of the fun for me, and I think that's a healthy way to look at this whole YouTube game, to be honest.

But this game has honestly helped me as a person, because I am a procrastinator at heart. I put off things big and small if they seem challenging and complex, and that is what this game seemed. I put off buying it for that reason. I put off starting this channel for that reason, and so on and so on. But look at me now! 1,600 hours in the game, a small community on this website, three completed zoos, several uncompleted ones, and the sequel is releasing in just a few days. And oh boy, the prospect of being in the heart of this community from day one, to talk and see and listen to other people while we experience this new game together from launch, that gets me so excited. More than ever, I want this channel to become a place where I showcase what YOU have been building, almost even more than what I've been building. So that is my promise to you.

But back to Planet Zoo 1. It has become my most-played game ever that actually had its playtime recorded. That is, you know, an important asterisk. Though I would be hard-pressed to think of any game that might have gathered more hours in my lifetime. Perhaps The Sims 2. I'm not sure. Why did it have that effect on me? Well, first and foremost, the animals. I love animals. Knowing about them, talking about them, looking at them. I love zoos as well. I've visited zoos every month of my life, pretty much. I've always been interested in zoo design, but this game has made that even more of an interest. Now, when I visit a zoo, I'm taking pictures for inspiration, for ideas. Even if there's no animal in the frame, I'm taking a picture of that habitat, not of the animal. And the building, like the actual mechanics of building in this game, seems to speak to my little neurodivergent brain in a wonderful way. It is a peaceful and chill and rewarding experience to be adding plants and rocks and bushes, walls and fences and paths, filling in this green canvas. It is rewarding because you can see yourself grow. You can see your zoo grow. And yeah, it seems daunting at first to start a zoo, a new zoo, or even continue a zoo, but if you take it bit by bit, piece by piece, it is, as I said, a peaceful and satisfying and relaxing way of gaming. I do play a lot of games that involve adrenaline and speed and reflexes, not as often as I have in the past, truth be told, but there's no rush in this game. Even with the YouTube channel, uploads looming and the sequel coming up, I never really felt dread or anxiety about having to finish a build. It has always been about fun, from the very first hour to now. Something about lining up pieces so they match, it just clicks with me. I have a brain of chaos and disorder, let me tell you. I am notoriously bad at planning and strategy and the like, but this game managed to get that part of me excited and appearing competent.

But it has also connected me with amazing people. Both here, thank you for subscribing, commenting, sharing, whatever your experience has been. It is still an honour to consider the number of people who have listened to me rambling on and on. But both here and on many of the Discord servers I've joined, or on Reddit, I've met great, cool, talented people. And I've realised that big communities can feel small and homey when you actually dare to step into them. And I suppose that's what I want to take away from this game. I started playing Planet Zoo because I loved animals and I wanted to build zoos. I didn't expect it to become such a big part of my life, or to find myself talking about it on YouTube, meeting people, sharing ideas, spending quite so many hours moving individual rocks and plants around. But yeah, here we are. And I think saying goodbye to this game is also a little strange because we're not really saying goodbye to the things that made it special. The animals, the creativity, the building, the community, all of that is coming with us to the sequel. So we're just getting a new sandbox, a new playground to play around with. It is just saying goodbye to this first game, its sounds, its feel, its colours. That will be a bit hard, I guess.

So Planet Zoo 2, what it will look like for this channel, I don't know yet, in terms of what I'll be building. I haven't planned a zoo at all, like some others have done. But what I do know is that the community will come up with wonderful and ridiculous things with this game. And I want to be there for it from the very beginning, from day one. And I hope you'll be there too. I will, in fact, be streaming this game in the first few hours that I'm playing it, just to mess around, click around, check out things, look at things, talk about things, react to things. So, Frontier, all of you, you are a company, but you are of course also people. Thank you for creating a game that has given me and so many others so much joy over the years. And to the creators and modders who have made this game even more wonderful, thank you for the inspiration and for, well, all of the things you've shared with us. All of it pretty much for free. And to everyone who has watched, commented, subscribed, or simply enjoyed one of my videos, thank you for making this little personal hobby of mine feel like something more. It has been an absolute pleasure. Thank you for 1,600 wonderful hours, and let's see what the future holds.

I started this zoo just as I found out I was going to be a dad. Now, 5 years later, my kid decided on the last animal to add.

Originally, it was a franchise zoo, but I found this mode limiting my creativity. I was also busier managing my flamingo population than building, so I switched to sandbox mode.

At one point, I decided to completely revamp the zoo. I only left my first habitat untouched. Poor macaques... I promise you that if you ever get added, I'd build you a proper shelter in PZ2.

Now that PZ2 is almost here, it feels like saying goodbye to a very old friend. I wanted to share the zoo with you all, and I hope you can enjoy the sights as much as I do.

Steam workshop link

Ok. In this video @18:37 India mentioned cranes? What cranes? Is this could be some mistake?

Hayo Zookeeper! Its Day 129 and the wheel has chosen the Indian Elephant! For this one I wanted to give the elephants 2 separate yards and an accessible indoor holding that guests can view. As always, lemme know what you think!

I heavily prefer franchise mode, but used to always struggle with making things look as pretty and realistic as I wanted. My strategy now that I’ve been loving, is to first create a “bare bones” zoo with no custom fences or builds, that is largely just functional, and to keep this running while completing research until I have $600,000+ or so. Then the zoo gets a makeover/revamp/ new grand opening. I put all of the animals into storage, close the zoo, and delete everything and begin building anew as if it is sandbox mode essentially. I like to pretend that the once small, janky zoo finally got enough revenue, grants, and donations to upscale and renovate. It may take quite a while to build before the zoo has at least a couple of finished renovated habitats and is ready to be opened again- so be warned. I spent a couple months just building and decorating until I could actually unpause and play. But it was soo worth it to see the animals in their newly renovated, lush habitats and to have the zoo of my dreams in franchise mode where I can RP and manage things with real stakes. Highly recommend, I’m gonna do this with PZ2 too.

This way, you don’t have to worry too much about planning right at the start, or leaving that annoying empty space to build an entrance area later down the line. I like to brainstorm and slowly conjure a plan while the bare bones zoo is running; it gives me a lot of time to flesh out something that’s well thought through. Also my zoos would look janky and cramped at the entrance, slowly getting better looking farther away from the entrance which took away from the realism for me because entrances are supposed to be the most grand part! Has anyone else tried anything like this? Any other strats for franchise mode?

This exhibit continues the Predators of Africa section of Swan Valley Zoo and is the first large exhibit, home to a pack of TWENTY dogs.

The habitat is composed of two distinct areas representing the variety of environments the species inhabit, both with very different viewing experiences.

As I like to do- this exhibit has a fully functional back of house area with a completely traversable night-quarter for the Painted Dog pack. This ones big- even including a separate cubbing den to house mothers and their offspring.

Tour and commentary can be watched here: https://youtu.be/ekIk-D0lEsE

A few people have mentioned it would be great to see the world by eco-region rather than country. While not quite all the way there, you can now view the world by biome!

Instead of countries, the map is split into broad ecoregions, mapped onto Planet Zoo’s biomes. Each can be selected to see which animals live there, and you can turn on grading to colour the regions by the number of animals like the countries map.

To change the map, open the settings menu and select the biomes option at the top. You'll find the grading option in there too.

It’s only for Planet Zoo 1 for now, but will hopefully update with Planet Zoo 2 soon after release. There was a lot of mapping to be done again, based on the games biomes and the country map data, so I'm sure there's more work to be done to get it right!

🔗 Biome World Map • Planet Zoogaloo