Build out a fantastic and visually impressive zoo with Upjers Zoo 2: Animal Park with the help of your granddad by your side. Building on the formula used in My Free Zoo Upjers has revived its zoo tycoon inspired franchise with a sequel that greatly expands the visual design of the game while also offering a larger range of animals.
Like any good tycoon franchise you’ll be building from the ground up as you meet with your granddad to restore the basic zoo infrastructure already in place. While your starting animals feature basic animals such as a horse and rabbits (more akin to a petting zoo) Zoo 2: Animal Park has a wealth of impressive zoo critters to purchase and care for as you progress and in turn attracting guests to their enclosures. These enclosures start as simple grassland (with animals to match) but eventually expand to 6 broader categories such as plains and savanna that allow the more diverse and exotic animal selections. This includes the likes of moose, flamingo, kangaroos, zebra, pandas, peacocks, bears and countless others.
Your first task to reach this pinnacle of zoo business though is cleaning and feeding the animals you start with which also serves as the introduction to a number of the games mechanics. No sooner have you finished the tutorial style instructions the story element of Zoo 2: Animal Park begins with the mayor approaching the player wanting to shut down the zoo and build a shopping mall in it’s place, challenging the player to up visitors if they wish to keep the land in their possession.
To complete this challenge Zoo 2: Animal Park opens up it’s wealth of content to players from this point onwards although there is always a main objective tied closely to the story which gently guides your path to the ultimate zoo along. The storyline itself has a number of twists and turns to keep you feeling engaged with your virtual zoo with the storyline including a range of characters and even threats of poaching. Ultimately though everything comes back to your visitor count with attracting visitors in Zoo 2: Animal Park operating on a basic visitor bar system whereby each new animal or decoration increases the progress bar which once full will attract a new visitor.
This incentive for decorations is a nice touch when compared with other games in the genre where decorations often hinder your progress by sapping away funds without any benefit. Some decorations can only be placed within an enclosure of a specific type as well which allows you to create individual customised habitats for each animal that you adopt.
Zoo 2: Animal Park also features stalls that can be placed at key intersections to attract customers and earn additional coin as they wander the park to reinvest into further expansion. While decorations can be placed instantly on any available space these stalls and other buildings are time limited and take anywhere from minutes to hours to construct.
One other time limited mechanic at play in Zoo 2: Animal Park is baby animals which are created slowly over time within a particular enclosure. Important to note though is that each area has a maximum number of animals it can support which may require you to sell an animal for coins to fit that cute baby panda in your zoo and get the benefit of visitor attraction that it offers.
Between expanding your zoo you’ll find yourself busy with a range of tasks that are completed either through the basic tap or swiping mechanics. The swiping is particularly useful for repetitive tasks such as watering your plants, cleaning up animal enclosures or picking up litter with players able to complete dozens if not hundreds of these actions with a single swipe of their finger (or mouse). This speaks highly to the design decisions of Zoo 2: Animal Park to avoid it being a grindy tap or click based affair as you complete the required daily zoo tasks. Other tasks include fixing broken equipment, stocking up food troughs and refilling water supplies, with less regular activities such as these requiring clicks or taps to action.
Similar tasks are also available in zoos of your friends but encourage exploration of their zoo layout with activities such as stopping crows from eating zoo food, collecting escaped animals or even handing out balloons to sad children. Your reward for engaging in these community themed activities are powerful chests which contain puzzle pieces to unlock items, animals and decorations across a number of rarities. While these unlocking mechanisms are usually poorly implemented Zoo 2: Animal Park balances it out by allowing you to sell any puzzle piece collected in order to purchase others to ensure you have control over what you unlock from the puzzle system.
Overall with its ridiculous amount of game content and friendly game mechanic design Zoo 2: Animal Park offers one of the best browser and mobile tycoon experiences currently available with significant additional appeal to any animal lover thanks to the vast number of animal species to create habitats for.
Summary:
- Impressive array of game content including a vast storyline and hundreds of things to purchase and place into your own zoo environment.
- Build 6 different enclosure types and customise them for each animal with decorations and features.
- Use decorations and baby animals to make your zoo more attractive to visitors and receive instant feedback on your progress to your next zoo visitor.
- Visit the zoos of other players to provide assistance and unlock puzzle pieces for unique buildings, decorations and animals.
- Game mechanics designed to work seamlessly across mobile and web browsers.
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Review Platform: Browser
