Zoo Owner at a glance

To start: $300,000, all of it into the zoo
The animals: 21 species across 7 habitats
The inspector: Every 3–5 years · pass mark 68%
What it leaves: A trust that pays you every year for life

In US dollars. The game shows the same amounts in the money of whichever country you live in.

The Zoo Owner board in OpenLifeSim: a map of the grounds with six enclosures, an $18k-a-year sponsor, a promised snow leopard, the licence at 94% against a 68% pass mark, and visitors, gate, costs and cash with their trends. — Year five: the grounds, a sponsor, a promise still owed, and a licence well above the pass mark.

How a year at the zoo works

The zoo is a map of its grounds. You start with room for 20 and buy more land a parcel at a time, and each parcel costs more than the last. Every animal needs an enclosure for its habitat: a paddock, an aviary, a reptile house, an aquarium, a primate house, a big cat house or a polar habitat. Each habitat needs its own keepers.

You can put up to 16 of your own time points into the zoo each year, on top of everything else your character is doing. You hire keepers for each habitat and staff for the gate, and you either order the feed yourself or let the staff do it.

Rare animals bring the visitors

Goats, parrots and reef fish are cheap, and nobody travels across town to see them. The rarest animals, like a snow leopard, a polar bear or a gorilla, bring in about thirteen times as many visitors. Sometimes a donor pays you up front to get a particular animal within three years. If you deliver, they stay on as a sponsor. If you don't, they want their money back.

It earns while you're away

Every five real minutes, each enclosure drops a coin you can collect, up to five at a time. Cleaning the enclosures helps the animals' welfare, but only up to a point.

Money in and money out

Money comes in from tickets, the shops and sponsors. It goes out on wages, enclosure upkeep, land, feed, loans, the shops themselves and enrichment for the animals, and your own living costs come out of the same account. You can build six shops and attractions, run three kinds of ad campaign, and pick from three loans and three ways to feed the animals.

How a zoo fails

Being a keeper or two short is manageable. Being half-staffed gets bad fast: welfare drops, animals die, and some of them escape. The licence inspector visits every three to five years and needs to see 68%, and failing means a fine. If the zoo stays in the red for more than a year, it closes for good.

You can rearrange the grounds to pack the enclosures closer and free up land, but the zoo is closed for two to four years while the work goes on.

What happens when you stop

After eight years, a zoo that makes a profit, has enough rare animals, keeps them well and hasn't left any donor waiting can be handed to a trust. The trust then pays you a share of the zoo's value every year for the rest of your life, whatever you do next.

Questions

How much money do I need to open a zoo?

$300,000, and all of it goes into the zoo. The special careers open at 16, and you'll have to leave any job or course you're on to take one.

Which animals are in the game?

Goats, deer, zebra and rhinoceros. Parrots, flamingos and an eagle. Snakes, a giant tortoise and a Komodo dragon. Reef fish, an octopus and sharks. Lemurs, chimpanzees and a gorilla. Lions, a tiger and a snow leopard. Penguins and a polar bear.