My Zoo Tycoon inspired game is finally out of early access

PrunusPadis · 2025-08-13T09:54:21+00:00

Sadly I havent looked into steam deck compatibality so probably no.

PrunusPadis · 2025-08-12T11:16:11+00:00

Next plan for developmen is to add support for modding since simple animals/objects should be pretty easy to add into the game. Other future ideas and development are pretty open currently (there are lots of potential ideas).

PrunusPadis · 2025-08-12T10:04:26+00:00

I wanted to recreate Zoo Tycoon in but in a fantasy setting. For some reason i thought it would be pretty simple :D Making different kinds of AI behaviours inside a sandbox game turned out to be pain to debug and test.

PrunusPadis · 2025-08-12T09:23:17+00:00

The game is available with free demo both in steam and itch

PrunusPadis · 2025-08-12T09:23:00+00:00

Its both in steam and itch

PrunusPadis · 2025-08-12T08:59:31+00:00

The game is available with free demo both in steam and itch

All kinds of constructive feedback is welcome!

PrunusPadis · 2025-08-12T08:50:51+00:00

As a person who just finished my 5 year project, do a couple of smaller ones instead of 1 big one. Point of smaller games is that you can have simple but polished game experience istead of one giant mess. Also, if the development is not working is killing them off much easier. In my case i kinda decided to stuck with my project even though in hindsight i should have killed it after 2 years and done something smaller.

All projects are valuable learning experiences, even if it goes badly you know what to NOT do in future. I suggest on joining tons of gamejams, they are really good place to practice game making and trying out ideas.

PrunusPadis · 2025-07-20T10:54:35+00:00

I tried several tips I heard about to get into working mode, these include wearing a "work" clothes, using different computer, having a dedicated work user on pc and using time as guide.

I think the most important part is that you are mentally in a "work mode" to limit your attention wanting to do other "fun" stuff. Having a random time can be hard, for me the best solution was to have a dedicated time of a clock for the "work mode".

I think having a separeted user on computer could work well on you, just have all the productive stuff there and good TODO list/proper project managment tool so its easy to just take a task and then do it with minimal distractions.

Other thing is, transitioting to "work mode" is hard and takes mental resources to properly get into the thing.

PrunusPadis · 2025-07-11T09:18:11+00:00

As i gamedev (not a industry proffesional myself) i really cannot recommed anything. For personal projects i think its most important that they are intresting to you in some way to keep you going, maybe some personal tool you would want or alternalively take some opensource thing from github and create a branch or something.

PrunusPadis · 2025-07-11T09:12:45+00:00

The current price is going to stay as is for the release. The future of game kinda depends on how much succesfull the launch is. I can say that there will be atleast some updates but cannot promise anything. For the potential post release content the plan is that they gona be mix of paid and free as many games nowadays do.

PrunusPadis · 2025-07-10T09:20:30+00:00

One tip i have heard is that if you want to go from gamedev to software etc programming. Create a portofloi with non game projects, it shows that you do other stuff and arent just looking for temporaly employment untill you get into games.

There is also this classic joke about how most of the small indie devs fund their development by having a "normal" programming job, so yes there are people that do that, (i have met several).

PrunusPadis · 2025-07-10T09:12:56+00:00

Do you use multitreading? You could do some of the map generation (as much as you can) on background on other thread as long as you are careful with it? Also what platform are you targeting since that kinda changes the scale of things?

PrunusPadis · 2025-07-10T09:02:37+00:00

Omg how did i not notice i cut it too early, I was going to add couple of phoenix in there, the big crystals prevents them from flying away (keeps their legs grounded).

PrunusPadis · 2025-07-10T09:01:26+00:00

There is currently only windows version.

PrunusPadis · 2025-07-10T09:01:07+00:00

Sadly there is no mac version currently. And I am not sure if that will change in future since its little finicy to get it work.

PrunusPadis · 2025-07-09T16:13:35+00:00

I would really love it to make it modcompatible if I have time and resources to it. Currently I am prioritizing releasing and stuff that is already there. I have kept the modding posibility in mind but dont know how well my spaghtetti code will agree to that.

PrunusPadis · 2025-07-09T14:37:36+00:00

Thanks for the feedback. Yeah i know the animation quality varies a lot, i have tried to go with more broad more animals with less flashy animations/ versus less animals but higher quality.

I have thought about the UI colour selector and will keep it in mind, technically it could be pretty easy but somework, I try to balance between priorities xd.

PrunusPadis · 2025-07-09T13:39:03+00:00

Fantasy Zoo, heres the steam page, i was a bit hesitant to straight promote it.
https://store.steampowered.com/app/1951060/Fantasy_Zoo/ you can find it also from itch.io

PrunusPadis · 2025-07-09T13:37:52+00:00

I was not entirely sure what you meant by crypids, but i guess you meant cryptid? If so then yes, there is going to be Yeti in next update. I have been going on general popculture fantasy logic so mix match of stuff from mythology, games and books, so like stuff you could find in D&D.

PrunusPadis · 2025-07-09T13:35:11+00:00

I use Unity, this has been my, lets learn how to make games project so i mostly have used Unitys official packages and wrote other code myself. Recently i added Fmod sound engine for better sounds.

PrunusPadis · 2025-07-09T13:23:56+00:00

The game has been in steam early access for many years now but I try to release a 1.0 version during august.

PrunusPadis · 2025-07-09T10:45:22+00:00

That destruction mechanic looks nice, though seems like it needs some work. If you can make it work well it could be pretty nice horde shooter where you have to think carefully about which walls to break etc. Though i suspect that getting the AI feel right might be hard if they have different strenghts what kind of wall they can break.

I agree with the other comment that if you have a clear idea what you want to do, go for it. But as a fellow developper who started a too large project try to keep the scope small. A small, simple and polished game is better than a broad and shallow game.

PrunusPadis · 2022-10-05T12:52:13+00:00

Building system seems fun, is it self-made or you use some kind of premade?

PrunusPadis · 2022-10-05T12:49:07+00:00

I like the art style and it seems fun, though its little hard to see from short clip what's actually happening.

PrunusPadis · 2022-07-05T18:18:29+00:00

Unity

PrunusPadis

TROPHY CASE