Update 1.1 – Crops, Edit Mode & Character Creator

Update 1.1

A new character creator, crop growing, Edit Mode, rebuilding your zoo after disasters, bridges over water, colorful paths, and plenty of stability fixes.

🆕 New Features

Character Creator — when starting a new game, you can now choose your character’s gender, hairstyle and hair color, face, outfit, and outfit color. Your appearance is randomized by default, but you can change every element before starting the game.

Crops — a brand-new growing system. Plant a seedling, water it with , let it grow as in-game time passes, then harvest the mature crop for coins. Flower seedlings and vegetables have been added to the game.

Ghosts of destroyed objects — after a disaster, a translucent “ghost” is left behind where a destroyed building, fence, or lamp used to stand. Walk up to it and hold to rebuild it for the same price as in the shop — no more trying to remember what stood where before the tornado hit.

Edit Mode — a new EDIT button on the toolbar lets you move already-placed buildings, fences, trees, and decorations without deleting and buying them again.

Bridges over water — a new way to build: footbridges can now be placed across ponds, allowing the player, guests, and animals to walk over the water.

Glass fence — a third fence type, alongside wood and stone.

Click-and-drag fence building — hold LMB and move the cursor to draw an entire fence line, including corners. The fence is only placed and paid for when you release the button, so you can freely adjust the layout before committing.

7 new path colors — terracotta, honey, granite, basalt, slate, turquoise, and olive, selectable when placing paths.

LOSSES tab in the Animal Shop — shows what you lost and how many times each animal died or was stolen, including the cause (fox, UFO, tornado, neglect, and more), along with a Buy Again button.

Event Log — a new 📋 tile keeps a complete history of your notifications, so messages no longer disappear forever after a few seconds. Clicking a notification — either when it appears or later in the log — moves the camera to the relevant location.

Keyboard shortcuts for the entire HUD — every shop-bar button, the building grid, Event Log, attractiveness/income breakdowns, and minimap now have their own hotkeys, all rebindable under Options → Controls.

Building grid — placement mode now displays a subtle grid, making it much easier to line up fences and buildings.

Fox, donor, influencer, and veterinary inspector on the minimap — they are now much easier to find without searching the entire zoo.

Staff can manage crops — a new specialization allows a staff member to water crop beds and harvest them automatically, with a tooltip explaining how to enable it.

New sounds — around 20 new sound effects have been added.

More clickable notifications — storms, performances, viral events, births, predator kills, ghost-object rebuilding, and intern arrivals now also move the camera to the relevant location when clicked.

CREATOR screen in the main menu — includes a letter from the developer, a photo, and a list of playtesters.

⚖️ Changes & Improvements

The restaurant now serves actual meals — guests enter the building, eat, and pay for a meal once per guest per year, instead of providing an invisible bonus every so often.

All animals can now enter the water and swim on their own — even species that previously did not. How often they feel like taking a dip varies by species.

Player pause (the ` key or ▶ tile) is now a full management mode — you can shop, build, and rearrange your zoo while the world is frozen.

Residents and animals move noticeably faster on paths and bridges — just like the player — and are also more likely to stay on them instead of walking right beside them.

The SELL tab now has filters for species and gender, plus sorting by age, gender, species, and purchase order.

Repeated attractiveness penalties — such as several deaths caused by the same fire — are now grouped into a single row with an “×N” counter instead of filling up the entire panel.

Animal Shop cards now immediately show what can be purchased, as well as how many animals of that species you already have in your zoo.

Staff members and interns now walk in from the edge of the map instead of suddenly appearing next to the player.

After successfully singing to a sad animal, everyone visible on screen joins the dance, not just the nearest neighbors.

Tutorial tips now appear less often and one at a time — the next one will not appear until the previous one has been closed, instead of several popping up in quick succession.

Major performance optimization for crowded zoos — reduced CPU load from animal AI and water-submersion mechanics, resulting in noticeably smoother gameplay with large numbers of animals and guests.

Planting a crop now automatically clears space for it, removing any decorations that would overlap with the crop bed.

Exiting the camera focus from a notification is now more convenient — Esc, RMB, and all work, and an on-screen hint explains how to return.

Event Log: outdated entries are now grayed out more strongly, making it easier to distinguish recent notifications from older history.

The influencer visits the zoo 2× more often.

🐛 Bug Fixes

Fixed the game freezing after a missed Steam Overlay close signal (Shift+Tab) — the game should no longer become permanently stuck.

Fixed rare cases where the game could freeze because of an “orphaned” pause with no owner — these pauses now clear themselves automatically.

Fixed wooden fences and animal beds not catching fire even when placed right next to flames.

Fixed new games sometimes inheriting painted tiles, dirty water, and dug-up decorations from the previous playthrough.

Fixed Delete Mode — the cursor now removes exactly what is underneath it instead of the nearest object “within range” (no more accidentally deleting a fence instead of a path).

Players, animals, and residents who get stuck inside a fence segment can now escape.

Fixed pushing residents — previously they barely moved when shoved; they now react properly.

Fixed an owl that could remain tilted after certain animations.

Fixed bridge railing connections at corners and intersections.

Fixed the locomotive appearing visually disconnected from the train cars.

Fixed unwanted audio in the main menu — removed background market-simulation sounds that could sometimes play for no reason.

Fixed animal sound volume not decreasing with distance from the player.

Fixed canceling construction with RMB when the cursor was positioned over the HUD bar.

Fixed residents freezing when stuck on the corner of a fence.

Fixed animals shaking while swimming in small ponds.

Fixed unnatural movement of the kookaburra and UFO saucer at accelerated game speed.

Turkeys no longer grow to unrealistically gigantic sizes.

Fire now destroys seedlings immediately instead of turning them into a destroyed “building” waiting to be repaired.

Improved crop shadows and the visuals for several growth stages, including corn, pumpkins, and strawberries.

Thanks for playing and for reporting bugs — keep letting us know what else we should improve!