Let's Build a Zoo News

Hey everyone! We're thrilled to bring you TWO announcements! We've got a FREE update for you AND a MAMMOTH DLC, coming on May 26th!

LET'S GET PREHISTORIC! We're super excited to bring you Let's Build A Zoo: Dinosaur Island! We had such a great time with Let's Build A Zoo, and so the team have been working really hard to bring you dinosaur lovers this super cute DLC, and we can't wait for you to get your hands on it!

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]

You can expect to find a bunch of new things in Dinosaur Island, including:

- A brand new campaign with more quests and even more moral choices
- Over 50 NEW animals and dinosaurs
- 110+ NEW shops and decorations
- NEW enclosure types for your new arrivals



Our announcements don't end there! Alongside Dinosaur Island, if you already own Let's Build A Zoo, we're bringing you a free update with even more content for you to enjoy!

The biggest thing we're adding in this update, which we know lots of you have been asking for, is CONTROLLER SUPPORT! The team wanted to make sure this was perfect, and we're at a stage where we're really pleased with it! So grab your controller, sit back and let's breed some weird and wacky crossbreeds!

Alongside controller support, we're also adding Staff Gates! Got some super-secret areas in your zoo that you only want staff to access? No problem! Only staff will be able to pass through these gates, and so will be off-limits to guests. Now you won't have to worry about anyone 'accidentally' finding that bacon factory you've got hidden away...

Aside from these, you can expect to find new fruit trees to plant and use, improvements to the storeroom, a whole host of localization fixes, AND we've added Poop Storage and a Dung Diary! You can use the Dung Diary to keep track of all the different animal poops you've discovered while playing. Collectors, you might need to pull up a stool for this one...

We can't wait for you to get your hands on Dinosaur Island and our free update on May 23rd! In the meantime, join our Discord at discord.gg/letsbuildazoo to keep up with the latest news and updates as we bring them to you!

See you there, ranger!

Springloaded & No More Robots

Hey there everyone, welcome to another HUGE UPDATE for Let's Build a Zoo! The team have been wanting to add water for a little while but wanted to make sure it was special, not just another floor tile for you to use. We're all super proud of their efforts, and with this new patch, your animals will be able to take a little dip, have a little splash and be thoroughly entertained and enriched by any water features you add to their enclosures!



Here is what's new, including some fixes and lots of new content. Bear with us, it's a long list!

[h3]Patch Notes for 1.1.9_4
[/h3]

• Made a new water system – Animals will need as much as 90% less enrichment if they have access to lakes! (Some animals like water more than others do, but you get to figure that out)
  
• Made animals jump in and out of water (enjoy!!)
  
• Fixed a broken quest line for Kathleen and added the unlockable Final End News to the Newspaper Journal
  
• Fixed the number not updating for the population manager building UI when a pen is destroyed
  
• Fixed visitors using several subway teleports in a row
  
• Tweaked pathfinding to give better pathing
  
• Fixed a pathfinding memory leak (this time for good!)
  
• Fixed the pen builder trying to build through subways
  
• Added a nice forest below the zoo
  
• Added a ‘back’ button to the character select/ zoo naming screen
  
• Fixed the prices changing for pens – no more weird profits!
  
• Added zoning for Farmers and Crop Pickers
  
• Added a red/blue outline in Animal Selection to easily show gender
  
• Added arrows to cycle through CRISPR and Breeding buildings
  
• Added a highlight around variants being bred in the Breeding Management screen to highlight different variants easier
  
• Added a Pen Summary View showing ALL your pens – Access it by hitting the Y key!
  
• Added a checkbox to apply salary changes and bonuses to all employees of that type
  
• Added a gender icon to animals in the Pen > Animals list
  
• Changed text when moving farms – it no longer calls them pens
  
• Fixed the population manager showing a pen not in your lists – it now also does partial donations if you’re missing the money to donate them all!
  
• Lowered the time it takes to hire a geneticist, and converted the time into days if over 24 hours
  
• Added sorting in the Animal Selection menu – you can now sort by Age, Gender and Variant
  
• Cleared up the quest stamps
  
• Set the nutrition building to auto-order food as soon as the first one is built
  
• Fixed a crash where moving a farm would put trash out of bounds
  
• Added a small info panel on zoning maps for pens
  
  
  
  
• Fixed the Sewage Recirculators – these were not counting properly
  
• Edited the utilities panel to make Sewage Recirculators and Electricity Siphon’s use more clear
  
• Fixed the ‘apply to all’ checkbox that wasn’t applying extra ingredients across shops. Also fixed it not applying settings to new shops built.
  
• Fixed the water heat map – it was getting confused when moving water troughs and then cancelling the move again
  
• Cancelled heat maps if you’re building – this should make placing bins much easier!
  
• Fixed the undertakers not picking up corpses from edited pens
  
• Fixed an issue where the abattoir worker would get stuck and wouldn’t know which direction to go in
  
• Fixed up the light calculations (hopefully no more silly numbers - e.g. if item 1 is 40% and item 2 is 10%, item 2 would have counted as 50%, making the total 90% instead of 50%!)
  
• Fixed a bug where ratings (light, deco and facility) were one step behind after destroying items
  
• Fixed the Choco Vending Machine not giving facility points
  
• Removed frame saying ‘+0 animals space’ when converting pen to robot animals
  
• Added Lake category to the research tree
  
• Fixed an inconsistency in going backwards through the enrichment menus
  
• Added notifications on the left for battery and nursery animals that have stopped production
  
• Fixed item descriptions when building through the pen menus
  
• Added a Water Decorations category when building pens
  
• Updated the building counter in the collection summary
  
• Improved logic for choosing breeding pairs in the nursery – we’ll be avoiding pregnant animals and prioritising lifespan from here on out!
  
• Fixed where ‘Arctic’ is misspelt as “Artic”
  
• Made night-time slightly less dark (and have banished the terrors)
  
• Allowed click out of building mode for pens more easily
  
• Fixed the French translation sometimes showing
• in places
  
• Fixed transport sometimes not unlocking properly
  
• Clamped ‘cash held’ display in the save summary
  
• Changed the building code for rotations – offset snap/jump is now fixed!
  
• Changed the way the pen builder blocks the mouse when trying to build over a pen or farm
  
• Fixed an end of week camera lock bug
  

Phew, that was a lot! There are a lot of changes in there that we know folks were looking for, and the team are excited to start work on the next update that may be smaller, but it is something you've wanted for a while!

We'll see you then!

This update takes care of several issues, while we work towards our next major update.

• Fixed Keeper blocked issue when trying to internal navigate in some pen situations (there may still be issues, however we are trying to fix them as we find them)
  
• Fixed unlocking all enrichment when using the sandbox cheat (existing saves using the cheat will be updated)
  
• Made animal selection UI less clunky (now requires less clicks)
  
• Fix crash when trying to rotate and place For Sale sign
  
• Changed work ethic to no longer be reliant on the hidden stat combination of determination
• frustration, now all employee stats are visible to the player, and work ethic directly shows "determination" and no longer changes over time.
  
• Fixed bug where seasoning value would reset to 0 when moving a shop
  
• Fixed a rare bug where factory processing times would sometimes go to extremely high values
  
• Fixed crash if you destroyed a CRISPR building and tried to clicked track on the CRISPR notification that points to a non-existent animal.
  
• Fixed bug where floor volumes could still be painted while critical choice notifications are still on screen.
  
• Added additional code to the breeding building system, to try and stop a hard to replicate crash reported by the community
  

[h2]Hey everyone!

It's time for the Let's Build a Zoo ZOO OF THE YEAR 2021 results
[/h2]



We've been chatting about these amazing zoos through December, and we're in awe of your skills!!

A VERY big thank you to everyone who uploaded zoos for us to marvel at - we've loved seeing everyone's creations and can't wait to see what the new year brings too!

Before we get stuck into our winners, a MASSIVE thank you to you as a community! To everyone who has submitted a bug report or feature request, made a video, streamed the game, drawn up some fan art, shared their zoo creations, commented on some LBaZ content, told a friend... THANK YOU! It's been a whirlwind of a year for the team, and no one can quite believe the reaction! Thank you for staying with us and playing our game, you've been incredible to chat to and watch over the last few months!!



A special shout out to @welshpixie as well, who has been an incredible help with all manner of zoo-based goings-on. She's been an incredible help (and her guide on Steam is great!)

Now let's announce the winners

OUR WINNERS ARE:

4) ZORBONI - Zorboni's Zoo

3) NEOBUN - Neobun's Zoo

2) RIPLEY - Ripley's Zoo

And the 2021 ZOO OF THE YEAR is:

1) WOINGS with their MIDDLE EARTH ZOO - https://imgur.com/a/KgYY9Yq

Last but not least, thank you all for participating this year, it's been a real blast! We'll be back with you in the new year for even more fun and games =]



Have a lovely Christmas and a Happy New Year

Hey everyone! We've been feeling pretty FESTIVE these last few weeks and so wanted to make sure the next update was full of good tidings and cheer. So here it is, welcome to

[h2]THE CHRISTMAS TURKEY UPDATE!
[/h2]
There are so many fixes and new bits of content that the community have been asking for in here, so I hope you enjoy diving back in!



Here are the highlights:

[h3]
• Sandbox mode[/h3]
  A brand new way to play! Access a second zoo by unlocking a different island on the world map screen. Try out some new layouts and build some fancy buildings, your zoo is your oyster!
  
  Two new buildings in sandbox mode
  To go with Sandbox Zoos, there are two buildings to provide you with infinite money and immortal animals!
  
  [h3]
• New wintery animals![/h3]
  Goat, Turkey, Sheep and Mink can all be traded in the new Greenland Zoo - head there to grab yourself some new wintery friends! These animals all have genomes to collect and can be sent to the CRISPR building!
  
  [h3]
• Population management [/h3]
  The team have added a staff member and building to the research tree to help manage your populations better! This, we hope, will be especially useful to those of you with big zoos!
  
  [h3]
• Nutritionist Staff [/h3]
  Also new to the research tree is the Nutritionist, who will automatically order your animals' food supplies for you! Another win for very big zoos!
  
  [h3]
• New factories for you naughty evil players[/h3]
  These are all to do with our new animals! We have the fur factory, turkey factory, wool battery and goat battery.
  
  [h3]
• New farms for good players too! [/h3]
  To support farmers grabbing our new animals, we've got a wool farm and goat dairy
  
  [h3]
• New Shops[/h3]
  Looking at our new animals and wintery theme, we've got the turkey stand, cocoa cafe and bakery, winter wear shop and goat cheese deli.
  
  [h3]
• Christmas tree pack[/h3]
  (it wouldn't be Christmas without them!)
  
  [h3]
• A New Advanced Settings Screen [/h3]
  This will allow you to fiddle with some of our more experimental settings for an easier playing experience! It includes: disabling flashing effects, blocking character emotes, unlocking the framerate. It also has some experimental features: disable layer sorting and tile list optimization.

WHEW! Another big update! Thanks again for playing and sharing your feedback, we're excited to hear all about how you find this update!

Merry Christmas and a happy festive season to you all!

Springloaded and No More Robots xoxoxo