Hi there! It's been a month since my last video and apologies for the silence, there was a reason! Long overdue, I've had a full overhaul of the starter habitats (PC version). Some were very old and not up to the standard the later ones had achieved. So I started a brand new zoo and scrutinized every habitat in the collection, improving the design, increasing size where needed, I've removed all locked barriers and optimised a few so the build cost is reduced. They're all on the Steam workshop now and added to the collection.
One issue I've had is that I intended to update the originals on Steam, but I've got over 200 blueprints submitted to the workshop, and navigating the blueprint upload pages in game, it would crash every time I needed to move to a new page. So instead I've uploaded as new blueprints. At least that means the old ones are still on there for anyone who prefers those.
Hope those still playing enjoy the upgrade. It's been a bunch of work that's taken a month to see through, at least 200 hours I think!
Other good news, I've recorded the next episode of Every Animal Zoo! Should be a video for that on Saturday.
Adding a very quick update on my work schedule and the absence of Planet Zoo stuff! A project at work has been taking up almost all of my time since start of the year and unfortunately that means I haven't had much time to get into Planet Zoo at all...haven't even opened the game since Jan 14th, which is crazy. I was also holding off heading into the Every Animal Franchise Zoo until the bugs were fixed after the last update, which was confirmed about a month ago.
However, since then my only 'free' day this year has been Sundays, which has been taken up with cleaning and some necessary DIY stuff. I've made a commitment to myself that I won't overstretch and work on videos in the weekday evenings any more, I was doing that a lot 2019-2023 and my health suffered massively for it, leading to a big burn out summer 2023. That time is now spent cooking healthy meals and exercising, which has fixed the health stuff that was making me ill. That said, the work project that's been taking up my time is almost completed, another week at most, so that frees up my weekends again and gives me the time I need to get back into the zoo!
Thank you everyone for your patience, I miss the zoo just as much as you do! Can't wait to get working on it again!
Hey friends, appreciate I've been silent for a while. With the upcoming launch of Planet Zoo Eurasia Animal Pack, I'm ready to tentatively jump back into creating new Planet Zoo videos. However, if you're wondering why I haven't released anything new today, the new pack launch was bad timing for me - I've been away on vacation for 11 days so haven't had any prep time unfortunately! Rest assured I'm working through everything, and do have ideas in motion. Here's a peek what's coming first!
Hi all, just conscious it's been a while since I posted any videos. There's a lot going on at the moment. Without going into too much detail I've been under some pressure at work, and dealing with some medical issues on top of that. It's been a tough few months and mentally, it's affected my capability, drive and motivation to create fun and entertaining videos. I really don't want to give up completely, but currently I've lost whatever it was that pushed me forward to come up with ideas every week. I need to figure out how to get back on track, but have had to admit to myself it's going to take a while to figure it all out. Apologies for the silence, was hoping it was a temporary blip, but think it's going to be a while longer before I'm back in the right headspace to get my creativity back.
No vid today apologies I'm working on penultimate Every Animal episode being out on Tuesday, or next Saturday at the latest. I've built southern cassowary and BOTH hyenas enclosures, but want to get timber wolves in at least before releasing the next one. But! For those asking what I look like, here you go. Nothing grand or posed, light is terrible (just from the PC which is how it mostly is when I'm playing zoo!)
So it's been one of those weeks again. I've been busy with the 'real job', which has left little opportunity to get stuck into zoo stuff this week, so next Every Animal Zoo episode will be dropping a little later than usual (probably Tuesday next week), meaning no new episode tomorrow I'm afraid! 🙁
Happy weekend all! Little update today as there's some changes coming up soon. Firstly, I'm getting very close to finishing Every Animal Zoo! This has been my biggest project to date, and to see the end in sight is amazing but also a little scary! What will I do once it's finished!? There's plans in the works, so things to know:
1) Every Animal Zoo videos will now release on Saturdays. YouTube tells me best time to upload weekly for me is 3pm UTC on a Saturday, so for a while I'm going to take the suggestion! There's 4 maybe 5 videos left before Every Animal Zoo is ultimately complete (until new DLC lol).
2) Every Animal Zoo is going on the workshop. Once the zoo is finished, I'll take a week to make sure it's all looking good, then upload the whole zoo to the workshop. To ensure it's load-able, sandbox settings will be activated (so 'don't die' settings for animals), the zoo will be uploaded closed, and I'll have fired all staff bar 1 set of each of them. By this point the staff management is such a mess, it's not a good idea to upload as is - it's almost unplayable! Better to upload this 'fresh' and in sandbox mode, so at least it's in a state it can be loaded without a million warning notifications!
3) Every Animal habitats going on the workshop. This is going to take a while, but intention is to progressively add individual habitats to the workshop, all the good ones at least! They need tweaking to be workshop-ready though. This will take time! Intention is to set up a new collection, so they're all in one place.
4) Planet Zoo cinematic shorts. With introduction of the cinematic camera in game, this is perfect opportunity to pretend I'm a wildlife videographer! I'm starting a new YT shorts series (first video up later today!), with intention to take quality cinematics of the animals. I know this won't interest everyone, and it concerns me slightly that venturing outside my niche might put some viewers off. As such this series will go up without the 'add to subscriptions feed' and 'notify subscribers' box ticked, so hoping that means those not interested won't be pestered with all these new type of videos going up frequently.
5) New channel art. I last updated the channel art in 2020. It's starting to look a little dated, and I want to rework this to be a bit cleaner, get rid of the pink and go back to my old classic swan logo. I do also need to be mindful that Planet Zoo will potentially become redundant at some future point, so updating the channel art to not be so Planet Zoo-centric is necessary. Only just started playing around with this, but I'm liking the cleaner feel of the teal block colour with the old white swan logo, so will be along the lines of the design in the channel update image below!
6) Last but not least, we're not far off 10k subs! That's a huge milestone for me! I have a video idea to celebrate this milestone, but it's a big ask (FYI adding 10k animals to a zoo is definitely a no-go). I'll give it a go and if it works great! If not, no big deal. Just want to say a huge thank you to everyone that's come along for the ride, I'm honoured so many of you are interested in the nonsense I post!
Quick message for those who are following the Every Animal Franchise Zoo progression every week - I'm flattered some of you look forward to every new episode, thank you! Alas, unfortunately there likely won't be a new episode ready for Tuesday :( It's been a really busy week in my day job and I haven't managed to play Planet Zoo at all this week. Normally I'd have at least 1 or 2 habitats sorted by this point. It's also a pretty busy weekend with other obligations, so first time since I started this series, we're going to have a week out, with next update coming the following Tuesday (30th May). Hope you understand! To compensate, here's the latest top-down view of the zoo so far. We've come a long way! This is 106 species across 100 or so habitats/exhibits!
With the launch of Planet Zoo Tropical Pack, I’ve got a lot of videos to share with you this week! Up first is a showcase of the new content via a tropical diorama, followed by a review of the new animals (ranking them best to worst). Tomorrow, I’ll be sharing four new habitats for the Starter Habitat Series, plus there’s a bonus race video on its way! With all the new stuff, that means there’s a delay on the next Every Animal Franchise Zoo video. Fear not! I’m anticipating next episode will be up over the Easter weekend. Then we’re back to regular scheduling (1 per week) for that series. For the fun of it, here's a sneak peek from the (chaotic as ever) bonus race video! Have a great day!
Celebration time! A nice round number achievement for the channel, all thanks to everyone who has tuned in over the last 4 years. Cheers!
Discovering wholesome chaos in creative and simulation games! Mostly Planet Zoo and Planet Coaster. Home of the Planet Zoo Races!