Zoo Is Where The Heart Is - **Zoo Re opened**

[gutterman]

Have you ever wanted to own or work in a zoo? I have. Ever since I was a young boy I dreamed of getting in the tycoon that is running my very own zoo. It wasn't an easy road to get there let me tell you, I had some ups and a lot of downs. But now I own a huge piece of land and have a crapload of money to spend on it. Hoping to turn this into an investment, I will be looking to hire staff to help with the running of the zoo. Already i have had countless interviews and have come up trumps on that, so I now turn my attention to Planet Cricket hoping that my endeavour there wont be without success.

Backstory
I owned my first petting zoo at the age of 12 with the help of my mother and my sister, Steph. It had started out well we were making some money and attracting alot of people young and old. But it wasn't until the business agency shut us down and fined us all our profits. However, I didn't give up hope, I kept my head up even if my mother and sister couldn't. I knew i had to be the strong one in the family as my father had walked out on us for another woman when i was 8, so I tried my best to take his place at the head of the family. it wasn't easy mind you. About two years later I got back on the horse and opened up another petting zoo. This time i made sure no dodgy business agencys would shut us down for trying to make a living. This time the zoo was going really well until my mother got really sick and was left to stay in hospital until she finally let go and passed. Steph and I had to shut down the zoo and sell of all the animals, for health reasons.

After that we started to have a run of bad luck. No one wanted to sponsor our cause to open up yet another petting zoo. It wasn't until our mother's will had come through that our luck changed. We had inherited quite a large sum of money that neither of us knew mum had stashed away. It was by this time we both started to study up on the prospect of owning and running a proper zoo. We decided maybe it was time to go big, complete the dream as such. We were just about ready to start up again when we had another setback. Our father had just died. That just completely halted our dream. I was forced to live with my dad's parents while Steph fought to get sole guardianship of me until I turned 18. It was strenuous three months for both of us but she had won the trial and now became my guardian.

I continued school while my sister worked part time at a nearby retailer just to get money to pay all the bills. I mean we had money but Steph thought that if we kept using our inheritance money we would have nothing left for our dream. I could see her point. So whilst I studied hard at school in business and back then there was a subject call zoo-ology, Steph was taking care of all the bills. It wasn't long however before I got the chance to work in a zoo. At first it was just temporary to see how I could cope with day to day life in a zoo environment, but then it became more permanent with each day that passed by. The owners were constantly giving out rewards to those of us who worked hard each day. I think there a was a period of about three months straight every member at the zoo ended up taking home cash rewards.

Steph on the other hand had gotten into accounting so that she could take care of all the financial stuff and i would be taking care of the actual running of our zoo. Some time had passed and I hit the age of 25, Steph turning 31 and about to have her second child with her husband. I had only just split up with my most recent girlfriend of 4 years and decided it was time to live the dream. We put our money together bought a wonderful piece of land and now we still have the hard task of getting staff to work for us, well no that seems too I'm the boss and you're my pawn doesn't it. How about we say to work with us, Yeah that's better.

I would Like to try to make this story as interactive as possible and would like you to join my staff it is very easy to join all you need to do is fill out this application:
For example
Name: Brendan Gutteridge
Position: Zoo keeper

Positions available are as follows:
Zookeepers
Zookeepers are the sole carers for the animals in their exhibits. Tasks include: feeding, grooming and general house keeping. A very popular choice as zookeepers get to spend alot of time with their selected animals.
Maintenance Workers
Maintenance Workers are the heart and sole of keeping the Zoo in top notch condition. Their Tasks Include: Fence Fixing, emptying rubbish bins, keeping toilets clean and sweeping the paths. Not the most popular of choices but nonetheless a very rewarding job in the end
Educators
Educators Have the opportunity to meet our visitors and educate them on our animals and take them on a journey of enlightenment. Hopefully their knowledge will allow our guests to appreciate the work we are doing in conserving and protecting our beloved creatures. Just the one task of Educating the guests. A rather simple task but one for those who like to hit the books and learn everything there is to know about our cause.
Trainers
A rather enjoyable job choice as you get to work with our marine life. Putting on shows with creatures like killer whales or dolphins is very rewarding task. Your tasks include teach our marine friends how to do tricks and make them famous.
Paleontologists
Paleontologists are very peculiar people. They our fossils diggers and once they find a fossil theyll take it to our research lab to create an extinct animal. It maybe the Illustrious Dodo that made itself extinct by falling off cliffs in "ICE AGE"
Only kidding. Also Paleontologists are expert educators when it comes to our extinct world.
Entertainers
Last but not least our version of the clowns. This bunch of people have the sole repsonsibility of making sure our guests are enjoying themselves but not too much. Choice of Dinosaur or Saber tooth Cat as these wacky performers bring high morale into what can be a hectic day at work

If you would like to take part all you have to do is fill out the above application and we'll go from there.
P.s. It would be nice to not have everyone just choose the zoo keepers as I would like to have some variety in staff.



Zookeepers
User2010
Covvy
Abhishek Sharma
Aidan Callegari
Aditya

Trainers
Varun

Paleontologists
Jono
Hedger

Maintainence Workers
Bigg E
Joe Hall

Educators
Bevab
Meet

Entertainers
Alvin Raymond


I apologise for the amount of writing I know it can get very hard to read so much.

EDIT: i will be playing this on Zoo tycoon 2

 

[Chewie]

Wow nice write up man

This looks like it will be an interesting story.

What do we have to do if we pick someone, or is it more that you just need some names?

 

[gutterman]

Basically atm all you have to do is put in your name and what position you would like to be. like if you wanted to be a zoo keeper or a maintenance worker. thats what youd be in the game. cos i can change the names of the staff and animals.
So in other words your involvement at the moment will applying for a job as such. but once i get it started the involvement will gradually become greater as the story goes on

One thing i forgot to mention in the zoo keeper job description. You get to name your own animals that you are assigned to. I feel that way it makes it a more personal bond between zoo keeper and animal

 

[Gaurav_7]

Name: User2010
Position: Zoo keeper

Brilliant! Loved the backstory. I'm already very excited about this. I played Zoo Tycoon 2 demo version but couldn't get along with it as we couldn't save the game in it unlike Zoo Tycoon demo. I now only play Zoo Tycoon.

 

[gutterman]

You're Hired

The second one takes a little time to get used to. i like the 1st one better cos in the complete collection there is alot more animals and the size of the zoo you can have is bigger, but 2 also has some better features with its interactivity

 

[Covvy]

Name: Covvy
Position: Zoo keeper

This could be very interesting! Great story so far, good luck and I hope this goes far.

 

[Varun]

Name : Varun
Position : Trainer

I love marine life. And this looks like a promising story, best of luck for this.

 

[Chewie]

Name: Jono
Position: Paeleontologist

 

[hedger_14]

Name: Hedger
Position: Paleontologist

 

[gutterman]

Awesome i can now start working on my first update. ill start it a bit later tonight. Ill be posting updates as each month (in game) passes. there will be screens and a write up of how each month went describing who did what and when and such.

just as a side note the first few updates will be about how the zoo starts up so dont expect yourselves to be in it straight away. but bear in mind you will get put in at some stage. i have few ideas in mind for how and when i introduce you guys into the story.
Hope that made sense

 

[Bevab]

Name:Bevab
Position:Educator
Gender:Male

 

[gutterman]

i didnt ask for gender but good to know

 

[gutterman]

With the new section of land available to me, I set about spending some money. While Steph and her husband, Darren were out searching for Zoo hopefuls, I went about getting the construction started for the guest entrance and front seating areas. Fortunately, I didn't have to dig into my own pocket to pay for the construction as the Government had given me a small cash Grant of $50,000. One of my most trusted friends oversaw the entrance construction whilst I set about planning out the front seating areas. I was going to have two food courts one to the left and one to the right of the entrance but i quickly discarded that idea and went with a small food court to the left.

To the right, however, I planned for a slightly larger seating area with a large restroom. Cornering both areas would be ATM Machines for added convenience. With the ongoing construction this early on I was beginning to wonder whether I hold the grand opening until we had a few exhibits or push it further back until we had established a small zoo. That decision would have to be made at a later time, I really needed this front end done as soon as possible. After the first two weeks we had made solid progress. The Entrance was almost done and the seating areas were getting started.

Before long though, there was a slight hiccup with the location of some of the local flora. Thinking quickly and a little hot headedly, I called up our local nature conservationist asking whether or not we could relocate some trees that were misfortunate enough to be smack bang middle of proceedings. Luckily the conservationist was understanding and made me promise to 3 to every 1 tree i remove. Of course I would agree to it. Now with that little disaster averted, construction could continue.

We were starting to look ahead of schedule, so using my brilliant brain, I opted to have a compost unit built in one of the far corners of the zoo. Thinking of the money we would get from recycling it, oh and for the environment too, of course. With the month of January coming to a close I decided to finish off the front end with two Staff Outpost directly opposite each other. Don't ask why as even I don't have a clue I just did it. One of those spur of the moment things, you know.

January 31 and the front end complete, a week ahead of schedule, even with my added extras AND money left over from the cash grant. Not bad for a months worth of work, ay. Later that day i received a phone call from Steph asking how much money I had spent. Funny how she waited till the end of the month to ask. Even she was impressed by the workload and how much of the cash grant we had left, knowing full well I like to spend big when it comes to doing the things I enjoy. Here is a look at what our Account stands at. Bare in mind though, our actual money isn't displayed because that is a little private to share.

Back at Steph's house, she went into detail at how well she thought she had done in getting people to work with us. She got excited by the fact that six people were interested and she wanted to hire them all. So without hesitation we sat down together and looked at each applicants profile. I liked what I saw and, you could say I immediately agreed, but that would seem like and understatement. We both had to call the six applicants telling them they had all been accepted and were required to do a training course the first week of February. Even I will be doing the training, as being part owner I need to understand everything, from health, hygene to the behaviours required around raising the animals we exhibit.

We are very much looking forward to the near future as it will bring great reward for our hard work.

 

[AbhishekS]

Name: Abhishek Sharma
Position: Zoo keeper

 

[Chewie]

Great updates, your writing is near perfect, and the storyline is extremely interesting. Keep it up mate!