Classic of the Month - Zoo Keeper

Manufacturer:	Taito
Developer:	Taito
Genre:	Puzzle/Platform
Board:	Dedicated
Year:	1982

Last month I finally finished reading Yann Martel's highly praised novel, Life of Pi, which, as I'm sure many of you know, features zoo animals in an unconventional setting (to put in mildly). Such is my retro gaming nature, this reminded me of Taito's Zoo Keeper from 1982.

The plot of many games from the 80s and 90s was to rescue your girlfriend from some peril or another and surprisingly, Zoo Keeper has the same overall objective. Animals are breaking out of their enclosures, so Zeke the zoo keeper must wall them back in and rescue his beloved Zelda, before something terrible befalls her.

Zoo Keeper is very much in the puzzle/platform genre, but there is a surprising amount of variety for a game of this period. On the first level most of the animals are contained within a fairly sturdy compound. However, they are bashing against the walls of their compound and will eventually escape, at which point they they prowl around the perimeter. Zeke's task is to run around this perimeter and rebuild the wall (which happens automatically). Every time you run over a section of the wall it gets thicker, so it's possible to focus of different areas depending on the level of threat. If an escaped animal gets in your way you have to leap over them, which also earns you points. Thankfully nets periodically appear on the play field, so it's possible to recapture the escapees. Keep this up until the timer runs out and you'll get a bonus for every captive animal. Each animal (elephant, snake, camel, rhino, moose and lion) is worth a different amount of points. In classic gaming style, the more points any animals is worth, the bigger the threat they are. Elephants are only worth 250 points, because they are slowest and as such the easiest to jump and capture (ignore the fact in real like they are mahoosive), while lions are worth 30,000 points, because they are the fastest and they jump, making it harder for Zeke to jump over them himself.

The next level follows this formula, but this time the initial wall is thinner, which means you have to work much, much faster to contain the animals. Things change on the third level, which is like a cross between Donkey Kong and Frogger. Zeke has to make his way up a series of moving platforms to rescue Zelda, who's being held prisoner by an ape. This ape is also lobbing coconuts your way, just to make the job of navigating the platforms all the harder. Succeed and you'll get a extra life.

Survive this and the fourth level goes back to the original formula, minus the starting wall. This level becomes much more about leaping over the escaped animals as it is about containing any additional animals that appear. After this the levels alternate between building walls around escaped animals and leaping up platforms to rescue Zelda from an ape. However, there is another level type that appears less often. On these levels you have to run along platforms and up escalators to rescue (you guessed it) the missus from all of the animals prowling around.

The video below shows a guy who is far, far better at the game than I ever was (to be honest, I never knew about the escalator levels until I saw this vid). It's a bright and colourful game and the animals are all surprisingly detailed for the period.

MTW