★★★★★ Simple tile matching game with a lot of personality…
Tue Oct 12 2021 Buckshot OMallyThis formula can appear stale on its surface but Zookeeper injects a lot of humor and stylized graphics into the game to keep it interesting. The goal of building up your zoo provides a fun little break from the gameplay and you can easily get lost in arranging animal habitats or decorative furniture in the hopes of increasing your rank.
The game is fun but still challenging. You match in order to meet tile quotas, and you’re restricted in the amount of moves you can make (which can get annoying, but I get it). Only gripe I have is that every obstacle is basically a derivation of “you can’t move this tile” whether it’s a wall, a rock, mud, a cage, vines, ice etc. they are all obstacles in the truest sense of the word and get old quick. Still the best thing the devs have done is that no matter how challenging the game doesn’t let you stagnant for too long, and I get the impression it nudges you with bonuses to keep the momentum. What I would love to see implemented is a quick “retry” button because sometimes you know for a fact you won’t have enough moves left to complete the quota and honestly it’s a waste of time continuing because nothing really counts if you lose.
Still with all that being said the reason I gave it 5 stars is because despite its shortcomings, of which there are few, and however frustrating they may be, I always forget about them and come back to the game regardless and keep playing because it does a good job of making you feel like you’re progressing.
★★★★★ Fun but few annoyances
Thu Nov 11 2021 HeftybagsThank you for adding more levels, features and fixing bugs. Updated to 5 stars original review below.
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It's a well done matching puzzle game we all know how that works and it works well so I'll skip repeating all the pros that's mentioned on reviews for this and similar games. Instead I'll get right the couple annoying bits. 1. No restart level in the pause menu. This is really annoying if you're not going to beat the level you either have to finish a losing game or give up and go back to the main game and start the process all over of getting back to the same puzzle. If playing old levels to get the star this is a lot of extra actions to get back to that level. 2. When starting a level you get a screen with your objectives and a start button. After hitting the start button there is another screen over the puzzle for a few seconds that shows the objectives again and when starting the puzzle the objectives are on the side. We get it. Please remove the yellow objective screen after hitting start it really slows the game down.
★★★★★ Killed by over dependence on luck
Sun Oct 17 2021 Porce314Maybe it’s a hang up of the genre but you can play the same level and one time not pass it m, the next time pass it with a crazy amount of moves left. Luck and strategy have little to do with most levels as it depends almost completely on luck, which pieces drop, where the star goes (I’ve had it hurt me more than help). And there’s no fast restart. So when you can tell early on that you have no hope of clearing something due to rng, you either have to play through anyway, or back out and go back through menus to start over. Could be very fun, but as is it’s a frustrating mess and basically a pretty UI slapped on a dice roll.
Update, they put out an update that’s somehow EVEN MORE dependent on luck. I’m not sure if they were trying to make a social commentary on how life is just unfair and no matter how hard you try or what moves you make you just cannot win. If it’s not trying to make a social commentary then it’s just a really bad game. Especially since there is somehow STILL not a reset button, so when you see you are hosed with no possible way to win but have 9 moves left (yes, some of their latest levels are so bad that this happens a lot) you can’t just restart still. How?!? You have to back out, tell it you’re sure you’re backing out, and then go back to selecting a level again and wait for more animations. I tried to give it a shot, but had to uninstall it. If you want a game as good as this one, get yourself a coin and toss it. You’ll have better luck guessing a coin toss than playing this game.
★★★★★ I love this game!
Sun Jun 25 2023 Jbanana9I love this game so much!! I play every day in the evenings. It’s become my favorite way to unwind and relax. Like many others, I’m maxed out on levels and expansions because I enjoy playing so much, but I 100% don’t care…I’m happy to replay levels! I LOVE that this doesn’t have in-app purchases- it makes it so much more enjoyable to me because I know that on levels where I’m struggling, I’ll eventually make it past, whereas other games intentionally make levels you can’t pass without spending money. I love that you can spend gems on upgrades. I love the daily and weekly challenges where you can earn tickets and that you can buy swag and gems with them. I love the mix between puzzle games and zoo-building! I love that you can’t buy extra time on puzzles (that would make it too easy and take the fun out of it.) I love the little mini arcade games as a fun switch-up sometimes. To me, this game is perfect. ❤️
★★★★★ Love but…
Tue Mar 22 2022 WingeddelinquentI’m as crazy about this cute, addictive game as anyone. I especially love how fun it usually is, even when replaying a level for the zillionth time (sometimes after I’ve already beaten it!). As others have said though, I wish coins could be used to buy gems, because once you’re past a certain zoo level you run out of room and the coins are useless anyway. Whereas you will burn through gems to get buffs needed to replay & beat certain levels, even in the special Easter & Xmas events. I’m stuck on a boss level of both events (50 & 45 respectively) and until you add more levels to the main game, I’m sad that I can’t keep playing. I also wish I could move animals between habitats and more predictably move my little zookeeper. The perspective shifting is just silly. I’m playing on iPhone only and just read that fewer controls exist in this format :/
★★★★★ Very fun but a few suggestions
Mon Jul 31 2023 ✨🎀EMILIA🎀✨Hi! This game is the most funniest and most addictive game I’ve ever played! But I have some suggestions to improve the app. First of all, can you make the characters walk in the grass? The only way they can go on the grass is by going on the slide and going on the swings. For my second suggestion I want to earn things from the shop a little more faster. I’m now at level 255 and I have to complete 15 more levels just to get a reward to display in the Zoo. My final 3rd is to win the Ferris Wheel a little more faster. It is kinda impossible to get and hard to display. But I also have a concern… when I was at Rank 15 it let me use the go out feature but now it doesn’t anymore. If you can fix this then thanks a lot! I love playing the game and I’m not disappointed at all!
★★★★★ Fun game but…
Wed Sep 27 2023 abcJAPXYZIt’s a really fun game, it’s whimsical and entertaining. I like that’s it has a different take on this style of puzzle game compared to the competitors. The mini games are challenging and fun too, but I notice a couple flaws that’s stand out to me that turn me relaxing into stressed out.
1. While walking around my zoo and people have coins above their head it takes way to many tries to tap the coin, I know I’m tapping it but have to chase the visitor down while vigorously tapping.
2. While playing the game and I get the star power move I can’t continue to play while It’s flying out of the animal on the bottom and it wont let me play any moves until its set onto the board. That becomes annoying in a level that is timed. I’m not sure if the time pauses or not but when I’m in the mind set that I need to be fast I don’t like waiting for something that should be helping me.
3. I’m not sure if this is a mini game or not, but their should be a “Relaxing” version that is unlimited moves, and not timed. Just like collecting a score every 24 hours or something, maybe we can choose the time frame of each game. Like if I wanna play for 15 mins I could set it. (Just an idea)
But about the coin glitch - For the developers, I use an iPad Pro
** OVER ALL FUN GAME and ill keep playing
★★★★★ A very fun game with some major flaws
Wed Jul 06 2022 FuruiI’ve spent countless hours on this game now and I’m around level 90. It’s a ton of fun with lots of customization and fun quirks. However I’ve run into a few issues that have occasionally made me want to stop playing completely. I play with no buffs and I don’t use the limited abilities.
1. Some of the later levels are highly reliant on RNG. If you don’t get the luck of the draw, all the skill in the world won’t help you win. Worst yet, you can make some great power plays, and then be a sliver away from getting a star for the level after all your bonuses despite having a board full of stars and bombs. It would be better if the RNG selected patterns to drop based on the board instead of relying on pure RNG (though I suspect it tried to balance the tiles).
2. Having a skip bonuses button at the end of a level with no confirmation is maddening. Nothing makes me want to stop playing the game more than spending 45 minutes trying to beat a level, do it with just a sliver of the star left, and then realize your palm was resting on skip bonus button. No star for you. No extra coins for you. Go do it all over again and hope RNGeezus is with you (see 1). And still no bonus coins for you.
3. This one is more minor and not directly the fault of the devs but Apple’s Achievements button appears over every settings and pause menu making it difficult to touch certain buttons (such as restarting the level). Accommodating for the location of the button would make these menus much easier to use.
Despite these issues and some more minor gripes, I would still recommend this game to those who enjoy match-3 puzzles.
