Snapshot From ZT's Early Days

[Jay]

Snapshot From ZT's Early Days

The date is February 6, 2002. The original ZT has been out for less than 4 months. The original ZT came with 47 animals, although 2 of those were considered "Easter Eggs": Triceratops and Unicorn. Another animal, Sable Antelope, came on a separate disc if ZT was bought in certain store chains. But there was a problem with many of those discs, so the Sable Antelope was made available at Microsoft's support site. It will be more than 3 months before ZT's first expansion pack, DD, is released. But 8 animals, a Fancy Building Pack, and a United States Flag were made available as free official downloads. The animals were Asian Black Bear, Asian Elephant, Blackbuck, Bongo, Magnet, Mountain Lion, Reindeer, and Yeti. Magnet is named after an actual polar bear that existed at that time, and was created based on results of a contest run in December 2001. There were a number of user made websites for ZT, including Ogresnet's version of Zoo Admin, Tycoon Resource, Zoo Tycoon Unlimited, and Zookeeper's version of Zookeeper's Lounge. Today in 2025, none of the early ZT websites exist in their original forms, although there are remnants of them. But back in 2002, there was a lot of sharing of information, from strategies to troubleshooting. The first version of APE (Animal Project Editor) was released soon after the original ZT was released, and the first update of APE was released a month later. APE is a tool that allows user designers to load their own animal and object graphics, and convert those graphics to ZT's format. APE was then and still is considered to be incomplete. But in 2002, there were no other tools. Some scenery and foliage were created. Some animals were created, although they were recolors and stat changes of ZT's animals. Although APE did not support making buildings directly, Martijn and Kerhop each managed to create a stand. These user created animals and objects were made available at the various user websites. In February 2002, Dawn created a zoo that is a snapshot of that time. The zoo is called ThisIsZooTopia.zoo. It uses all of the animals that came with the original ZT except the Triceratops, uses the Sable Antelope, uses all of the official downloads that were available at that time, uses 6 user made animals (by Gazza, James Clark, Jeremy Mulldune, kangoo, and 2 by Martijn), uses 8 user made scenery and foliage (from Tycoon Resource), and uses the first 2 user made buildings. The zoo has been running for more than 25 game years. The zoo has Magnet, but no other polar bears, although Magnet's exhibit is also suitable for polar bears. The zoo is not profitable; many exhibits could be made more suitable; some animals including all of the Black Leopards have died from old age. But the suitability for all exhibits is in the green and some animals continue to have births. So there is a lot of activity, and the zoo makes a great snapshot or time capsule of what was available in February 2002.

This post makes the zoo, user made objects, United States Flag, and Sable Antelope available. It does not make the official animal downloads or Fancy Building Pack available because those are included in CC. For the zoo, there were 2 versions available. One was from February 3, 2002, that is in September of the 25th game month. The version here is the February 6, 2002 version, that is in December of the 25th game month. The official United States Flag had problems where it wasn't in the correct positions when rotating the zoo. A number of people fixed that. I am including the version that is in the combined flag pack that is from ZKL (Zookeeper's Lounge). Tyc_Res_Snowy_Stuff_Pack.zip has a combined TycResSnowyStuffPackCombined.ztd and individual ztd's. Although the zoo does not use all of the objects in that zip, it is easier to use TycResSnowyStuffPackCombined.ztd rather than the individual ztd's. APE does things it shouldn't, and we now know a lot more than we did back then. So I updated all of the user made animals and objects. But some things I left as they were, such as icons. The animals expect the same types of exhibits that they would at that time. The messages for the Coca-Cola Machine are in LANG--ZKL.dll dated November 16, 2025 or newer. The messages for the Popcorn Stand are in LANG--ZTCDD.dll dated November 22, 2025 or newer. The ".dll" files go in the main ZT folder. ThisIsZooTopia.zoo would go in ZT's "Saved Games" folder. Since antelope.ztd (Sable Antelope) was an official animal, I recommend putting that in ZT's Updates folder. The only ".ztd" to use from Tyc_Res_Snowy_Stuff_Pack.zip is TycResSnowyStuffPackCombined.ztd. In CC, that should go in ZT's dlupdate folder. In CC, all of the ".ztd" files from the other ".zip" files should also go in the dlupdate folder.

Current ThisIsZooTopia.zoo date: February 6, 2002
Current ztd dates:
- antelope.ztd: November 16, 2001

- flagpack.ztd: November 20, 2025
- "Coca Cola Vending Machine.ztd": November 21, 2025
- caribbeanflamingo.ztd: November 22, 2025
- PopcornVendor.ztd: November 22, 2025
- amerigator.ztd: November 23, 2025
- ztu_redwolf.ztd: November 24, 2025
- 145260_ZooUnlimited_Waterbuffalo.ztd: November 25, 2025
- Emu.ztd: November 25, 2025
- Westgrey-beta1.ztd: November 25, 2025
- 129726_TycResBrasslamp.ztd: November 26, 2025
- 134957_TycResClockPost.ztd: November 26, 2025
- tycres_gaslamp.ztd: November 26, 2025
- TycResElegantStatue.ztd: November 26, 2025
- TycResSnowyStuffPackCombined.ztd (and the 11 accompanying Singles): November 26, 2025

Zip sizes:
- 129726_TycResBrasslamp.zip: 7.94 KB
- 134957_TycResClockPost.zip: 7.25 KB
- amerigator.zip: 19.9 KB
- antelope.zip: 1.38 MB
- caribbean.zip: 531 KB
- emu.zip: 1.30 MB
- flagpack.zip: 697 KB
- greykang.zip: 1.06 MB
- PopcornVendor.zip: 48.3 KB
- Tyc_Res_Snowy_Stuff_Pack.zip: 421 KB
- tycres_gaslamp.zip: 7.28 KB
- TycResElegantStatue.zip: 11.1 KB
- waterbuf.zip: 1.26 MB
- zootopia.zip: 325 KB
- ztu_redwolf.zip: 1.23 MB
- ztu-coca-cola-vending-machine.zip: 53.0 KB

Download zootopia.zip (ThisIsZooTopia.zoo) here.

Download antelope.zip (Sable Antelope) here.

Download ztu-coca-cola-vending-machine.zip (Coca Cola Machine) here.
Download PopcornVendor.zip (Popcorn Stand) here.

Download amerigator.zip (American Alligator) here.
Download caribbean.zip (Caribbean Flamingo) here.
Download emu.zip (Emu) here.
Download greykang.zip (Western Grey Kangaroo) here.
Download waterbuf.zip (Water Buffalo) here.
Download ztu_redwolf.zip (Red Wolf) here.

Download flagpack.zip (United States Flag and 21 others not used by this zoo) here.
Download 129726_TycResBrasslamp.zip (Tycoon Resource Brass Lamp) here.
Download 134957_TycResClockPost.zip (Tyc Res Clock Post) here.
Download tycres_gaslamp.zip (Tyc Res Gas lamp) here.
Download TycResElegantStatue.zip (Tyc Res Elegant Statue) here.

Download Tyc_Res_Snowy_Stuff_Pack.zip (Tyc Res Snowy Dolphin Topiary, Tyc Res Snowy Llama Topiary, Tyc Res Snowy Mulberry Tree, Tyc Res Snowy Pine, and 7 others not used by this zoo) here.