Bay 12 Games Forum

Other Projects => Curses => Topic started by: Toady One on December 18, 2002, 05:47:00 pm

Title: Star Zoo
Post by: Toady One on December 18, 2002, 05:47:00 pm

That's right.  Star Zoo.  HA HA HA AH AHAA AH AHA HA....   if ther are bugs it is zuz I've ben up 36 hours.

HE HE HE

HE HE HE

Title: Re: Star Zoo
Post by: Renaxer on December 18, 2002, 07:15:00 pm

The first planet got me exhausted... heh
all that work... long car shoot out and stuff...  8(

Title: Re: Star Zoo
Post by: Renaxer on March 17, 2004, 06:30:00 pm

Hmm... this game never got too much attention...

Edit: Er... hit something on my keyboard and next thing I knew was: "Thanks for POsting"

I wasnt even done yet! Dammit!

Now about this game.... so sexy... mmh...
No wait.. it was a fun game.. lets remember it for the stuff...
Farthest I got was third PLanet...
but recently I always die on the second one...   ;)

[ March 17, 2004: Message edited by: Renaxer ]

Title: Re: Star Zoo
Post by: Fourth Triad on March 18, 2004, 11:34:00 pm

He's right this game was pretty fun.... True, I never made it past the second world... But it was fun... and hard as hell!!!

Title: Re: Star Zoo
Post by: Toady One on March 19, 2004, 03:54:00 am

I basically stayed up for 36 hours and wrote this in one shot. I wanted to see what happened if sleep deprivation became the primary source of inspiration for a game.

I know it it's too hard, but I can't change it. It has to stand as a work of performance art.

Title: Re: Star Zoo
Post by: Fourth Triad on March 20, 2004, 01:02:00 am

I seems to be be a good way to program... Well if you done count the temporary insanity. I'll give it a try some time.

[ March 20, 2004: Message edited by: Fourth Triad ]

Title: Re: Star Zoo
Post by: Appelgren on May 14, 2008, 03:59:00 pm

Star Zoo is fantastic! The intro is mysterious and the title screen a fantastic piece of ascii-pulp. I love how the character designer lets you customize your looks in a truly next-gen fashion and the mini-games are varied, addictive and bloody hard (especially the car game). Star Zoo rocks! What inspired this game? Did you really make it in 36 hours?

(I know this is extreme necromancy, but making a new thread seemed superfluous).

Title: Re: Star Zoo
Post by: Toady One on May 14, 2008, 05:39:00 pm

I think this was because I had a train to catch from california up to washington when I was on vacation from grad school, and I had a chunk of time about that large to burn.  So I decided to write a game in that time period, without pre-planning and just seeing where it would take me.  I went out to the local gas station market once or twice during the stretch to get junk to power through on.  I haven't played for a while, but most of the mini-games look like they came out of 80sish arcade games, if I remember.  It's too bad it is so repetitive, because it'll keep giving you one different sentence of (horrible) story like 20 times until the conclusion cut scene and battle.  You can save-scum to get at them, but it's a painful process.  The source is off on a CD buried some place.

Title: Re: Star Zoo
Post by: Cthulhu on May 14, 2008, 06:19:00 pm

Sooo hard...

I can't get past the landing, although I like the over-the-top action and so-bad-it's-good storyline, and the lots-of-dashes-to-make-one-word-out-of-many thing I do.

Title: Re: Star Zoo
Post by: Capntastic on May 15, 2008, 03:44:00 am

I got to I think the fourth zone once.

Title: Re: Star Zoo
Post by: Appelgren on May 15, 2008, 02:15:00 pm

20 times! That is quite a lot.

Title: Re: Star Zoo
Post by: Wooty on May 15, 2008, 09:43:00 pm

Way too hard for me...

The rare few times I get past the first space battle, I can't land on whatever the landing pad is.

Title: Re: Star Zoo
Post by: Appelgren on May 16, 2008, 02:40:00 am

In the space battle, try to stick to one of the sides, perhaps seize some fuel from a merchant ship and avoid battles as much as possible while making your way towards the planet. If you have to fight, try to attack first to have a shot at eliminating your enemies before they can harm you (run from the tougher ships though). The landing pad is one or several "D"s.

The car game though... The variety where you just fight other cars is decent, but the minefield or that version where something drops a lot of bombs on you is hellish.

[ May 16, 2008: Message edited by: Appelgren ]

Title: Re: Star Zoo
Post by: Devastator on May 16, 2008, 11:34:00 am

When landing, pick the one with the fewest enemy weapons.  You basically have to land perfect to land properly, so 1 safe square is all you need.  Count your keypresses for left and right, and make certain they are zero before landing.  It is difficult to land, and it only gets harder, so watch out.

The main highway on the car game is my favorite, actually.. the bombs give little dots showing you where they are going to land.  It might just be the look of the thing, though.

I've never found an easy solution to the base attacking phase, though.  I generally only make it if sneak through the sewers is an option, because I can barely shank enough guys to make it in.

My record is planet 4, failure to land.

Title: Re: Star Zoo
Post by: Sowelu on May 18, 2008, 05:24:00 am

The penultimate minigame is the hardest for me.  I can't get far at all in the sewers, and just barely get by in the tank suit.  I always play Marine, because I'm guessing I'd be doomed in that minigame if I played anything else...and I'm alright at the other minigames.

Any tips for that part?

Title: Re: Star Zoo
Post by: Cthulhu on May 18, 2008, 08:59:00 am

I got blasted out of space in the third planet.

Tank suit?  I've only seen the sewer and shotgun methods of the last minigame.

Title: Re: Star Zoo
Post by: Nonanonymous on June 24, 2008, 07:05:22 pm

Has anyone H4XOR3D a version with more liberal use of chances to save the game? D:  Doing the landing pad and space battle over and over on the first planet starts to wear out the magic.

Title: Re: Star Zoo
Post by: Okenido on June 24, 2008, 10:31:38 pm

WHY DID I POST LIKE THIS? WHY?

Title: Re: Star Zoo
Post by: Rafal99 on November 02, 2008, 02:40:18 pm

This game looks so fun but I haven't got past landing... I tried like 20 times and always burrowed or was shot. My ship is hardly responding to any keys I press...

At least I have no problems with space battles, no problem killing patrollers and satelites, my only death in space was when I tried fighting a Dreadnought and got one-shot-pwnt... ;)

Title: Re: Star Zoo
Post by: Neonivek on November 02, 2008, 02:48:21 pm

I keep forgetting the "Curses" section isn't the Liberal Crime Squad exclusive section.

Title: Re: Star Zoo
Post by: ChemicalVengence on November 02, 2008, 02:53:17 pm

Quote from: Neonivek on November 02, 2008, 02:48:21 pm

I keep forgetting the "Curses" section isn't the Liberal Crime Squad exclusive section.

LCS should probably get its' own child board or something

Title: Re: Star Zoo
Post by: Fourth Triad on November 02, 2008, 04:15:06 pm

Toad lies! It's more like 40 times you have go through that shit or something like that. I never beat it, I'm just going off the time toad showed me the source It was frightening, I remember head was the name of a variable...

Title: Re: Star Zoo
Post by: Capntastic on November 07, 2008, 08:52:13 am

Requesting source if only so the nightmares will end...

Title: Re: Star Zoo
Post by: Toady One on November 07, 2008, 07:36:16 pm

I'd have to dig it up off in a closet at my parents' place somewhere.  I'm not sure where it is.

Title: Re: Star Zoo
Post by: penguinofhonor on November 07, 2008, 10:41:42 pm

Yeah, LCS deserves its own forum. At least a sub-forum of the curses forum.

Title: Re: Star Zoo
Post by: ArrowThunder on November 26, 2019, 02:43:58 pm

ArrowThunder gestures!
The Star Zoo thread shudders and begins to move!
I am necroing this thread because it seemed silly to create a new thread for a topic when this thread is (as far as I can tell) the totality of the conversation on Star Zoo on the internet.

Anyway, I was poking around and found Star Zoo, and I thought it was fun enough that I went and beat it! I did savescum, as per Toady's suggestion, but I got pretty good at it by the end of it. I think my record for contiguous clears was like 6 or 7. Each of the minigames is fun (and the math game earned quite a few laughs), but there's a trick to them too. With one exception (as far as I can tell), every tactical choice is viable but some are harder than others. For the record, there are 25 assignments, not 20 and not 40, although Toady's 20 was closer. The story was engaging enough to drive me to keep going, but wow that ending. I still have questions... why the nightmares? Why did they stop, why did they start? What's up with the defenses guarding these specimens?

Spoiler: For anyone wondering how I did it/looking for some tips trying the game themselves (click to show/hide)

In space, use the merchants to get fuel and evade combat. Watch out for the space station and dreadnaught as they both instagib. Slip in to the planet, and try to have 50+ armor left when you do in case the cannons on the planet hit you.

The math thing is funny, and obviously the third question cannot kill you no matter which you pick. Out of curiosity, I discovered that the first two questions can indeed kill you and give you a funny message telling you the answer and that you might want to write it down.

When landing, I found that going into the city was ironically easiest. Having a larger landing pad gives a bigger target and a wider area of guaranteed no AA weapons near your target, both of which are nice. The biggest thing is to remember to use the up arrow to control your descent. When you're first getting the hang of the mode, I recommend clearing out the guns near the landing zone and hovering while you land.

The car scene has its own challenges. Going the back roads is IMO the hardest, make sure you keep shooting and swerving to give yourself space to dodge the mines (which instakill you). Someone said the highway is impossible, but I didn't think it was that bad. The bombs are heavily telegraphed (airplane flies overhead, dots appear on the ground). Only the bombs on the far left can hit you, so don't even worry about the rest. Just make sure you move your car when the dots appear, in case one was hiding under you.

What seems to be the hardest game of all (the base raid) is actually one of the easiest once you figure it out. The sewers are the fastest (if you're a marine, haven't tried it otherwise). You have enough health to clear out all the enemies, so just keep marching and fighting. The front door is suicide as far as I can tell, there's no way to crouch or aim or anything so you're just hoping for impossible luck. Bluffing and taking the inner guards is easier than it seems when you figure it out. Crouching with crap gives you cover, you can tell it's working because there's a green arrow pointed at you. If you go too far past the edge of the crap then you lose cover, same goes for the enemies. Other than that, if the crap is fully between both you and your opponent neither of you can kill the other one. On paper, that means it's not going to alter the damage scales at all...

I tried taking cover and shooting, and eventually everyone but one person would die. While I initially thought that there was a chance of hitting a target while still under cover, I eventually realized what was actually happening, and it's flipping hilarious. The dumb incredibly intelligent AI shoots at you constantly the moment you are in range, despite you being completely invincible behind cover. They do this even if there are more than one of them. Perhaps most importantly of all, Tarn did NOT disable friendly fire.

But it gets even better. The AI will foolishly boldly march to the left to slay the intruder (you), stopping only when they are in range. They do this across the entire map, meaning you can sit behind the first piece of crap you find and wait for the entire defense force to come up and kill each other one at a time until only one remains. In fact, there are always exactly 9 guards, so you're safe to kill the last one once 8 of them have fallen to their comrade's bloodthirstiness. Just be wary, as occasionally a guard will eventually walk past the cover at which point they can and will hit you, so be ready to shoot them if they do.

For the final minigame, just keep your eyes on the prize. Picking the wrong one is a fatal mistake.

If anyone wants them, I did start logging the story and saves partway through. Some of the animal names are amusing.

Spoiler: My equally dumb alternate ending (click to show/hide)

Based on the name of the last animal, for a moment I thought the boss was going to be Santa, that the cloning was being used for the elves, and the specimens were actually presents/templates for presents. Would have been one hell of a twist  .

Title: Re: Star Zoo
Post by: Eschar on January 07, 2020, 12:09:06 am

Post to watch. I want there to be more Star Zoo discussion on here!

I've not gotten past the second mission.

Also didn't Tarn say a while back that he might be able to dig up the source? Anything come of that? I'd like to see it