“Zoochosis” is an indie horror game that was recently released on Sept. 30. The game was developed by Clapperheads, and is a single-player survival horror game. As its name implies the game takes place in a zoo, as you are a newly hired night zookeeper off the streets. Your task is to take care of the animals while discovering the secrets within the zoo.
The concept of the game and some of the ideas within the game itself are amazingly thought out. Unfortunately, the game does not deliver past the interesting ideas presented. The game presents itself as this huge mystery that you need to uncover. The zoo claims it’s an amazing business and that they take pride in their work but the zoo has been closed for the last two years. The man who hires you Doc, is a creepy old man who drugs you at the beginning of the game. Doc explains that you need to prevent the animals from getting sick, and these animals are exhibiting strange characteristics, but he refuses to divulge any information about these animals and super wants you to discover the oddities on your own. It seems as if you are about to go on a horrifying mystery-solving adventure, but as you continue through the game the mystery is just spoon-fed to you.
Doc is set up to be this character that will paint you a picture, but not the whole picture. At the beginning of the game, he is a guy full of secrets, who knows much more about the zoo than he is letting on, but he would never spill to you. Eventually, you get a phone call from Doc where he comes out of character and just tells you the entire mystery. From there, you’re just left playing the game with no real incentive to explore the very limited space. Upon finishing the game normally you get a genuinely unsatisfying ending where you die, which does make sense, but the reason Doc kills you doesn’t make sense. He goes on about how you know too much and your wife, who at the beginning of the game is waiting for you outside the entrance of the zoo, got worried and called the cops. The thing is, Doc told you everything you know, for literally no reason, especially not a reason that makes sense for his character.
As much as I think the mystery is spoiled for you with the one phone call, there is another part to the mystery that is a bit more intriguing. During the phone call with Doc, he tells you to grind up a human body to feed the infected animals. If you wait just a second you find out that the body is still alive. You can rescue the body, and find out that her name is Sarah, and she is a journalist who got tricked into being captured by Doc. Her storyline is actually interesting, but again most of the mystery is spoiled by a phone call. At the end of the game your character just magically knows essentially her whole life story, which ties into the ending of the game, despite your character never finding out this information. There are a lot of things like this that just break the immersion of the game for me. There could have been such an interesting horror mystery, but it falls flat because the game ends up only taking around two hours to complete.
Unfortunately, the horror aspect of the game is lacking as well. The first time you encounter a mutated animal is genuinely startling, but after that first time, you can see the mutation coming. This is about the only time the game actively tries to be scary, it is disturbing the first time the body comes out for you to grind, but it’s a classic horror trope so it doesn’t hit as it could have. Other than those two moments, horror is almost non-existent in the game, and from a trailer that emphasized the horror aspect so heavily, it really leaves you very disappointed.
Touching on the gameplay quickly, I think the gameplay, while very repetitive is very addicting. I love taking care of the animals, and eventually facing off against a mutated version of them if you don’t cure them fast enough. Each animal is exactly the same just with slight variations in what sickness they have. Like I said, however, it is fun enough to keep you engaged, and wanting to unlock the next animal.
Overall “Zoochosis” is a fine game with some great ideas, that ultimately come out half-baked. The gameplay itself is repetitively fun, and taking care of the animals before they mutate is a nice challenge. If you like horror, and animals “Zoochosis” is a fine game to drop a couple of hours into.
