(oneliner:: How long can you hold the animals in?)
Developer:: Taito Publisher:: Taito Release Date:: 1982-01-01 Hours:: 0.1
Zoo Keeper is fascinating to me because it takes a real-world situation and renders it completely alien. You play as a dude named Zeke whose girlfriend Zelda (not the princess) has been captured by escaped zoo animals. This arcade platformer is played on two singular screens. On the first, you move around the outside of an animal enclosure, as though it were a small planet pulling you in with its gravity. Zeke lays bricks as he walks, which slow the progress of escaped animals originating from the cage at the center of the screen. These animals bounce around like the ball from breakout, clearing bricks away. If they break free, they start circling around the enclosure too, and Zeke must jump over them to avoid injury. The sprites make a surrealistic use of scale, with each animal from a snake to a rhinocerous appearing about the same size. Zeke’s goal is just to survive; there is no restoring order to this zoo. It’s all so unusual I can’t look away.
And there’s also a second screen, but that’s really nothing special if you’ve played Donkey Kong.
Not recommended for photosensitive players.