Zoochosis hands-on preview – The scariest night at the Zoo ever!

I went into my preview for Zoochosis with no previous knowledge of the game past the interesting albeit horrifying art on the top of the Clapperheads area of the Summer Game Fest Day of the Devs booths. So I sat down, turned the sound on high, and began a journey I won’t soon forget.

You begin the game as a young man at the end of an interview for an overnight zookeeper position. You go with the manager and he makes sure you’re capable of handling the job. You learn how to care for the giraffes; cut their food, feed them, take samples of the poop, scan their heat signatures, test their poop, get medication ready if needed, and administer the medication, etc. After that, you head back to the manager’s office, he hires you on the spot, says you’re being locked in, and tells you to tell your wife (who was waiting outside for you) to head home. He then leaves the facility and you’re on your own.

The gameplay is standard for a horror style game. You have items that are common practice like the flashlight and zoo equipment, and you’re moving from location to location on a train cart connected to all of the enclosures. That felt like what “home base” will be. Everything was pretty easy to pick up on even with the accelerated gameplay. It’s going to be interesting to see the gradual build from normal zoo management to the horrors I predict we’ll be seeing soon enough.

The first big choice you have is if you want to give your wife packaged meat from the storage room. You don’t get any immediate answers, but handing her the meat felt… like a wrong answer. I’m sure in the greater scheme of things you’ll find out if that has any adverse effects on your wife and child.

From there, the tasks begin to pile up. This is something the developers told me would not be in the final build of the game, but they wanted us to have the ability to try as many things as we wanted to try. I chose to go feed and test the penguins in their enclosure. When I got close, I heard a phone ring. On the phone was a woman frantically trying to find her husband who worked at the labs at the zoo. She hadn’t heard from him in a while and you can choose to help her find her husband.

I continued to finish up with the penguins; cutting their food, feeding them, testing their poop, scanning their temperatures, and I administered medication for a poor penguin who’s temperature was out of the normal range. I then packed my stuff up and on the way back got jumpscared by a giant arm coming down from the ceiling. No idea what that was yet, but it was the beginning of a shift in the game.

I decided to make my way back to the giraffe enclosure to check on one of the sick giraffes I gave medication to earlier in my preview. On the way there, another phone call. This time, from someone who works for the Zoo. Who explains that the woman you spoke to earlier is crazy and there isn’t even a lab at the zoo and her husband was cheating on her.

Getting into the giraffe enclosure, I was testing the temperatures when the game sadly crashed. After talking to the developers right then and there, they made sure they took all the steps down I did and said that will be looked at to make sure it doesn’t happen. They were very attentive to any issues and want to make sure this game is fully ready before release. I’m not worried. As I was pressed for time I didn’t get to redo my work, but I really did enjoy everything I was able to play so far. It has a spooky atmosphere in a world that for years has been a source of joy and happiness for kids and adults alike. I have a feeling the streaming world will have a field day with Zoochosis.

You can wishlist Zoochosis on Steam today!

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