It's sad to see Zoochosis be so underwhelming, seeing how the trailer made the game looked so enticing.

Honestly, to me the biggest disappointment for me is that the game doesn’t encourage you to care about the animals? Like using lethal injection should feel like a tragic last resort after you fail to save them, otherwise it just feels like ‘aight zombie shooting time’ to get to the end quicker.

Part of me thinks that Doc's frequent swearing and stilted dialog was intentional. It feels like he was meant to come off as sort of weird and off-kilter, trying too hard to be casual and friendly, but the voice actor wasn't properly directed. However, the terrible audio editing does kinda make it seem like its purely a result of incompetence.

Also a note, but the term "zoochosis" was invented by an anti-zoo group. Its just a portmanteau of "zoo" and "psychosis", and these symptoms exclusively occur in animals that are poorly treated and/or not given proper enrichment, not just any captive animal. I think its important for people to know this, since a lot of people will just google the term and take the first result at face value.

I always thought it was weird you could "cure" animals that have several limbs, split bodies and complete mutations.

i wonder how much the game wouldve benifited from a more normal zoo layout. being able to spot a sick animal through the glass as you are on your way to checking up on another animal so that now you have to put a mental note what enclosure to do next.

I could see this being something that gets a REALLY cool remake/reimagining in like, 10 years. The game obviously has problems but it’s hard to deny it’s a big step up from their last. Could be the start of a huge glow up story

Mom, this zoo is kinda awful, can we go back to Fazbear’s again?

It's really sad how this went, I was so excited for a zoo version of The Thing, where I would have to determine what enclosure was possibly infected.
but instead it's every single one has one infected every single time.

The way I imagined the game was the complete opposite of what we see. It would have been so cool if you were a zoo vet, and the animals were acting strange, assuming it was just a case of zoochosis until you keep noticing stranger and stranger things, like visitors going missing, animals getting spooked, up until one of the animals or visitors is found dead in the enclosure.

It could have been a chapter game, and you would have other vets working with you, but it turns out one of them had been infected with a parasite and began to spread it to the animals. There would be some red herrings as there is no evil person, it just is some sort of weird creature that somehow found its way to the zoo with enough intelligence to act human as they take over their human host and spread itself. It would be your job to find the cure or a way to kill it.

I was very disappointed.

Also, NDA's cannot stop you from reporting illegal activities.

I sincerely hope a future indie developer takes the concept of a zoo-based horror game and does it more justice than this game or Zoonomaly did. It's such a potent idea and it's sad to see two viral games this year that mostly wasted it imo.

honestly part of the completely alien dialogue for me is paul just ignoring his wife standing out in the rain, even telling doc NOT to tell her she can leave, which is just insane to me as much as stealing animal food for his sick child

I think they were trying to make Doc feel like a clinical psychopath who's trying to sound normal, but failing and being unsettling in the process, but it doesn't really work.

Because of my great priorities, I'm dissapointed that you dont interact with the animals according to their natural behaviours. Especially with the gorillas, with them having such complex social cues and also being INCREDIBLY strong zookeepers have to be extra careful with them and even take measures to have them be inside while their enclosures are cleaned. Just walking up and taking a blood sample is NOT happening.

Buuut that'd also be VERY complicated to implement and obviously not neccessary. I'm just an animal behaviour nerd.,

You know, while I agree that the animals absolutely shouldn't be savable after mutating, one problem with the concept of "rescue all animals before the mutate for best ending" means that if you're going for the best ending, you'll just... never see any monsters. In this horror game. About animal monsters. There has to be some way to fix it but just giving you a chance to always cure the animal before mutation would make it even more boring imo. Maybe you could have it that there are some animals that have already mutated before you got there and you have to euthanize/catch them to analyze them to make cures? Or maybe you'd have to watch security footage of mutants to determine their specific behavioral patterns? Something to let you both save the animals and see cool scary mutant monsters.

When playing Zoo Tycoon and removing all fences to let the animals run amuck is scarier than your game you know you fucked up

Zoochosis? more like- uh- mid-chosis

gottem

Yeah it had tons of problems.
1. Obvious Villain is Obvious You even find out he's evil when you AFK at the beginning and he kills you
2. Pacing Shouldn't have taken place in one night, but a few days to a week.
3. Underwhelming endings
4. Unrealistic reactions to some of the things from the player, should have freaked a bit more.. Maybe a scene where he starts to vomit, hands physically shake, etc.

Now if I was to rewrite the plot I would do as follows.
1. Have the hiring go the same, except if you AFK you are just asked to leave.
2. Have the villain more of a surprise and help the player a lot more, be less obvious.  Even giving the player meat/food to take home to the family, no "Oh you are stuck here for the night as part of your job"
3. Have the game time place over a few days, with each day having the player focus on certain animals and tasks.  With your boss being around for the first interactions with the animals, a few days.  Only for him to be unavailable for the next few days, later getting the news from a news article that his vehicle was totaled and he is presumed dead.  To add to the reveal later that he was alive and faked his death This fake out occurs after the player first encounters a mutated animal and your boss visibly freaks out about it, making you think he is afraid of it too and went to contact someone.
4. Have the boss get infected and you have to fight him during the second to last fight.

Apparently they're reworking the game to fix the issues that the game currently has, I wouldn't be surprised if its an complete overhaul.

Imagine your beloved dog/cat gets sick, and you know it has something to do with a private animal collection/closed zoo/research facility. You're a vet/zoologist/biologist of some kind who has no other option than to break into the zoo to see if you can figure out what infected your pet. As the night goes on, you uncover mutations and use your knowledge to figure out a cure, gather evidence to take down the owners of the zoo, and save your pet while surviving and not getting caught
I'd like to see that story with this premise and a polished game
It's a shame it's so bad, zoo keeping can really lend inself to interesting gameplay, and there's not a lot out there (mostly zoo tycoon style management)