‘Zoochosis’ Review: Novel, Fun, and Flawed [Watch]
What could be scarier than trying to draw blood from a gorilla that’s got ulcerative colitis? Drawing blood from THREE gorillas that have ulcerative colitis, while a fourth gorilla ambles around pretending he’s not a shape-shifting mutant. Welcome to the zoo! Astonishingly, zoos haven’t been a staple location for horror in the past, it’s an oversight that developer Clapperheads addresses with their new title Zoochosis, out now on Steam.
Zoochosis is a bodycam horror simulator that puts players in the shoes of rookie zoo keeper Paul Connolly as he navigates his first shift as “night zoo keeper” at the Pine Valley Zoo. The overall mission of the game is simple: rescue the animals and survive the night. If you happen to solve a few mysteries or uncover some lore along the way, all the better!
For the most part, my short time with Zoochosis was a great experience. The excellent sense of atmosphere and an engaging core gameplay loop more than made up for some serious shortcomings in the game’s narrative elements.
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The heart of Zoochosis is the enclosure sections where players spend most of their time. Here, Paul will gather clues about the state of each animal’s health as he carries out duties that include: water trough filling, temperature taking, blood sampling, and poop scooping. Clues are used to diagnose ailments so an appropriate medication can be crafted and sent to the creature’s tuchus via the dart gun. It plays out like a streamlined version of Phasmophobia’s deduction phase, but with the addition of calming head scritches and a high-tech dung vacuum.
But even with your wallabies in perfect health, not everything will go according to plan. One of the animals in each group has a parasite that’s difficult to detect. At some point that parasite will transform the animal into an abomination that would feel right at home in a John Carpenter movie. These mutations function as boss battles, where Paul must do what he can to tame or save the animal—or if all else fails: euthanize it.
Zoochosis can be punishing. The gameplay is simple on the surface, but to survive and get one of the game’s “good” endings requires careful resource management, good timing, and quick thinking. Paul’s survival depends on his performance in the enclosures and decision-making in the game’s post-mission hub. The tutorial covers the basics, but the short gameplay cycles rely mostly on trial and error for a successful run-through.
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There are pacing issues though. There’s an incredible amount of backtracking through the tight environments, and moving between the central hub and the enclosures could have been handled more thoughtfully. In a game built around short gameplay cycles and repetition, preparing food and restocking your supply cart feels arduous on subsequent playthroughs. Players are also at the mercy of animations: stalking a penguin around waiting for it to pause long enough to draw blood from can be a chore, a chore you’ll have to repeat for the other five birds in the pen. Alternatively, you can wait for the animals to go to sleep, but this too is something they’re in no rush to do.
There are a lot of different endings to unlock, most of my stories ended with our dear Paul being unable to cut the mustard at his new gig. After being given a severance package that was FAR from ideal, the game would start anew with a fresh set of enclosures to investigate and increasingly difficult food prep puzzles. The gameplay cycles are short, but not short enough to avoid frustration when a minor mistake damns an entire playthrough to failure. More forgiving checkpoints or a quick save function would have lessened the overall playtime but could have made for a more consistently enjoyable experience.
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The story being told in Zoochosis can best be described as serviceable. There’s not a lot of mystery to uncover and characters don’t have enough time to develop anything more than superficial traits. I couldn’t tell you much about Paul other than he’s poor, married, and went to school at some point. As it stands, the story and its 90s setting are mostly a vessel to place pop culture references from pre-aughts horror.
Zoochosis isn’t a narrative epic though—it’s a game about a spooky zoo, dressed with some thematically pertinent frosting. The narrative does just enough to keep things moving forward, and even though the payoff was never there, the promise of one was enough to drive me to start a new game.
Characters mostly interact over phone calls, through doors, or in cutscenes. What’s being said is often stilted and awkward and delivered with an unnatural cadence. It did add a sense of dread and otherness to the experience, but it’s hard to say if it was intentional or an artifact of text-to-speech performances.
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The horror in Zoochosis is mostly a thematic choice. There are a few attempts at jump scares that fall flat but the subtle visual design keeps everything well anchored in “unnerving” territory. The creatures are uniformly awesome-looking with wonderfully grotesque designs. However, besides monsters and the odd smattering of viscera, this could easily pass as a normal zoo. Zoochosis makes for a great thriller, though! There’s a body horror element to the story that works as a ticking clock. And the unease of being in a cage with a mimic that could turn at any moment gives each run-through an unyielding sense of suspense.
Zoochosis is at its best when the animals are on the screen or there’s a monster raising hell. Story gripes aside, the main gameplay loop was fun to toy with and rewarding to master. The randomized diagnosis phases, paired with the shifting selection of enclosures keep the game fresh enough for multiple playthroughs of its short but sweet story cycles. Even with four playthroughs under my belt, there are still lockers to open, notes to read, and monsters to cure.
Halloween is nigh! If you’re looking for a campy, seasonally appropriate title to stream with friends or work through while alone in the dark, Zoochosis is a great choice. The fresh setting, great creature designs, and fun core gameplay make Zoochosis worth checking out. Plus it’s got giraffes.
Summary
The fresh setting, great creature designs, and fun core gameplay make Zoochosis worth checking out. Plus it’s got giraffes.
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