Project Eden

A Unity zoo management game prototype. Started as a way to learn Unity and an attempt to build the zoo game I’d want to play. Currently shelved.

Build exhibits, adopt animals, hire keepers, attract guests, and grow a zoo through welfare, reputation, and financial management. The core loop is about caring for animals well and being rewarded with the resources to care for more.

What I Built

The prototype proves that the backend systems are within my ability, at least at the scale I implemented them:

• Placeable exhibits with animals that have individual state and decaying needs
• Keepers assigned per exhibit, stocking food and cleaning
• Guests with needs, pathfinding, and facility usage
• Grid-based path painting and exhibit placement
• Daily finance loop and guest economy
• Welfare pressure and prototype game-over conditions

Starter species: meerkat, capybara, and red panda.

Current Status

Why It’s Shelved

I could keep extending the backend until the simulation was genuinely deep, but the game would still have blocky default assets and no real animations. The blocker is art - I’m a software engineer, not an artist. The game design itself was already largely derived from an existing genre, with only a few fresh ideas of my own.

I’m not willing to outsource assets to AI. I don’t have the resources to commission an artist. And I’m not ready to commit to learning 3D art and animation myself. So the project sits until either my motivation or my resources change in a way that would allow me to make the game look as good as I want it to.

And if that never happens? That’s fine. I learned what I was capable of in reaching this point, and I learned where the boundary of a solo developer lies for a project like this.