Zoo Story

Updated: 5/8/2012

(Original) Zoo Story was retired on 4/5/2012 and no longer in the app stores. If you have it before it was removed, it can still be played but no more Gem purchases allowed.

Zoo Story Spreadsheet: Information on animals, crops, constructable, and expansions

Gifting depends on your neighbor. Usually 3-Energy Pack (please don't be lazy and just gift 2-Energy Pack) is preferred. Besides Vine Tree, Spreading Tree, and Flat Tree (which are all Attractions), the other gifts are constructable materials, useful in the beginning, but not so much towards end game. So just ask your neighbor! ;>.

How I like to play:

There are various ways to play this game (feel free to comment below or use Comments form on the left sidebar about your strategy and I may add it here), but the strategy I like to use requires that you can check your game about four times a day (or more or less often, depending on your play style).

First off, I only bought coin animals and bred as often as I could. Next, I had 35 neighbors to help replenish energy on demand, more about this below.

To start off, for two days, I plant 24 Corn at 8AM, 12PM, 4PM, and 8PM (customize the time to your play style: more frequent means you'll level up and gain money faster, up to a certain point since you are limited by your energy level). For the first two days, if you want to, you can plant short crops so you can use your energy while you're waiting on your corn to be ready.

On the third day, between 6AM and 10AM (corn is actually 46H, not 48H so it's ready at 6AM), your first batch will be ready. Consecutively tap and harvest all 24. (Technically, you can store up to 10000 units of food at once, but if you are tapping before you reach that limit, the game will continue harvesting, even when you're past that limit.) Replant with 24 more, preferably before 10AM.

Now, with all your food, you are going to feed it to your animals and collect your coins. Each time you collect your coins (from animals or buildings), you use one energy. Once you run out of energy, you can either wait 5 minutes to get one energy or visit a neighbor (each neighbor once a day) for 2 energy. This is when I will strategically visit my neighbors (touring their animals) and/or do something else while I wait on a chunk of energy. Try to feed and collect all your coins and have at least 24 energy available before the next batch of corn is ready.

Repeat. This a simple and fairly fast way to get to lv50 to have max expansion and you'll have close to the amount of coins you need each time.