Shopping Malls
“It saddened me that sometimes shopping was far more perilous than dealing with zombies and vampires.”
― Anton Strout
Overview
The Shopping Mall in My Free Zoo is a time- and space-saving building with a small exterior and large interior in which all types of shops may be placed.
Since zoos tend to become increasingly cluttered with shops as they grow larger this building can free up a lot of space, delaying the need to invest in costly zoo expansions. It can also significantly improve the visual appearance of the zoo, eliminating repetitive buildings in the main play screen. Last but not least, condensing the majority of shops in a shopping mall can considerably improve the speed and ease of collecting revenue, with or without employees.
Introduced in February 2014, the shopping mall was the first of this type of building in the game. Since then several similar buildings have been implemented, including the restroom house, depot and enclosure house.
Specifications
Shopping malls come in two sizes:
- The Small Shopping Mall covers 4x5 fields on the exterior, but the interior has 80 fields on which shops can be placed. Only one Small Shopping Mall can be placed in a zoo.
- The Big Shopping Mall covers 8x9 exterior fields, with 304 buildable fields on the inside.
Small Shopping Mall
Level: 30
Cost: 320,000 ZD
Build Time: Instant
Size: 4x5
Inner Fields: 80
Limit: 1
Trading Cards: --
Big Shopping Mall
Malls have no build timer, but shops need to be placed in the mall from inventory. This means any shops which have already been constructed elsewhere in the zoo will have their build timers reset if moved into a mall. Once constructed inside the mall buildings function as usual.
Visitors will randomly spawn on paths inside the mall and mill about as they do on regular paths outside. Paths in malls are pre-placed and cannot be modified.
If a mall is returned to inventory, all shops within it will also be returned to inventory and build timers will be reset. A confirmation screen will appear before this action can be completed.
Like other buildings of this type, shopping malls can hold only very specific objects:
Most objects can not be placed in a mall:
With the exception of paths and terrains, other housing buildings are available to condense the above objects.
Purchasing
Level: 30
Cost: 45 D
Build Time: Instant
Size: 8x9
Inner Fields: 304
Limit: --
Trading Cards: --
Shopping malls are available in two sizes, both of which can be purchased from the main Shop window under the Buildings and Special Places tab, and then under the Shops sub-tab; the same location where all standard shops are purchased from.
Both buildings are available at level 30:
- The Small Shopping Mall costs 320,000 Zoo Dollars (ZD). Only one Small Shopping Mall is permitted per zoo.
- The Big Shopping Mall costs 45 Diamonds (D). There is no limit on the number of Big Shopping Malls that can be placed in a zoo.
There are no trading card pieces for either shopping mall; the buildings can only be purchased through the shop.
Revenue
Malls themselves do not generate revenue, but any shops placed inside them will do so as usual. If a Treasurer is employed, and the mall is within 4 fields of a path, the treasurer will collect Zoo Dollars from all shops within. The Treasurer does not actually enter the mall; nor do vendors.
If a Treasurer is not employed, revenue will have to be collected manually by entering the mall and collecting from each individual shop.
Beautification
Beautification objects are available to decorate both malls, including posters, windows, wall clocks and wallpapers. These items all have popularity values and are popular with certain types of visitors, like most decorations. They will also help satisfy visitor beautification needs.
More details about mall-specific decorations can be found in the Shopping mall decorations section of the My Free Zoo Wiki.
Interior of a Small Shopping Mall. A small selection of decorations and wallpaper can be seen on the walls. Click for larger resolution.