Zoo Tycoon 2: Marine Mania

***Zoo Tycoon 2: Marine Mania*** is the third expansion pack for *Zoo Tycoon 2*. The expansion focuses around marine animals, as did the *Marine Mania* expansion for the first *Zoo Tycoon* game.

## Gameplay

### Animal shows

*Marine Mania* introduces shows and an animal training minigame (more minigames were later introduced in *Extinct Animals*) which were previously not in the other expansions of the game.
The player can train individual animals in the first-person, guest mode themselves or hire a trainer to train the animals.

The training minigame takes place in a training area, inside the animal's tank. The player uses a "training wand" to follow a tracer along a form which differs with the trick that is being taught. The training increases the animal's skill in that particular trick, as the animal becomes more skilled the training becomes more difficult. The difficulty of the training is increased by the form becoming narrower, the tracer moving more quickly and the addition of such obstacles as the player needing to press an arrow key or click the mouse at a certain point.

The shows take place in a tank adjacent to the animal's regular tank, accessible through a tank portal. The player choreographs the show by adding trick into the acts of the show. Tricks by different animals in the same act as each other takes place at roughly the same time.

## Animals

Animals which can perform in shows must be trained first, either by the player playing minigames, or by hiring a trainer. Players are also able to swim with certain animals, by "riding" on them.

Animals can use either a tank or regular exhibit water. Animals like the rockhopper penguin or California sea lion, which live in coastal areas, require a combined land and water exhibit to remain happy. Animals which use land will generally accept either the rock or desert islands instead of normal land, and so may be kept in tanks or hybrid exhibits.

Polar bears and emperor penguins from the unexpanded *Zoo Tycoon 2* were updated to swim underwater, while Nile crocodiles and American beavers were left as Blue Fang Games believed, contrary to scientific fact, that those two were incapable of doing so. In the following expansion, *Extinct Animals*, this was changed so the beaver and crocodile could now submerge.

### Ambient Animals

These animals appear automatically in water that the player places, but are non-adoptable and cannot be moved (or eaten by inhabitants of tanks). The player can buy kois as a decoration (they are still alive) but they die quickly as they have no food or other biome modifications.

### Biomes

Four new biomes have been added with the expansion, in addition to the other ten from the original game:

* Benthic

* Coastal

* Pelagic

* Reef

Besides this, the method of biome layout has been altered, enabling players to filter rocks, plants and trees while laying down the terrain. The game also allows the player to build mixed tank-land exhibits, also called hybrid tanks. This way, animals like the walrus can come onto land to rest, and go back into the water later, while allowing guests to view the animals both above ground and in the water. Players can now dive underwater in "guest mode".

It is worthy of note that all of the new animals go into either the above categories or the tundra biome.

### Regional Changes

In the American version of Marine Mania, the cover art depicts a walrus on a glacier behind the orca, while the European version artwork has no walrus on a glacier and several people looking behind the tank have been removed as well.

## Demo

Main article: Zoo Tycoon 2: Marine Mania Demo

A demo for *Marine Mania* was released in collaboration with Perdue Farms that was both physically and available to download for free on the Zoo Tycoon 2 website. Included in this demo was a custom map to demonstrate the new tank building and marine show mechanics. This map could be played on in either Sandbox Mode or Campaign Mode. The Campaign Mode for this map is short, starting with a tutorial and ending with the player needing to have 8 animals (of which may be any combination of the Bottlenose Dolphin, Rockhopper Penguin, Green Sea Turtle, and Orca) and $2,000 in marine show donations.

## Gallery

For this subject's image gallery, see Gallery:Zoo Tycoon 2: Marine Mania.