I was a little confused about what to expect from Wildlife Tycoon: Venture Africa at first. The title brought to mind instant associations with the Sim-City-ish Zoo Tycoon. The games are about as different as night and day, though, let me assure you. I'm sure it bugs developers to no end when reviewers compare their games to other titles like that, but I just want to be sure everyone's on the same page. It's because I'm such an awesome guy.

In Wildlife Tycoon you play the role of God, ostensibly, upon the Savannah. While the game's intrepid turn of the century explorer-guides, Miss Julia Carrilou and Dr. William Willoughby, observe and comment on the African landscape from the comfort of their hot air balloon, your job is to create the intricate wildlife display that they've come to see. Wildlife Tycoon is a game of balance, as much a puzzle game as it is a sim experience.

The gamer is assigned particular animal quotas that they must fill. It could be 20 zebras and 9 lions, maybe it will be 16 elephants and 20 vultures. Whatever the quantity, the environment won't be able to support the animals as is. By filling sub-quotas (5 flamingos, 3 alligators, 10 hares), that will ramp up in amount as they are completed, the player earns jewels which they can then use to upgrade the African environment. By causing rain storms, new watering holes can be created. Adding a bush, tree or patch of grass will feed a few of the herbivore-types, which in turn will feed the predators and everyone will feed the scavengers.

The life of the animals in Wildlife Tycoon progresses very, very quickly. Animals can be born and die in the space of about 10 seconds if they're not placed immediately by a food source. This fast-paced life-style makes balance the key in the game. Too many predators or too few food sources will rapidly skew animal quotas and make for a tricky experience for the gamer. At first it can be frustrating to watch your goals constantly slip away, it almost seems unfair, but with practice, it becomes clear that proper management of the environment is the key to any victory. The mini-map at the lower right-hand corner of the screen is vital for tracking the location of plant and water sources that you can start to build your ecosystem from.

Gameplay is very arcade-like in nature. Animals cannot be created at will. In the lower-left of the screen are four circles that display 4 animal slots. Animals are randomly inserted into these slots. When a player has earned enough flowers, awarded when animals reproduce and over time, they can create an animal and place them on the map. Smaller animals cost fewer flowers, larger ones more. By expending one flower, the player can shuffle the four available animals. It is this system which is most frustrating for the player. It feels an awful lot like some false-difficulty had to be injected into the game to extend the play experience. Frequently, the only hurdle to getting that one quota-filling animal will either be that your flower bar is filling so slowly that animals are dying in the interim, or that it just takes forever before the right animal comes up in the random shuffling the available creatures.

There are two gamplay modes available in Wildlife Tycoon. One is the basic story mode, where gamers must meet specific numeric quotas to finish a level and animal types are meted out over time. Completing the story mode also gradually unlocks the sandbox mode, a slightly more free-form play environment. In sandbox mode the goal isn't to meet a certain quota of animals, but rather to earn a certain level of points, which are given based on animals created. The big difference is it's not specific animals created, it's overall animals created that earns points, and this gives the player much more wiggle room. However, in the end, advancing the sandbox levels still involves meeting animals quotes to earn jewels, so it's not all that different. It just feels as if there's a little less pressure to succeed, but that may be because points are not lost over time. Earning gold trophies in sandbox levels opens up unlockables in the game.

Graphics: =
The graphics in Wildlife Tycoon: Venture Africa are decent, but are not spectacular. The indie game world has its bar set pretty high these days and while the environments are nicely scalable and look fine when zoomed far into the sky, zooming in up close and personal reveals chunky, boxy animal polygons. That having been said, the game runs great and it doesn't really matter how many animals are on-screen, there's no slowdown. Besides, all the animals look how they're supposed, just with more angles on them than people are used to seeing.

Sound: -
Sound? What sound? Sound is pretty minimal in Wildlife Tycoon. With the sheer bulk of creatures I'm placing on the savanna, I expect to at least hear some general hub-bub from the populace, but they're generally quiet as the grave with sounds instead being reserved for the very occasional jewel awarded.

Gameplay: +
Gameplay is very simple in Wildlife Tycoon. Point and click all the way. It fits with that classic gaming paradigm of "minutes to learn, a lifetime to master", except swap "lifetime" with "a couple hours". Play is simple, and nearly impossible to mess up. Decisions you make are never really going to come back and haunt you in the game. Oops, you made one too many zebras. Well, the lions or the lack of food will fix that quickly enough.

I really would have liked to see a save game option, though. The game tracks level progress, but if you get busy after 15 minutes of wildlife creation and then need to shut off the application, you cannot save your progress and must instead restart the level. It's kind of a hassle, even though gameplay is typically fairly quick level to level. It also makes it hard to show off your gigantic menagerie when its in full swing.

Value: +
At $19.95, Venture Africa is a full-blown piece of gaming for a very reasonable price. When you consider that Pocketwatch Games actually takes a portion of profits and gives it back towards wildlife habitat preservation programs, the purchase almost becomes a no brainer. Players can support wildlife both inside and outside of the game when they pick up a copy.

Concept: +
Venture Africa is a sim game. Sim games are pretty common these days, but Wildlife Tycoon is unfettered by the sometimes smothering complexities of the sims out in the world today. Anyone can pick up this game and start cracking at it, even very little kids and they're exactly the type of little people that would benefit from understanding how delicate ecosystems can be. Either that, or little Timmy won't be able to understand why his zebras keep dying and won't that be fun to deal with. Venture Africa feels to me like an arcade sim, and that kind of fast-paced, thought-based action is a welcome thing.

Fun: +
True, it can be frustrating at the very end of a level when that last animal will just not show up in your queue, but everything else about Wildlife Tycoon is a good time. The levels are quick and easy to get into (the lack of a save game function means they have to be) and the general mood of the game is very light and airy. The banter between William and Julia as they intro the levels is fun and even the loading screen poems are charming.

Overall: "Buy"
Wildlife Tycoon: Venture Africa has sim gaming, arcade pacing, a small learning curve, educational information, multiple play modes, unlockables and the benefit of knowing that you're helping a good cause when you buy it. What's not to like? Fuzzy animals? Noble beasts? Please. Pick it up.