A Click Down Memory Lane

With so many things still shut down due to the ongoing Coronavirus pandemic, it's not surprising that I have a lot of time of my hands.  I've been judiciously using this time by 1) tooling around way too much on the computer and 2) spending a lot of time staring at the ceiling, gathering wool.  Sometimes, just to shake things up, I combine the two and spend lengthy periods of time googling various things that pop into my head.

Today, out of nowhere, the memory that came to me was my first computer game (or video game) of my own.  Not surprisingly, it was called "Zookeeper", and it was produced by Davidson.

Long before Zoo Tycoon or Planet Zoo, Davidson's Zookeeper put you in charge of running a zoo.  You didn't get to build one - I mean, this was over 25 years ago, so tech was a little limited.   Instead, you had a zoo of a few dozen species, which you were responsible for the upkeep of.  That meant feeding proper diets, cleaning trash, making sure temperatures were appropriate, and keeping track of pesky troublemakers who were out to ruin things.  Guided by your sidekick Funk E. Monkey (a name which doubtlessly appealed to 6-year-old me a lot), you learned about the animals while taking care of them.

We didn't have an in-home computer at that point - most families didn't - but my dad had a few computers at his workplace, and often there was a spare I could use when I was with him at work. 

Today there is so, so much content about zoos out there, interactive and passive, that a child who is interested can easily learn so much, whether online or on TV or in print, between their visits.  For me as a kid, there wasn't that much available.  Games like Zookeeper meant a lot to me.  They helped keep my interest in animals keen on the periods between visits and gave me some of my first imaginary meanderings of running the zoo... even if the monkey was really calling the shots.



 I can't imagine what the six-year-old me would have done with Zoo Tycoon...