Railroad Tycoon likely wouldn't have hit PCs in its final form if it weren't for co-designer Bruce Shelley also having worked on the beloved 1986 board game 1830: The Game of Railroads and Robber Barons, created by Avalon Hill. Rollercoaster Tycoon was also a continuation of the style Sawyer had established with his 1994 sim Transport Tycoon which probably wouldn't exist if MicroProse had not released Sid Meier's Railroad Tycoon in 1990. Just based on their titles, release dates, and pitches, we might conclude that Zoo Tycoon was springboarding off of the success of Chris Sawyer's Rollercoaster Tycoon from 1999, and it was, but that game took lessons from Bullfrog's 1994 simulator, Theme Park. In fact, there have been so many fingers in the business sim pie that tracing back the influences and history behind Zoo Tycoon is no mean feat. Although, you've no doubt recognised that the concepts that would eventually converge in Zoo Tycoon were being fleshed out by the industry long before 2001. What's impressive about Zoo Tycoon is not just the splash it made in the business management genre, but also that it was able to make such waves when it was the first project undertaken by developer Blue Fang Games. 2001's Zoo Tycoon provides the fantasy of constructing that pageant of flora and fauna for other people. You can be standing by a rock pool watching penguins squawk and swim, walk a short distance and see zebra grazing on the plains, and then, a few minutes later, witness chimpanzees swinging from the treetops. Zoos not only let us peek in on those organisms but also break down the barriers between those environments. There are almost no environments on Earth which are inhospitable, and evolution has ingenious means for adapting organisms to both extreme and forgiving biomes. My whole life, I've loved zoos they're places that let you bask in the seemingly limitless colour and variety of the animal kingdom.