Popularity drives how many visitors you get — and visitors are how you earn most of your money.
What increases popularity
- More species (variety matters)
- Healthy animals (health 50+)
- Adult animals (bonus over juveniles)
- Attractions and higher attraction levels
- Enclosures with workers assigned
- Clean enclosures (high average cleanliness)
What decreases popularity
- Sick animals (health below 50)
- Recent deaths
- Dirty enclosures
- Poor enclosure maintenance (below 60% average starts penalties)
Visitors = income
Each tick, visitors are calculated from popularity (roughly popularity ÷ 7) and converted into ticket income. If your zoo’s quality drops, your visitors (and money) drop too.
Ticket income is tuned for real-time pacing so steady care beats short bursts.
Leaderboards
You can switch leaderboards to compare popularity, visitors, money, animals, enclosures, attractions, and workers.
Tips
- Use Workers to automate feeding/healing/cleaning.
- Add Attractions to boost visitors.
- Check the Weather card for temporary effects.
- Keep average enclosure maintenance above 60% to avoid hidden visitor drag.