"Now you're our night zookeeper. The job is not difficult. You've got nothing to worry about."
— Unknown
Zoochosis is an upcoming bodycam zookeeper simulator psychological survival horror game developed and published by Clapperheads
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You're the recently hired night zookeeper, Paul Connelly. The job seems simple at first. Make sure all the animals are taken care of and that they remain in their enclosures. But things get, really out of hand with discovering a parasitic organism that violently mutates the benevolent creatures into horrific monsters.
Now it is a race against the clock as your new mission is to take care of the uninfected animals, root out the ones that are mutated, make a vaccine, and cure them. But will you save all of them and survive?
The game is slated for a Q2 2024 release window. Steam page here, Announcement Trailer here, Official Trailer here, and Exclusive Gameplay Trailer here.
NOTE: If an animal is associated with a specific trope and is mutated, the species name will be in red text (i.e.: Giraffe). This is done to avoid repetition.
AND: The game is currently unreleased. These tropes are only what's been observed from both trailers, the game's website and the Steam page. Details are subject to change once the game comes out.
The tropes currently found at the moment include:
- Animal Lover: In the Exclusive Gameplay Trailer, Paul himself enjoys interacting with the animals, especially shown with the penguins and kangaroos.
- Animalistic Abomination: Animals infected with the parasite mutate into horrific creatures that would give The Thing a run for its money.
- Belly Mouth: The kangaroo's pouch in the announcement trailer is shown to have a wide, gaping mouth when it ambushes you.
- Body Horror: Oh yes. This game is what happens when you take a zookeeping simulator, add some John Carpenter, sprinkle in some Umbrella-esque creature design, and blend it all in a ghastly confection of horrific animal mutations and claustrophobic environments.
- Creepy Long Fingers: One of the mutated animals in the Announcement Trailer slams its hand against the train window, revealing 8 long fingers. What this animal is is unknown at the moment.
- Find the Cure!: The objective of the game is to make a vaccine that can cure the mutated zoo animals.
- It Can Think: The mutated animals are implied to not be entirely mindless when they transform. As the Announcement Trailer reveals, when Paul uses a scanner against a kangaroo, it hops to another part of the enclosure. When Paul is cornered, that's when the kangaroo is shown clutching on the wall, pouncing on him for the kill.
- Mascot Horror: Since it takes place at a zoo, the mutating animals technically make the game this genre.
- Mood Whiplash: The exclusive gameplay trailer starts innocent, showing Paul doing his duties, interacting with the animals, and overall, a peppy atmosphere. Then one giraffe makes its mutation known, and it's serious.Paul: Damn, I need to hurry up.
- Multiple Endings: The game's website has a section in the description with the capitalized words, CHOICES MATTER, even stating that your choices will change your ending.
- Parasitic Horror: The organisms infecting the animals are parasitic.
- Spiders Are Scary: In the exclusive gameplay trailer, you turn on the TV to see a report about Australia's spiders. Paul is creeped out. Additionally, the giraffes as seen in said trailer is very spider-like.Paul: Ew! Thank god I don't live in Australia. Gross spiders...
- Spot the Imposter: Judging from the trailers, not all the animals make their transformation obvious. Infrared sensors are one such measure to see which ones are infected.
- They Look Just Like Everyone Else!: In the announcement trailer, when Paul scans one kangaroo, it hops to another part of the enclosure. But when he's cornered, the kangaroo reveals its hideous mutation and ambushes him. It is already infected and only revealed itself when Paul was trapped.
- To Serve Man: Given the shape of the bodybag, it is incredibly likely that the zoo grinds up humans to provide meat for the animals, in which case it should be a massive red flag indicating a possible conspiracy in the zoo.
- Wall Crawl: One of the giraffes in the announcement trailer escapes its enclosure easily due to its recently mutated spider-like legs.
- Workplace Horror: You're the night zookeeper, and you're the one to face the unimaginable horrors in it. There is also the assumption that the meat you are serving the animals is from a human wrapped in a bodybag and dropped into the grinder, which would be a massive red flag indicating a possible conspiracy in the zoo.
