Zoochosis - TV Tropes

Zoochosis is a bodycam zookeeper simulator psychological survival horror game developed and published by Clapperheads, with additional publishing collaboration with Playworks.

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 remain in their enclosures. However, 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 was released on September 30th, 2024. 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 (e.g., giraffe). This is done to avoid repetition.

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The tropes currently found at the moment include:

• 20 Minutes into the Past: The events of the game take place in 1991.
• Advertised Extra: The giraffe, shown in the trailers and splash page barely appears in the main game. The giraffes end up being your tutorial for the animal care aspects and don't transform at all, while the wallaby is more likely to end up your first actual transformation. Instead, the giraffes are only confronted in this manner during New Game+.
• Ancient Evil: The whiteboard in the lab room implies that the Mother is potentially more than 8000 years old, and possibly was dug up from either the Greenland or Antarctic ice by the zoo's mysterious backers.
• And Then John Was a Zombie: At the beginning of the game, the weird liquid Doc injects Paul with contains one of the parasites that are also infecting the animals. You will start to mutate as you progress through the game, something that's sped up by taking damage while fighting the mutants. Two of the bad endings have you fully assimilated by the parasite and become a mutant as well.
• And This Is for...: The endings in which Paul and Sarah collaborate on taking down Doc have Sarah sneaking up on Doc and knocking him out, shouting: "This is for C.J.!"
• And Your Little Dog, Too!: If Paul takes the next phone call from Doc before dropping Sarah into the grinder (or rescuing her), Doc reveals that he injected Paul with the parasite. He orders him to keep it down lest he do the same to Lily, Paul's wife, and Gina, his daughter.
• Angry, Angry Hippos: One of the trailers features a non-transformed hippopotamus charging at Paul. This is actually true to real life as hippos are very aggressive animals.
• Animalistic Abomination: Animals infected with the parasite mutate into horrific creatures that would give The Thing a run for its money.
• Animal Lover: In the Exclusive Gameplay Trailer, Paul himself enjoys interacting with the animals, especially shown with the penguins and wallabies. The trailers even show him petting a giraffe and a penguin, both of which seem to enjoy it.
• Animals Lack Attributes: Averted, and it's not a pretty sight.
  • You can take a good look at the moose's anus and testicles.
  • The zebra's mouth used to be the animal's anus and rectum.
• Anti-Hero: Sarah Watkins is an investigative journalist who is in the zoo looking for evidence of unethical experiments on the animals and a potential conspiracy sustaining it; she was caught and set up to be ground into bricks, but Paul can rescue her. Though grateful for the rescue, she adds that she might not return the favor. Throughout the game, she is ruthless and tries to take down the zoo before escaping, even endangering Paul in the process; in one of the endings, she locks Paul in the bathroom, though this is because Paul is in the later stages of the mutation and might turn at any moment. However, she’s up against people who are mutating animals and capturing people to be ground into meat bricks (she nearly became one herself), and to her credit, she is willing to save Paul when given the chance.
• Archnemesis Dad: In one of the endings, Sarah Watkins has some choice words to say about her father, who is apparently the CEO of the CMS Watkins Corporation.

  Sarah: [taking the camera and recording herself] My name is Sarah Watkins, a journalist from Pine Valley. Everything recorded on this camera is authentic and will serve as evidence in my investigation against the CMS Watkins corporation! [brings the camera slightly closer, then furiously drops her voice] You can go to hell, Dad.

• Artistic License – Animal Care: Real-life zoos experience a double-whammy compared to the zoo here, one that works in your favor and one that doesn't.
  • Animals typically do not remain in the exhibit if they're being monitored for signs of infection. Rather, zoos tend to remove and quarantine animals that are noticeably infected so that the infection doesn't spread. This is particularly shocking given Doc's notes that the species and animals in the zoo are otherwise considered valuable and important for preservation - the rarer the species, the quicker a zoo is to initiate quarantine for the animal. Quarantining a suspected animal would make curing them a much quicker process with minimal collateral damage. Justified, as Doc is the one behind everything to begin with.
  • Animals typically have to get used to a new zookeeper's scent for a few days, if not a few weeks, and sick or injured animals can lash out if they're unsure about a zookeeper's actions, even for something simple like a routine blood draw. Thankfully, all of the care procedures you do are taken pretty handily and readily by both uninfected and infected animals. Even though it is your first night, you suffer no drawbacks, and even the infected don't lash out until they're completely taken over.
• Artistic License – Law: When Paul is shocked at the zoo's meat being ground-up people that have been kidnapped, his boss reminds him that he signed an NDA, which prevents him from telling anyone or going to the cops. NDAs meant to protect criminal activity are generally invalid, and trying to use one to cover up murder would get the book thrown at you. Justified in that Doc is planning on killing Paul at the end of the night anyway and just needs to keep him intimidated or distracted for a few hours until that happens. Members of the police force also seem to be in on the conspiracy as well.
• The Bad Guy Wins: Some of the endings end with Doc emerging victorious, leaving him free to continue his experiments.
• Belly Mouth: The pouch of the wallaby is shown to have a wide, gaping mouth when it ambushes you.
• Big Bad: Doctor Oliver Metzger. He may not be in charge of the operation in the zoo, but he's your direct superior and will have you killed if you become a liability or it's convenient for him. He also injects you with one of the parasites at the start of the game, which is one of the biggest threats you have to contend with.
• 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.
• Boyish Short Hair: Sarah has a long pixie cut and looks very tomboyish, at least in the overalls.
• Brutal Honesty: Despite being grateful for Paul rescuing her, Sarah is upfront that she might not do the same to him, given that he's already infected with the parasite. Indeed, one of the endings has Sarah lock Paul into the bathroom because, well, he will mutate any second.
• Bullfight Boss: Tricking the elephant into crashing into a wall is mandatory to remove the protective plating covering its body and leave it susceptible to attack.
• Call a Rabbit a "Smeerp": Played with. All of the animals have a different species name for their mutated forms.
  • Giraffes are called Serparachnodalis.
  • Wallabies are called Macromaribuccus.
  • Elephants are called Macrofasciculumque.
  • Gorillas are called Bupectusberingei.
  • Penguins are called Insaniamglacieforst.
  • Hippos are called Humubullambius.
  • Moose are called Muscipalamalces.
  • Zebras are called Centidermatuberan.
• Cassandra Truth: A woman named Linda Summers will call regarding the whereabouts of her husband, Clarence Jay "C.J." Summers. Paul can then inform her about C.J.'s death and that what is left of him is his hand. However, if Paul has rescued Sarah beforehand, he will mention Sarah's name, and Linda will immediately conclude that the news of her husband's death is an elaborate prank so that he can get away with cheating on her with Sarah.
• Creepy Long Fingers:
  • One of the mutated animals in the Announcement Trailer slams its hand against the train window, revealing 8 long fingers. That hand belongs to Mother, and she has dozens more.
  • In addition to their natural fingers, humans have three of this trope on each hand, as seen in the endings where Paul succumbs to the parasite.
• Cruel and Unusual Death: Sarah can be killed by being dropped into the meat grinder and shredded into meat bricks, all while screaming and begging for her life. Happily, Paul has the option to defy this and rescue her from such a fate.
• Cruel Mercy: The mutated animals will never kill Paul, no matter how many times they attack him. Why is that an example of this trope? Because Paul himself is infected with the parasite, and every time he survives an attack by an infected animal, his mutation gets worse.
• Cruelty Is the Only Option: Whatever you do to Sarah, the next people who will provide the meat will be badly beaten men. Unlike with Sarah, there's absolutely nothing you could do, and it's likely that these men are already dead.
• Cthu-Lookalike: The elephant's most prominent mutation is that its trunk breaks off into many tentacle-like extensions, making it resemble a Cthulhu-esque Lovecraftian horror.
• Cutscene Boss: Doc and Mother are never faced during gameplay. Whether they are defeated or not is resolved during the ending cutscene, depending on the choices you've made during your playthrough.
• Dehumanizing Insult: Doc replies to Paul, who was expecting beef or lamb to grind, with a nonchalant "And there's a long-necked pig." The "long-necked pig" in question is Sarah, with the implication that she is no different from any other meat Paul was expecting.
• Dirty Cop: Doc implies that there are co-conspirators in the police force, which would suggest that he has been getting away with all these crimes for a really long time.
• Distressed Damsel: Sometime before the events of the game, Sarah Watkins went to the zoo to investigate it and expose Dr. Metzger's experiments and, potentially, an underlying conspiracy involving the zoo. However, she was caught, drugged with Xylazine, and set up to be ground into meat to feed the infected animals. When Paul sees her hanging upside-down over the grinder, he has the option to either drop her in or, after taking another call from Dr. Metzger, rescue her. And should Paul rescue her, she would make for a valuable ally in confronting Dr. Metzger.
• Disturbing Deer: Like other mutations in the game, moose transform into raging cannibalistic Body Horror monsters. It loses tissue on its body, leaving muscle and the skull completely exposed, while the cranium splits apart with the vertebrae to form a long slit of broken spines. It also gains the ability to mind control other moose, making eating its own kind easier.
• Doppelgänger Spin: The zebra can form an illusory copy of itself to throw the player off-course, with this copy disappearing into red mist after a prolonged period of time.
• Driven to Suicide: Discussed. If the player idles on the work contract screen long enough, Doc will coerce Paul into signing the contract by playing a recording of him calling the Suicide Hotline after reaching an emotional breaking point regarding his perceived inability to provide for his impoverished family.
• Eldritch Abomination: Mother, the source of all the parasites, is a true monstrosity unlike the infected animals. While her lower body is an amorphous mass with dozens of arm tentacles, her upper body more closely resembles a human than anything else, albeit vaguely. Given that the endings where Paul succumbs to the parasite in him has him grow three extra fingers on each hand, and that all of Mother's hands also end in eight fingers, there's an implication that Mother Was Once a Man.
• Extra Eyes: The gorilla and elephant grow extra eyes upon mutating.
• Fallen-on-Hard-Times Job: There's an audio recording of Paul calling the Suicide Hotline, stating that he's at the end of his rope due to his perceived inability to provide for his impoverished family. This would explain why he was forced to take up the job as a night zookeeper.
• Fan Disservice: Paul first meets Sarah Watkins when she's naked. Now, Sarah is actually rather easy on the eyes, but in context, she's naked because she's about to be dropped into the grinder.
• Fat Bastard: Doc has a very notable gut and is rotten to the core.
• Faux Affably Evil: Doc is a pretty cheerful guy and makes plenty of jokes while giving Paul instructions for his new job. He's also working on a secret project involving parasite-infested mutated animals and has absolutely no issue with grinding up living people to feed to the animals, injecting Paul with one of those parasites to ensure the animals don't attack him and that he can easily be disposed of. Doc even keeps this tone while feeding Paul to Mother and makes another joke that his wife will make for a good dessert, though when push comes to shove, Doc will reveal that he thinks Paul and everyone else who took the zookeeper job are pathetic losers.
• Fed to Pigs: Not pigs specifically, but unwanted witnesses and loose ends are ground up into meat and then fed to the mutated zoo animals. Sarah can be subjected to this if you so choose.
• Find the Cure!: The game's objective is to make a vaccine that can cure the mutated zoo animals.
• Fire-Forged Friends: Paul and Sarah start of as strangers, but in the best ending, the ending text will say that Paul and Sarah still keep in touch.
• Flower Mouth: The penguin and the hippo have their mouths split open into all directions when they mutate. The top half of the moose's skull splits open.
• Flying Flightless Bird: The penguin mutates its flippers into holed wings, giving it the ability to fly, increasing the stakes when it's present with you.
• Freudian Threat: If Paul has rescued Sarah beforehand, he can return a call from Linda and inform her about C.J.'s death; what is left of him is his hand. He will instruct Linda to call the police and say he and Sarah are in the zoo. However, when he mentions Sarah's name, Linda suspects it's a prank to keep her duped so that C.J. will run off with Sarah. She will insist on waiting for C.J. to come home, saying: "I won't just cut off his hand. I'll cut off his dick!"
• Game-Breaking Bug: Upon launch, one of the main criticisms of the game was the amount of bugs present, including game-breaking ones, though these have been increasingly ironed out.
  • Doc will continue to move during loading sequences, and if he bumps into you during that time, his model takes priority and forces you back. This can outright thrust you into set architecture, making it impossible to move and progress the tutorial. Additionally, if at any point during the tutorial you accidentally bump into Doc, you have a chance of breaking his pathing and knocking him off course. The AI will be unable to get him back on the path, making the tutorial impossible to finish.
  • If you're drawing blood from an animal, an animation begins playing that causes the player model to lean in and then return to its original state, usually allowing the player to resume movement. However, if you did this action near a set piece, such as a wall or even a small incline, you'll be shoved through it and get stuck.
  • If a mutant is in the middle of a unique animation and you try to cure it or shoot it with a lethal injection dart, the mutant will get locked into an animation, making the encounter impossible to complete. Similarly, if a mutant is shot while traversing over a set piece, such as pedestals, slight inclines, or other similar set decorations, its model can completely freeze in place. In this state, it can't take damage or react to anything around it, making the encounter once again impossible to complete.
• Glowing Eyes of Doom: The eyes of the moose glow when it's hypnotizing the other moose into approaching it.
• Golden Ending: Should the player save Sarah, find the phone to warn Lily, find the right parasite needed to create the poison, and save all the infected animals, then not only will Doc and the Mother be the only two not to survive the night, you'll even get to drive away from the whole ordeal in Doc's Cool Car.
• Good Is Not Nice: From the outset, Sarah candidly says that she might not rescue Paul back, even after thanking him for the rescue. Indeed, she makes good on her word in one of the endings by locking Paul in the bathroom. That said, she's up against the CMS Watkins Corporation, which mutates animals and grinds innocent people into meat bricks, she intends to bring the conspiracy in the zoo to light, and she locks Paul in the bathroom because he's highly infected and about to mutate. She also will not hesitate to help Paul when given the means and chance.
• Greater-Scope Villain: The CMS Watkins Corporation, which apparently funds Doc's experiments and helps shield him from any legal repercussions thereof. Sarah's mission is to gather evidence to expose the conspiracy.
• Ground by Gears: The fate of Paul if he does not sign the contract. Sarah herself was also set up for this, and Paul can either see it through or defy it by rescuing her.
• Hate Sink: Along with having no redeeming qualities, Doctor Oliver Metzger proves to be more disgusting, twisted, and monstrous than the parasites themselves, given how nonchalant he is about feeding people to the parasite-infected animals and that he's not above using psychological warfare to try to spur potential recruits into becoming zookeepers.
• He Knows Too Much: Dr. Metzger will try to feed you to Mother, saying that you have seen too much and must be killed off. He also tries to pull this on Sarah, given that she's trying to investigate the zoo and expose Doc's crimes, and you have the choice to either see her death through or rescue her.
• Heroic Sacrifice: Defied in the Golden Ending. The only way to kill the Mother is to inject a victim with the poison and feed it to her, and should Paul attempt to inject himself, Sarah will knock him out and use the poison on Doc instead, freeing Paul from the infection and killing both Doc and the Mother in one fell swoop.
• Hero of Another Story: Sarah Watkins is an investigative journalist for Pine Valley; she is looking for evidence of the zoo's unethical experiments and a potential conspiracy that keeps the zoo running, all provided by her father's corporation, the CMS Watkins Corporation. However, the game is entirely from Paul Connelley's perspective.
• Hoist by His Own Petard: In any ending where Doc dies, he's either torn in half by Mother whilst trying to feed Paul to her, or mauled to death after Paul mutates from the parasite Doc injected into him.
• Horror Hunger: All mutated animals, regardless of their natural diet, have an appetite for both human flesh and that of their own kind; no other meat will satisfy them. A data log from a human describes how he was unable to stop himself from indulging in the meat bricks, as if he were addicted to them.
• Hypnotic Creature: The moose has the ability to hypnotize its uninfected counterparts to draw them to it so it can devour them.
• I'm a Humanitarian: If Paul gives the meat brick to Lily, she and Gina will eat the meat from the animal food bins, completely unaware that it is human meat. And they find it tastes delicious.
• Interface Screw: The bodycam tends to cut to static at times, usually as a scene transition or after Paul gets attacked. The moose in particular can exploit this by emitting energy from its antlers that interfere with the camera feed, leaving the player vulnerable to its charge attack.
• Intrepid Reporter: Sarah Watkins is an investigative journalist for Pine Valley who entered the zoo to investigate it and expose Doc, his experiments, and a potential underlying conspiracy in the zoo. She was caught, knocked out with Xylazine, and set up to be ground into meat long before the events of the game have started, and you have the option of either grinding her into meat bricks or rescuing her. If you rescue her, you can both cooperate and take on Dr. Metzger together.
• It Can Think: The mutated animals are implied not to be entirely mindless when they transform. As the Announcement Trailer reveals, when Paul uses a scanner against a wallaby, it hops to another part of the enclosure. When Paul is cornered, the wallaby is shown clutching on the wall, pouncing onto him for the kill.
• Jerkass Has a Point: Doc is a complete monster who remorselessly and eagerly grinds innocent people into chow for the animals and parasites. However, if you chose to give Lily one of the meat bricks, he's not wrong when he calls out the utter stupidity and irresponsibility of Paul immediately stealing from his new workplace as soon as he's out of his supervisor's view.
• Killed Offscreen: Happens to Sarah in some of the endings, as Doc tells Paul he caught and fed her to Mother before he woke up. Lily can also end up being murdered by Doc's associates. In the endings where the poison is prepared and administered correctly, Mother is simply stated to have died during the ending text.
• Mad Scientist: Doc has an underground laboratory and is responsible for conducting experiments.
• Manipulative Bastard: Doc. He pressures Paul into working for him by rushing him to sign the work contract, playing a recording of Paul's suicide ideation, suggesting Paul's family would be better off without him, and threatening Paul's wife and daughter's lives if he talks to them about what happened at the zoo.
• Meaningful Name: Doc's real name is Oliver Metzger. "Metzger" is the German term for butcher. Considering the method he gets his "special" meat for the animals...
• Metaphorically True: Doc claims that whatever he injected Paul with at the beginning of the game was to give Paul immunity to whatever illnesses the animals might have. The mutated animals don't kill any other organisms infected with the parasite. However, they will still attack Paul and accelerate the mutation.
• Misanthrope Supreme: Doc displays shades of this if Paul answers his call before grinding Sarah into meat bricks (or rescuing her); Doc will refer to her as a "long-necked pig", suggesting she's no different than any other meat Paul was expecting to feed the animals. The bad endings make it clear he views all humans the same way.
• Monster Mouth: The zebra has a mouth that used to be its anus and rectum.
• Mood Whiplash: The exclusive gameplay trailer starts innocent, showing Paul doing his duties, interacting with the animals, and generally a peppy atmosphere. Then one giraffe makes its mutation known, and it's serious.
• Multiple Endings: According to the developers, the game has 23 different endings. In the published version, the ending you get depends on how much damage you took throughout the game, how you deal with Lily and Sarah, if you cure the mutated animals or euthanize them, and the poison, specifically whether you prepared it correctly and who you used it on. Plus there is one Non-Standard Game Over ending.

  CHOICES MATTER: Which animals will you save? Will you survive? There are many endings depending on the choices you make.

• Naked First Impression: Played for Horror. The first time Paul meets Sarah is when she's already naked, unconscious, and hanging upside down over the grinder, ready to be shredded.
• Naked on Arrival: Played for Horror. Sarah is first introduced naked, unconscious, and hanging upside down, set up to be shredded into meat bricks.
• Nipple and Dimed: Nope. Sarah's nipples are visible.
• Nobody Poops: The animals avert this for the sake of a game mechanic. Analyzing an animal's fecal matter is crucial to determining whether the animal is healthy or not.
• Non-Standard Game Over: If you take too long to sign the employee contract, Doc will tranquilize Paul and tell him "You're only good for meat." The player will then see Paul getting dropped into the meat grinder.
• No Zombie Cannibals: Doc injects Paul with a parasite supposedly to protect him, as the parasites won't attack someone already infected with one. Sure enough, Paul never gets attacked even though the zoo is infested, and even the parasite-mutated animals only attack Paul when he attacks them, and only knock him over rather than harming him. Averted with the Mother, which will happily eat parasite-infected humans as well as uninfected ones. Averted with a December 2024 update that gives the mutants the ability to kill Paul.
• Parasitic Horror: The organisms infecting the animals are parasitic in nature.
• Pixellation: The game has this option when you come across any naked human bodies to grind.
• Pragmatic Hero: Sarah is not above doing questionable deeds if it helps her stop a group of people who are mutating animals and kidnapping innocent people to grind into bricks and, potentially, expose a conspiracy in the zoo. Though grateful for Paul rescuing her, she will tell him upfront that she might not do the same, and in one of the endings in which Paul mutates, she locks him in the bathroom because he's already in the advanced stages of infection and will mutate any second. That said, she will step in to save Paul when given the means and chance.
• Press Start to Game Over: One of the bad endings can be achieved as soon as the game starts. If Paul takes too long to sign the work contract, Doc will get impatient, crumple up the paper, sedate Paul, and grind him into meat bricks.
• Red Eyes, Take Warning: The elephant's eyes are red, which adds to its Cthulhu-esque appearance.
• Rough Overalls: The overalls appear to be standard zookeeper wear, especially given that the zookeepers must do all this manual labor while caring for the animals. Should Paul rescue Sarah, she will be seen wearing these overalls; they're the only clothes she could find.
• Screw the Rules, I Have Connections!: It's implied Doc has co-conspirators in the police force and other centers of power, which is how he can get away with a steady rate of kidnapping and murder to feed Mother.
• The Secret of Long Pork Pies: Paul accidentally does this if he gives Lily a meat brick from the zoo. Considering that later in the game Paul discovers that the meat comes from people...
• Shout-Out:
  • Four of the lockers have the names of famous horror movie directors: J.H. Carpenter, W.E. Craven, R. Scott, and D.P. Cronenberg.
  • U.S. Outpost 31, written on the whiteboard in the lab, is a reference to The Thing
• 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 are very spider-like.
• Spot the Imposter: Not all the animals make their transformation obvious. Infrared sensors and UV lamps are used to measure which ones are infected.
• Stealing from the Till: Paul's first action, upon being left unsupervised by Doc, can be to swipe a meat brick from the animal food bins and hand it to his wife through a delivery slot. He justifies this to himself by reminding himself that she and his daughter haven't had meat to eat for a long time. Of course, that's before he learns that the meat in the brick is human...
• They Look Just Like Everyone Else!: In the announcement trailer, when Paul scans one wallaby, it hops to another part of the enclosure. But when he's cornered, the wallaby reveals its hideous mutation and ambushes him. It is already infected and only revealed itself when Paul was trapped. There is also no telling which of the zoo animals is infected just by looking at them.
• Tomboy: Sarah Watkins definitely looks the part, given her long pixie cut, nose and ear piercings, and her overalls, though that last one might have to do with the fact that these are the only clothes she could find; Paul first found her naked, after all.
• To Serve Man: The zoo grinds up innocent people to provide meat for the mutated animals, something that Doc has apparently done so much he doesn't even bat an eye anymore; these people aren't always dead when they are forced into the grinder, either. Sarah herself is also about to be subjected to this when you are supplied "special" meat to be ground, and you can either follow through and drop her into the grinder or rescue her and take her down. Screw up your job and Doc will do the same thing to Paul and his family to keep them quiet.
• Tunnel King: The hippo can burrow its way through the ground to initiate attacks from below.
• Unexplained Recovery: It's actually possible to cure the fully mutated animals by injecting them with 3 shots of experimental cure instead of lethal injection (the December 2024 patch changed the mutant fights such that you need to knock them out with lethal darts before curing them with a shot of the correct experimental serum). This not only kills the parasite without killing the host but also somehow reverses the massive Body Horror changes to their bodies caused by the mutations.
• Ungrateful Bitch: Averted with Sarah should Paul rescue her as she outright thanks him for it. However, she candidly states at the outset that she might not return the favor because Paul is infected with the parasite, and one of the bad endings has her lock Paul inside the bathroom. That said, she only does that because he's already in the late stages of infection and will become a hostile monster at any second, and will not hesitate to rescue Paul when given the means and chance.
• Unintentionally Unwinnable: Downplayed, as while the game is still beatable, it had a number of game-breaking bugs and other issues that could prevent one from beating it at launch.
  • The game only gives you just enough resources per encounter to cure the current animals in that current exhibit. If you miss anything while looting the various medicines, chemicals, and syringes, it'll make the following encounter impossible to finish as there are no separate save files to reload from. If you reach a checkpoint lacking any of these resources, you won't be able to cure animals or kill mutants, essentially softlocking the playthrough.
  • The lack of additional save states that can be reloaded means that if any game-breaking glitches occur during a checkpoint period, the game from that point onward can become impossible to complete.
• The Unreveal: The player never gets a full look at what a fully mutated human looks like. All we see of it are Paul's mutated hands in some of the bad endings - though it's common speculation that Mother was human.
• Vague Hit Points: Instead of a normal health system, taking damage exacerbates your parasite infection, causing you to start mutating faster. Take too much damage and you'll turn into a mutant yourself at the end of the game.
• Vomit Indiscretion Shot: Sometimes, a sick animal will throw up. Paul will also throw up whenever he's in a later stage of the parasitic infection.
• 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. The meat you are serving the infected animals is from innocent people dropped into the grinder, and you have the option of seeing this for yourself by doing this to Sarah. That Doc has apparently done it so much he does not bat an eye anymore, and that he's gotten away with this for quite a while, points to a conspiracy in the zoo, one that Sarah is trying to uncover.
• Would Hurt a Child: To keep Paul in line, Doc threatens to have his whole family, including his little daughter, Gina, also injected with a parasite or fed to Mother.
• You Have Outlived Your Usefulness: No matter how well you do your job, your boss plans to feed you to Mother at the end of the night, reasoning you've seen too much to be allowed to live. The only way to survive is to figure out a way to dispose of him instead. Or turn into a mutant ahead of schedule and eat him.
• Your Makeup Is Running: Sarah is wearing eyeshadow (and maybe some mascara), and she has smudges of makeup under her eyes and faint streaks running down her face. Considering the situation she finds herself in, it's hard to blame her.

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