Burgers’ Zoo Snapshot – Burgers Zoo

The Brief

Burgers’ Zoo, situated in Arnhem, The Netherlands, is popular for having its park divided into seven areas representing different ecosystems, with the purpose of imitating the natural habitats of their animals. Burgers’ Zoo commissioned a team of four HKU- and two UU students to experiment with different methods of gamification within their marketing strategy.

Burgers’ Zoo wanted to give their predefined target audience, children up to the age of 12, the unique and immersive experience of the different ecosystems through a game that can be played from home.

The objective of the project was to achieve a working and polished prototype within four months, which Burgers’ Zoo could proceed to develop further in the future. Except for a few suggestions, our team was given a lot of freedom.

The Product

Burgers’ Zoo Snapshot is a 360° mobile app game in which the player acts as a nature photographer hired by Burgers’ Zoo to photograph the animals and create an exposition.

The player can visit the different ecosystems of the zoo through various 360° videos of inside the animal enclosures. In order to meet the specific requirements for the photos, the player is equipped with a list of tasks that need to be fulfilled in each area. Once the player progresses through the list, more ecosystems get unlocked, allowing for the player to visit new types of animals.

What excites young children the most when visiting a zoo is the close vicinity at which they can see and experience these rare animals. Who as a kid hasn’t secretly dreamed they could climb around with the monkeys and swim among the colourful fishes? With our target audience and the brief of creating an immersive experience in mind, we decided to implement 360° video footage shot inside the enclosures of the animals.

The final prototype covered three of the seven ecosystems when the project ended in December 2016. Burgers’ Zoo continued developing the game and added the missing areas. The app was officially launched in August 2017 and can be downloaded through the app store for Android and IOS.