What could be neater than being able to have your own wildlife reserve and caring for familiar wild animals found in Africa? With this app, you can do just that, as it gives you the role of caretaker of these majestic creatures of the savannah. The dedication of this app’s developers could not be made more apparent by its plethora of features, eye-catching 3D graphics, easy controls, myriad of things to do, and overall originality.

Upon launching the game, you would be given a tutorial on how most animals should be cared for in your reserve. You start off with an elephant, and how you care for it is pretty much primarily dictated and guided from the outset. However, once you move to the zebra, everything you’ve learned from the tutorials would be applied and tested.

From the start, the game might give off an impression of being overly simplistic. However, as you progress through the tutorial and ultimately finish it, you will find that the game is actually pretty complex and requires careful attention to the state of the animals that have been placed under your care, especially if you already have more than one animal in your reserve.

You have to see to it that their basic needs are given, may it be food, shelter, medicine, and hygiene. Every single one of these factors have their own categories, marked by direct, visceral images. Each animal has its own shelter and place in your zoo, and like a reserve manager in real life, you have to familiarize yourself with how they look and are positioned in the reserve.

How you are taking care of each animal can easily be known by clicking on the clipboard found in the animal interface. The clipboard reveals your animal’s overall condition, weight, fondness, and health levels with the use of a slider. You will notice that each slider has its own layout of colors. As much as possible, you would be advised to keep each of these parameters in the green by performing a variety of actions that range from feeding and washing to cuddling and giving gifts and treats. Additionally, it’s not only that animals that you need to take care as you also have to keep the reserve cleaned maintained.

Your level, represented by a blue star on the upper-left portion of the interface, determines the achievements and shop items you’ve unlocked. There is an equally blue bar that accompanies it, which indicates your experience bar that fills up over time while you gain experience with every correct activity that you perform as you care for each animal.

Once an animal is in tip-top shape, a potential owner would arrive in your reserve to volunteer as its caretaker. Acquiescing would reward you with a lot of experience points. All the animals, accessories, and other unique content may be unlocked with the passage of time, but players may opt to purchase them using real money.

If one is to compare this app to other mobile business simulation games, it definitely shines with its emphasis on caring for animals rather making any real, financial profit out of your activities as reserve manager. It’s for this reason why this app is hard to categorize as well, for the many things that you can do in it. The attention to detail and realism that this app espouses make it all the more a hidden gem in today’s selection of iPhone games.

Price: Free