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Gamelab: Escape a zoo in space

Originally published 2026-10-21 on Advisory Hour.

Originally published as an Advisory Hour Substack post on 2026-10-21. This first-party site copy preserves the text, localizes public supporting media, and connects the record to its project trail.

Original post

Gamelab: Escape a zoo in space image from the original Advisory Hour post.
Gamelab: Escape a zoo in space image from the original Advisory Hour post.

After building the fifth iteration of IslandLab, I started thinking about something bigger. I wanted more room to explore, with a greater variety of landscapes, buildings, and critters, while keeping some limits on what I’d need to build. Something closer to a theme park.

For whatever reason, I kept coming back to my visit to the Denver Botanic Gardens. It’s a nice garden, although I think Reiman Gardens in Ames, Iowa, gives it some pretty good competition. I’ve been up there enough times to appreciate how much they’ve managed to fit into that place.

Both have interesting indoor areas, too. The tropical exhibit in Denver reminded me of a miniature version of the Lied Jungle at the Henry Doorly Zoo.

That got me thinking about the zoo itself. All those different buildings, environments, and paths connecting them. What if I used its map as a starting point for a virtual zoo?

Of course, a zoo needs animals. Getting a whole collection of recognizable, realistically animated animals working was going to be a project of its own. But alien creatures gave me a little more freedom.

So the zoo became a space station.

An enormous space station, with the layout of a large zoo, floating out in space. Its exhibits contain creatures collected from different places around the universe. That seemed like a pretty good excuse for whatever strange things I could come up with.

Then I needed a character to explore it. Designing a new character means figuring out its appearance, rigging, and animations, so naturally I cheated and borrowed Seven, the little robot that’s been appearing in a lot of my projects lately.

Seven is remarkably versatile. The robot can transform, attach to a ship, become a boat, and carry its own power supply. There are all kinds of fun things you can do with it.

Including getting it eaten by spiders.

It’s October, and I realized I hadn’t done much with Halloween. So I started thinking about how to make this a little scary. An asteroid hits the station, damages the exhibits, and lets all the creatures loose. Now you’re a small robot trying to find an escape pod in a very large zoo.

Somewhere out there are giant spiders that feed on robot power supplies.

That gave the whole thing a story. You arrive with a place to explore, something goes badly wrong, and suddenly you need to find your way out. The same paths that looked interesting a few minutes ago become a little less inviting when something might be waiting around the corner.

Then I thought it would make a nice little connection if the escape pod dropped Seven onto an island.

You can see that in the trailer below. It turns the game into a possible origin story for the robot’s island adventures. How did this little robot end up on an island in the first place? Apparently, it was visiting a zoo in space when an asteroid hit and the spiders got loose.

Which seems reasonable enough.

I’ve included a longer gameplay clip below, too. You may not have time to navigate a virtual zoo inspired by the Henry Doorly layout, and it turned into a fairly large place. I was surprised I managed to pull this off. There are quite a few creatures and areas to explore.

One thing to know before you start: there’s a five-minute countdown when you spawn into the zoo. That’s a story mechanism. When it runs out, it forces the transition into the station’s destruction, so you have five minutes to investigate the parts you can reach. You can always reset and try a different route.

This started with wanting somewhere a little bigger for a robot to wander around. It ended with an orbital zoo, an asteroid, giant spiders, and an explanation for how Seven got to the island.

I had fun with this one. Check out the trailer, give it a try, and leave a comment below if you have any thoughts. Otherwise, I’ll catch you next time.

Trailer

Gamelab: Escape a zoo in space video 1 from the original Advisory Hour post.

Time-lapse footage around the space station:

Gamelab: Escape a zoo in space video 2 from the original Advisory Hour post.

Play now: https://ericrhea.com/gamelab/starlight-menagerie.html

Where’s the read more?

Typically I have a “read more” link on these articles, but I’ll be saving that for the 21st. There’s something new I’m working on related to this title specifically, and I think it’ll give you ideas for your own projects. Until tomorrow!

Connected work