Zoo Keeper

During the first part of the game, you move Zeke around to build a wall around the Zoo. He must jump to avoid any of the wild animals that are loose. Special items will appear on this level when the fuse-like timer at the top of the screen reaches that part. If the timer makes it to the word "End", the current level ends and the game proceeds on to the next. The bonus items that occasionally appear on the screen include mugs of root beer, ice cream sundaes, clover clubs, watermelons, etc.

When the timer reaches a net, one will appear at a certain location on the wall and if Zeke picks it up, he will be able to capture the animals on the loose and put them back into the Zoo. The net will eventually disappear and the captured animals will try to escape from the Zoo by eating through the wall. Zeke will have to continue building the wall around the Zoo until time is up. At the end of that level, bonus points are awarded for every animal captured. The animals found on this level are snakes, moose, camels, rhinos, elephants and a lion.

On the second level, Zelda is tied to a palm tree and Zeke must rescue her by jumping upwards from level to level while dodging coconuts thrown by a mischievous little monkey. On each of the ledges there are various foods and drinks that Zeke can collect for extra points. Sometimes, one of the ledges will even have a "Free Game" sign that will grant you a free credit. While Zelda is tied up, she says "Save Me!" and whenever Zeke gets knocked out by one of the deadly coconuts, she says "Oh, No!" If Zeke makes it all the way to the top and rescues her, she says "My Hero!" and a bonus of 5,000 points is awarded.

The third level is the same as the first, but on the fourth level, Zeke must constantly jump over herds of charging animals that come out of the cages at the end of each escallator. Zeke then rides the escallator to get to the next floor. Zeke must get to second escallator to reach the top floor where Zelda is, to rescue her. After Zeke has rescued Zelda on the fourth level, the game begins again with an increased difficulty.

On the coconut level, jumping on the top platform is worth 5000 points. However, each time you jump down off the platform and back it doubles your points. If you time it right you can get a maximum of 300,000 points per jump.

The game comes in the same shape cabinet as most of Taito's other games, but has sideart instead of the generic "Taito" lettering and pattern. The most common art features zoo animals in monochrome blue on an orange background. Color side art does exist although this is far less common.

The game uses the same boardset as Qix but has the addition of a coin processor board to prevent ROM swaps as well as an additional daughterboard with extra ROMs. A ROM hack exists to make the game run without the coin processor board, so there is a possibility that a conversion could be a straight ROM swap with some hackery for the additional ROMs. Other games that run on nearly identical hardware are Space Dungeon, The Electric Yo-Yo and Kram.

If the original NiCad battery is still on the PCB, remove it and replace it with a 3.6v rechargable, mounted away the board. The 4116 video RAM ICs often fail and since they are becoming hard to find, they can be replaced with modified 4164's.