How to get ahead in Wonder Zoo - Animal Rescue! - strategies, hints, and tips

We ain't lion: Wonder Zoo - Animal Rescue! can be a total beast to play sometimes.

Luckily, we're not the type to have a giraffe at your expense, so if you want to show off your veterinary skills to your pack of friends in this freemium world builder, take a goosey gander at our guide.

How are these animal puns working out for you? Well, buckle up, sport, because there are more to come... and they don't get any better.

Animal house keeping

When it comes to planning your zoo, the first thing you need to do is ensure you're building in rows. The area of land you have access to is perfect for sequentially laying out each exhibit, so make sure you keep things close together. It doesn't matter where you place animals in relation to one another, so put gorillas next to eagles, and place elephants right up against zebras.

This will also mean that you can systematically go through all of the animals when you boot up the game, tapping on them once to receive money, tapping on them a second time to feed them, and start the process of earning cash again.

Actually, it's best you collect all of the money in one run, then go through and feed them. There's a short progress bar that pops up when you initiate one of the above actions, but you don't need to waste time watching it fill - just move to the next enclosure and do another sweep of the animals once this is complete.

If you want to really squeeze every last coin out of your playtime, focus on collecting and feeding the springboks and lions first. They take minutes to 'pay out' again, meaning that later in the game you'll be able to collect from them a second time once you've taken care of the rest of the animals.

A note on concessions stalls: these take up less room than enclosures, so bunch them all together where possible. This gives you more space to work with around the park, and you can collect all of their money in quick succession.

Born free

To take advantage of all the freebies the game's designers throw at you, make it your mission to come back to the game every day at roughly the same time.

If you do so, you'll receive a free Daily Reward, which includes coins, gasoline canisters, Peanuts, and even Silver Lotto chances... in that order. These gifts stack up, so don't miss a day or you'll go back to the lowest tier of reward.

You should also pay a visit to the helipad, which is where the Bronze, Silver, and Gold Lotto gifts are handed out. You'll get one Bronze reward a day, and though they're purely decorative items, hey, they're free and they make the place look nicer.

- Make friends from the get-go. If you've got pals who like similar games, invite them to play via Facebook. You'll need them for a few of the missions, and they're useful to you during other quests, too.

- Use up your Peanuts to progress time. By doing so, the pace of the game picks up early. Plus, the items you can buy with Peanuts just aren't worth it. Use Peanuts, then, to skip birthing times of creatures or even whole missions if you're stuck, but don't squander them on help during safaris or on purchasing animals you can catch normally.