Zoo Dentist

Genre: Simulation

Players: 1

Game Company Bad Behavior Profile Page: Prison Games

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Review:

Zoo Dentist is a family-friendly Simulation-style game released as an asset on the Codester Asset Store in 2021 as Dentist Kids Game, brought to Nintendo Switch in 2021 as a low-effort asset flip, apparently only changing the normal kids to animal ones. In this game, players take the role of a dentist helping a series of anthropomorphic animal kids with their dental problems.

The presentation here is simple, but decent. Players are presented with bouncy similar-looking kids (that all move in exactly the same way), rendered in a simple, cartoony style, with little stretchy animations to keep them moving. Once these kids open their mouths, you’ll be treated to a surprisingly grotesque display of various horrors going on in their mouth – polyps, open wounds, dead and blackened teeth, and so on. If you’re looking for a game to teach your kids the value of brushing regularly, this may scare them into compliance. These visuals are backed by a light, juvenile-sounding, slightly-irritating soundtrack that works well enough for the game, but can get a bit annoying after a little while.

The gameplay here is decent enough, though it feels very much like going through the motions more than using any sort of skill or thought to solve the problems before you. You’ll pretty much need to use each tool at your disposal on each kid you’re working on, and the game will instruct you where to use it. There’s a little trial and error to figuring out just what it wants from you at some points, but overall it’s pretty straightforward. Grab one tool, use it in the designated places, grab the next tool, go where directed, and so on until you’re done. There’s not really a proper order for most of it, and the game will let you know when you’re done using a given tool.

I should mention that while the gamepad controls work okay, there’s a bit of looseness to moving around the cursor that makes this a bit more frustrating than it needs to be. However, the touchscreen is put to good use here, and if you’re playing this game in portable mode, that’s definitely going to be the preferred way to play the game.

In the end, given the low-pressure, foolproof gameplay, Zoo Dentist seems pretty clearly to be a game intended for young kids looking to have fun pretending to be a dentist for a little bit. In that respect it works well enough, but most players will want something more engaging and challenging than this. Unless you’re specifically looking to encourage better brushing in your very young kid’s habits, or appealing to their desire to become a dentist, this is a game you’ll want to skip.

tl;dr – Zoo Dentist is a family-friendly game that has players taking the role of a dentist working on cartoony young anthropomorphic patients. This is definitely a game aimed to appeal to pretty young kids, and while it works well enough in that regard, most players will quickly grow bored at the lack of variety or challenge here. Unless your young kid wants to grow up to be a dentist, or needs to be scared into brushing more regularly, this is not going to be worth your time.

Grade: C-

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