Hayo Zookeepers!It's the most wonderful time of the year, and it's only fitting that we celebrate with our Planet Zoo community! We're pleased to announce that free Update 1.1 is coming to Planet Zoo on 17 December 2019!Thanks to your feedback, this free update includes a variety of different features; here's a small overview, to show you why they've been implemented and how they may affect your gameplay!We've received some feedback regarding the in-game time in Planet Zoo. We'd like to thank you all for giving us your perspective on what speed you'd like to see the animals age, as it has helped us create a solution that we believe everyone will enjoy! Slow Animal Aging is a setting that can be found in thesection of themenu, and you can use it to alter the rate at which your animals age: up to five times slower than normal. This will not only affect aging, but also how quickly the animals mature, how long they gestate for, the amount of time between mating attempts, and how long it takes for their star rating to increase. However, we'd like to highlight that animals will still display all of their other behaviours at the same rate as they do now; this will not be affected by the age setting. Using Slow Animal Aging will slow down the rate things are happening in your zoo, giving you fewer animal births and deaths to deal with. This setting will be available in all modes: Career, Sandbox, Franchise and Challenge. Upon using the slider, the aging of your animals will become disconnected from the in-game years that pass. This is deliberate, not a bug.We are introducing immediate animal family information, which you can see by selecting an animal and viewing their social tab, included in their information panel. Through this, you will be able to learn of an animal's parentage, siblings and direct descendants. This should help prevent inbreeding in zoos and keep your animals healthy!We have introduced pack structures specific to canines - this applies to Timber Wolves and African Wild Dogs. Alphas are stable within a pack structure, and members won't normally fight unless they are overcrowded. All juveniles will be added to the pack structures. All pack members will be listed in the animal UI.We've also created more Heat Maps, which should help you in all aspects of managing your zoo! These Heat Maps involve crime, staff happiness, animal breeding, habitat cleanliness and updates to negative impacts, such as litter and thrown food. These will all be available to you in the Heat Map tab (H), and can help you keep your zoo as prestige as possible.The team have added new social interactions for the Ring-Tailed Lemur and Red Ruffed Lemur, meaning you'll see the Lemurs interact with each other, both adult to adult and adult to juvenile. Make sure your animals have enough space to display their behaviour theatres and are happy in all aspects, and they will be able to perform their social interactions!We are introducing a News Feed to the Planet Zoo home page, which will update you on any announcements you should be aware of! These will include maintenance information and news updates.We've added new alerts to the game, which will help point out any issues with the setup of your zoo - something we hope will help you better identify what's happening with your parks. A new High Alert will notify players when something that will have a tremendously negative effect on your zoo is happening, such as if an animal escapes or if all Keeper Huts are closed. This High Alert will pop up in the centre of your screen, but can be switched off in the options.All Alerts can now be switched off on a per category basis; they've been grouped in the options menu.A new crime management page has been added to the Zoo Overview management screen - this tab will display and locate vandalised items in your zoo.Refunds have now been modified, and now have a breakdown of costs in the Zoo finance screen. If a guest has spent less than half of their allotted time in the zoo before going home due to low happiness, they will receive a refund. If an animal escapes and the guest flees, they will receive a refund that's proportional to the time they've spent in the zoo. Innocent guests ejected from the park will receive a full refund. Additionally, unhappy guests will not donate as much money to your zoo.Our team have created a beautiful in-game Aurora Borealis, also known as the Northern Lights, which you can see while in the Tundra biome! Keep your eye on the night sky to see them, as they are truly a sight to behold! We're looking forward to seeing your gorgeous screenshots of this natural phenomenon! However, it is important for us to highlight that this feature will only be available in High-Ultra Graphic settings.An Ice Cream Costume is available to all players to dress up their avatars!Of course, for all the master builders among us, we're adding a complete ice & snow rock set, enrichment items like a snow ball and a Christmas present, new winter foliage, and ice pathing.These features will arrive alongside a huge number of gameplay tweaks and bug fixes, which the team have been working hard on in the past few weeks - the full Update Notes will be posted on 17 December when the update goes live. There might be another surprise in store for you as well, so do keep an eye out for any exciting announcements soon.