Thoughts on Fallout Shelter
I picked up this mobile game on the recommendation of @LouisIngenthron. A spinoff of the Fallout series, it has you managing a large underground vault: assigning survivors to jobs, digging new rooms, managing resources (power, water, and food), and occasionally sending people out to explore the wasteland.
I was "meh" at first, then played it fairly obsessively for about a week, and now I think I'm done with it.
The cartoonish 1950s apocalypse aesthetic is done consistently and well. The characters seem cheerful (even when they're complaining about corpses in their workplace) and the little snippets of dialogue are amusing.
The UI is probably as good as can be expected from a tiny touchscreen limited by the inability to distinguish pointing and clicking (or to see the thing you're clicking on). It can require some rather precise pointing and dragging, but not to the point of extreme frustration.
The tutorial details ramped up at a reasonable speed. I was able to get playing quickly and later dig into the included manual.
The monetization scheme offers to give you rewards for watching a video or paying actual cash. It's not too pushy. I realize this is how the mobile game industry is funded, but I never succumbed. I much prefer getting a few levels for free and then paying once for the complete game.
One surprising flaw was that the game would occasionally hang, to the point where I couldn't exit back to the OS. I very rarely see that in mobile apps, so I was surprised to see it in a well-funded game.
A key point of interest was the game's use of time. Various processes (like leveling up, exploring, and producing resources) take a certain amount of real time, which encouraged me to check back in regularly. Fortunately, not checking in doesn't seem to hurt you (with the possible exception of endangering lone wasteland explorers), so the game doesn't create any "my tamagotchi might die!" stress. The notifications that "something happened" in my vault were useless, because something happens at least every few minutes.
It's something of a sandbox, but there are always various quests and goals pushing you to work toward one more thing.
I've now done one quest arc (rescuing Bottle and Cappy) and it seems there are no new worlds to conquer. I could make my vault bigger and fancier, get more dwellers, and go out to beat up more mutants and take their stuff, but it feels like it would just be more of the same. There doesn't appear to be an overall arc or climactic final goal. (Compare Pokémon GO, which similarly trailed off when I hadn't seen any new species in several days.)
It's satisfying and it can be reasonably played for free. If you're into playing post-apocalyptic house, you may get even more out of it.
#FalloutShelter #Fallout #GameDev #GameDesign #VideoGames #MobileGames
