Fallout Shelter or Where Did My Life Go?
A few days ago, during their E3 conference, Bethesda announced a stand alone mobile game for the Fallout universe called Fallout Shelter. Since then, I haven’t been able to leave my phone alone for more than a few minutes at a time. Seriously, I can’t ignore it or these little vault dwellers are going to die. It’s like an ant farm full of tamagotchi that are under attack on top of not knowing how to take care of themselves. No wonder every vault overseer you meet is mad with power. With Fallout Shelter, I have become the arbiter of life and death for the couple dozen dwellers chosen by Vault-Tec to be my charges. I even decide who gets to have kids and with whom. And then I get to name the babies, as is the purview of every overseer. After all, children are the future – especially in a vault.
Yes, if you have an iOS device and a desire to rule with an iron fist, Fallout Shelter is a game for you. The game puts players in the position of overseer for whatever custom numbered vault they choose. (I’m running vault 113 myself.) The core of Fallout Shelter is a resource based simulation. Players build facilities that supply power, food, and clean water and then staff those with properly skilled dwellers. Larger populations unlock new room types that let you train the all important SPECIAL stats (strength, perception, endurance, charisma, intelligence, agility, and luck for those that don’t know) as well as attracting wasteland survivors and even making a Nuka Cola bottling facility. The other resource in the game is happiness. That seems to come primarily from keeping people healthy and in jobs they’re suited for. Of course, the dwellers are your real resource. You can always make more in the usual way by putting a man and a woman in a living quarters area and help nature along it’s course.
What sort of Fallout game would it be if you didn’t have someone out in the wasteland trying to survive? It’s the hallmark of the series so of course it’s part of Fallout Shelter as well. It’s actually one of my favorite parts of the game. I choose some poor, hapless dweller and drag them outside of the door to make them set out into the wasteland in search of bottle caps, weapons, and armor. While they’re underway, I like to check in on them and see what they’ve been up to. The game keeps a running journal of their adventures for me to read as they encounter the dangers that lie beyond the safety of the vault. It’s so distracting that I sometimes forget that I need to tell the dwellers that stay behind to collect the resources they’ve been producing. With some luck, my plucky young adventurer will find some gear to share with the others. However, please remember to bring your wasteland explorers back before shutting down and going to bed at night or you’ll likely find a dead dweller when you wake up and check on the game in the morning. (Yes, I’m speaking from experience.)
This is an amazing time killer for those of us waiting to play Fallout 4. There are, however, a few things to keep in mind. This world continues on whether you’re playing or not. It’s downright nerve-wreaking at times since left on their own, the vault dwellers will get radiation poisoning from lack of clean water and starve. It’s the neediest ant farm ever assembled. And there’s always the threat of disaster looming. I’ve had to put out fires (Sometimes the science lab just catches fire, okay?), repel raider attacks, and deal with the odd radroach infestation. These little guys will perish without me. They NEED me. And the worst part is that they all have names! Why did you name them? You know that just leads to attachment? How could you let poor Emily Day die alone out in the wastes? What kind of cruel bastard are you?
Fallout Shelter is the perfect sim to fulfill my egomaniacal post-apocalyptic dreams! This kind of power could easily be too much for some people to handle. The temptation to constantly check in on their flock might also get some people fired. For those that have plenty of freedom to obsessively check their iPhone or iPad, this is a great fix until the game that you really want to play drops. Since it can be played completely offline, it’s also a great game to play when traveling. While it is free and doesn’t have any pesky cooldown timers and such to stop the game experience, there are optional purchases in the form of lunch boxes full of random stuff that can life just a bit easier in the wastes. They’re also a quick way to get cool-looking (and yes, they have stat bonuses) outfits for all of your dwellers. However, these same lunch boxes can also be earned in game by completing quests, so purchases really are optional. Fallout Shelter is available on the app store right now.
