Fallout 4 may be months away, but if you're a fan of Bethesda's acclaimed post-apocalyptic RPG franchise, Fallout Shelter may enough to keep you busy before your true return to the wasteland. This free iPhone and iPad game (the Android version is coming later) puts you in charge of running a vault, a colony of survivors buried beneath the Earth safe from radiation. In practice, it's pretty similar to the countless other mobile resource-management games. However, clever and non-exploitative free-to-play features, combined with the unmistakable Fallout feel, help Fallout Shelter appeal to casual and hardcore players alike.
Nuclear Families
As the overseer of your very own Vault-Tec vault, it's up to you to ensure the survival and productivity of a growing community of humanity's remnants. No pressure! As you construct facilities, new desperate souls arrive at your underground doorstep. You give them purpose again by putting them to work in various parts of the 50s-kitsch vault. That diner isn't going to make food all by itself.
Each dweller has their own SPECIAL (Strength, Perception, Endurance, Charisma, Intelligence, Agility, and Luck) attributes, and those determine which tasks they're best suited for. Stronger folks do their best work in the power station, generating energy for the rest of the vault. A more intelligent person is more inclined toward valuable medical research. Anyone can do any job, and prolonged labor can alter SPECIAL ratings, but the game also judges the communal happiness level, and people are happy doing jobs they're good at.
As your society grows, so too do its demands. In order to keep food, water, and power levels stable, you'll need to have facilities that are big enough, and you'll need to keep the staffing levels right, too. Building two or three of the same rooms next to each other creates one big, more efficient room. But eventually you'll need extra manpower, and new arrivals are few and far between.
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This where Fallout Shelter's funny and freaky breeding system comes in. If you drag a male and female vault dweller into the same living quarters, it won't be long before they're trading cheesy nuclear-themed pickup lines and doing their part to prolong the species. I saw one couple get busy immediately after putting out a fire. After waiting a few hours for pregnancy and childhood to run their course, you soon have another vault dweller to put to work. You can even name the babies.
There are a lot of sketchy undertones to this whole system, intentional or not. While it's amusing to see babies inherit traits for their parents, like balding hair on a toddler, incest is pretty much inevitable when you consider how tiny the population is. Meanwhile, personally sculpting the gene pool by forcibly pairing people up is…ethically questionable, to say the least.
Fallout Boys
However, the Fallout series has never shied away from combining the dark reality of a nuclear holocaust with a wry sense of humor. Fallout Shelter just continues the tradition. If a person passes away, other vault dwellers might say "What smells like it died in here?" before realizing their bad timing. Meanwhile, the art style uses the same 1950s retrofuturism as Fallout's mascot Pip-Boy, and those grinning cartoon faces create a lot of ironic contrast with the bleak world they inhabit. The artwork really pops on the iPad Air 2 ($445.00 at eBay) I used for testing.
Above all, though, Fallout is known for deep quests and vast world to explore. Fallout Shelter doesn't offer that scope, but it admirably tries to capture some of the appeal. You earn new gear like weapons and outfits to equip your dwellers, for one thing. Having a person on hand with a shotgun is pretty useful in case of a roach invasion or when bandits try to steal your loot. You can also send capable dwellers out on quests so they can bring new resources back to the vault. It's a bummer you'll never get to see these adventures, but you can read adventurers' ongoing logs.
For Once, War Changes
As a piece of Fallout fan service Fallout Shelter succeeds, but its biggest victory is just how well it works as a free-to-play game. While the game relies on various timers, energy, and currency meters, it never uses these mechanics to artificially pressure you into spending money. Instead, if you want to skip a tedious task, you can. But every time you do there's a chance something will go wrong, and disasters become more likely the more impatient you get. This tension is enjoyable, and kind of realistic, in and of itself. "We need food as fast as we can, but—oh no—we rushed and now the vault is on fire! Now we have an even bigger problem!"
Just because Fallout Shelter doesn't force you to spend money doesn't mean you can't spend money, however. The game sells packs full of resources, including rare ones, but you can earn enough of these just by playing the game that the option to buy them truly feels optional for once. Paying money will certainly make the game easier, but the default difficulty curve feels genuinely balance and fair. Intelligent decision making, including harsh compromises, should get you out of any dilemma. Surviving the end of the world would probably take a toll on you.
Unfortunately, the game can't escape all the flaws of its genre. Fallout Shelter ultimately involves a lot of waiting and number crunching that can sometimes feel too much like real work. Also, you can only do so many things at a time. It's a game built to be played in short bursts every day rather than in marathon sessions. Games like this walk a delicate line between low impact and just plain boring. Fallout Shelter occasionally slips into being the latter, but not nearly as often as it could have. And when you're guiding a civilization that's hanging on by a thread, you appreciate the quiet moments.
Up and Atom
Even when pretty much nothing was happening, I was still invested in my little bunker community. Helping the dwellers thrive was a joy. Fallout Shelter understands how to be both a satisfying Fallout game and an addictive, but respectful, free mobile game. Other AAA game franchises trying to make the leap to iOS should take notes.
Whether you're a Fallout fan waiting for your next fix, or a mobile gaming fan looking for a free game that respects your time and money, Fallout Shelter is the post-apocalypse you've been waiting for.
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