Fallout Shelter, the tablet simulation/management game released Thursday on Android platforms, having already been available for iOS for about two months. In the game, players are tasked with the job of Overseer of their very own subterranean Vault (you get to pick the number!) and in Sims fashion, you control the occupants and are responsible for their happiness and well-being. You gather recruits from the wasteland (or get a man and lady together to get frisky and have kiddos) and assign them to different rooms in the Vault, based on their SPECIAL strengths. Each occupant has their own SPECIAL which governs how effective they are at doing the various tasks you assign to them. Among the functions they can perform are scouting in the wasteland, defending the vault from creatures and raids, and working in resource producing rooms.
Vaults are fully expandable into different rooms, so you can increase the size of your structure as you see fit and to satisfy your Vault’s needs. Rooms provide various functions and are all responsible for producing resources such as power and clean water. It’s a free to play with microtransactions which enable players to purchase rarer lunchboxes filled with various boosts. Also worth noting, at 141 MB download it comes on the lean side, so no need to free up a ton of space to make room for it.
After downloading and installing, I booted it up for a test run. You’re greeted fairly quickly with that familiar “STAND BY” graphic as the game loads for the first time. Once in game, everything is themed around the inimitable Vault Boy cartoon. All the Vault dwellers are drawn in variations of that unique, ironic theme, and the landscape and Vault itself are similarly animated with that same sense of cartoon whimsy. It’s a nice contrast to the bleakness of the proper games and overall lends itself well to a mobile time waster. No Wasteland radio stations, but the snippets of music you get during events are good throwback fun as expected. The game progresses in complexity as you go, with many of the expected challenges of the genre. You have to manage water, food and power, keep the Vault safe from outside danger and above all, keep your people happy. It’s all very fun and lighthearted, and while it’s definitely not Fallout 4, it is certainly a worthy something to help pass the time until that November 10th release day. Here’s a few more screens for your viewing pleasure:
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