Sheltered

Nuclear family.

Sheltered is a complex strategy and resource management game which gets a lot of things right. Its presentation creates a palpable atmosphere, while its many relatively simple systems interlock in ways that are both thematically appropriate and mechanically interesting. Unfortunately, those same clever systems sometimes rely too heavily on luck, which – when combined with the title's abysmal controls – often make the entire experience more frustrating than its worth.

If you like Fallout Shelter and you want something with a few less smiles and a few more painful deaths, Sheltered will tickle that morbid itch. Managing its multitude of interconnected systems requires a deft touch, and while its difficulty isn't for the faint of heart, there's a real sense of accomplishment in keeping your growing troupe of survivors alive for days on end. While not as effective as other forays into the well-trodden post-apocalypse, as well as being a victim of its own procedural generation at times, there's still a morbid curiosity to its pixel art survivalism.

Despite any faults listed above, don’t get the wrong impression: Sheltered is a fun and challenging game, especially if you’re willing to put a lot of time into the game crafting the best shelter possible.

Sheltered pits the player in a post-apocalyptic setting and there are plenty of options on how to deal with those horrible, new circumstances. Unfortunately the game is not very user-friendly and a lot of the game's mechanics and actions often go unexplained when some simple tutorials could make a big difference. The game is also difficult to interact with, which does not make the experience more enjoyable.

I’ll conclude by saying that Sheltered gets a lot of things right with creating a complex system that provides a realistic and interesting take on surviving in a post-apocalyptic world. It’s just unfortunate that to succeed you have to rely more on luck than skill and is further let down by awkward and frustrating controls and a lack of narrative and minimal presentation. If you fancy a much more challenging Fallout: Shelter and aren’t scared by an intense resource management system then Sheltered is a fine survival strategy game to sink many hours into.

Despite average graphics and audio, ‘Sheltered' really drew me in and I couldn't put it down.

Sheltered makes for an engaging time killer in short bursts, but very few of its survival themed mechanics serve in benefit to the overall experience. Where Scenario actually makes good use of the premise, Survive suffers considerably due to poor RNG, a tedious loop, and a difficulty curve that, while adjustable, does very little to accommodate newcomers. There is an admittedly strong thematic cohesion between the gameplay and atmosphere, but this doesn't do nearly enough to do its premise justice.

Sheltered is a good game. You can manage your own bunker, you can scavenge around the nuclear world, but while you are doing this, you have to protect your family. The game lacks of emotional sometimes, but it is more than Fallout Shelter and less than This War of Mine.

As a whole Sheltered isn’t too bad but I’d say the biggest hurdle it faces is in differentiating itself and proving it is more fun/challenging/engaging than its competition on the console. Since it isn’t very action-oriented it can’t compete with the likes of Don’t Starve, Flame in the Flood, or Crashlands, it lacks the emotional depth and gravity of This War of Mine, and obviously compared to Fallout Shelter it isn’t free and while it doesn’t bug you trying to get you to pay for things it also isn’t nearly as polished. In the end it’s just a decent, though somewhat lackluster, survival sim that has its moments but doesn’t do enough to stand out very much in a crowded eShop.