Fallout shelter review. Fallout Shelter mobile game review: monetization, social component and player retention. Attach Residents to specific rooms

Along with the release of the long-awaited fourth Fallout, the developer company released a post-nuclear shelter simulator in Fallout Shelter. For some time, the toy was an exclusive highlight for the technology under the control of the apple platform, where in just a couple of weeks the project enriched the developers by five million North American dollars. From now on, the owners of android devices are also capable of building shelters with their own hands and saving people from certain death.

First you need to download the fallout shelter game for android, build a safe shelter, settle colonists in it, increase their number, strengthen protection against dangerous monsters, track the levels of intra-group well-being and many other parameters. The game is mostly free, but there is an option to purchase game currency to speed up and facilitate the process.

Send your upgraded Citizens with powerful armor and guns to discover the world. The more time they are in the radioactive desert, the better prey they drag, although this is associated with a higher danger. At the starting stages, it is irrational to send people on missions lasting more than a few dozen, especially if you do not have stimpacks and anti-radiation drugs. Remember that you will have to lead them home - and they must at least get there alive so that you can drag the prey, not the corpses. So don't go on too risky missions first.

Complete missions to get lids and lunch boxes

You can get free Caps and especially LunchBoxes by completing various tasks, so constantly check and try to complete the tasks as quickly as possible. Do not try to open the boxes immediately after receiving, it is best to do this when you are running out of resources, since there is a high probability of a set of critical resources falling out.

How to deal with the reproduction of the population?

To begin the delicate process of childbearing, there must be a minimum of one male and one female in the residences. The more charisma of the couple, the better, but remember to check that the level is approximately the same, it is unreasonable to put one hero with a charisma of five together, and another with a miserable one. After some time, relaxing in the living quarters, the partners will begin to engage in a natural pleasant process for people, and the woman will become pregnant. This is a sign that after a while the cry of a new child will stir up the air of the shelter. In real time, before the birth of a child, you have to wait not nine months, but about a couple of hours.

How to organize protection from Raiders?

Raider attacks take place on a random basis, but it is quite possible to repel them by equipping a couple of inhabitants with the coolest weapon and sending them to the room with the Vault Door during a raider attack. Brave defenders will be wounded, so replacements will need to be organized periodically, although outside of combat conditions, people are healed automatically over time.

Rebuild rooms by connecting them

It is prudent to start planning the internal structure of your Vault already from the starting points. It is possible and even necessary to connect up to three rooms of the same type to improve their parameters. Moreover, they are more accessible for upgrades and show better results.

Attach Residents to specific rooms

Simply grab and drag them, and the numbers on top will show how efficiently the inhabitants in a particular room will work. If the room is already filled to capacity, then the number indicates what effect the character will have when he/she is swapped with the worst-performing person in that room. That is, the designation "plus two" indicates a considerable indoor efficiency.

Radio shack - an important thing!

Build a Radio Room, including a broadcast to find new people, as well as to maintain the level of satisfaction of the inhabitants of the shelter. The happiness boost only works if someone is working in the room - make sure there are enough workers in the room for a sufficient effect.

The Secret to Increasing Happiness

If you do not take into account the transportation of the Resident to another room that is more suitable for him in profile, you can carefully listen to what the people themselves say to increase their happiness. Double click on the room and read the messages above the heads of the characters, who themselves will tell about their desires, or boast that everything is just fine.

How to maximize the effect of Vault Dwellers?

Even if the resident of the shelter is not on a mission, he can be given weapons or armor protection. Armor also improves the characteristics of people, making them more employable in their areas. It is prudent to wear weapons when attacking raiders or when Radioactive Cockroaches appear on the horizon.

There is a possibility of selling old things if you change your mind about using them.

How to deal with the lack of resources?

If you are not in the game world, your supplies will not be consumed, as they are directly when playing.

That is, if you have a shortage of resources, and a new batch of kids is not yet ready, just end the game session, returning after a few tens of minutes. Otherwise, if you have room energy, build a room that produces the right resource, immediately getting a couple of units.

Sale of property

Click on the image of the storage (in the lower right corner, three cells further).

At E3, a mobile application was announced, at that time only under ios, called Fallout Shelter, I as the owner of the platform Android salivated at various reviews Fallout Shelter on the net and finally waited for the release of this mini-game under Android. And now I've been playing this game for several days and let's tell you what it is Fallout Shelter and with what it is eaten.

Don’t kick too hard for mistakes, I work without a full-time proofreader of my beloved wife =)

Review of the game Fallout Shelter

And so, I think that the game can be described in one word "anthill", my wife so aptly described the game. In fact, you take on the duties of a shelter caretaker, at the beginning of the game you choose a number for your shelter and start managing it, that is Fallout Shelter is a simulation of a shelter after a nuclear disaster.

And so you have the power of the caretaker, you are the head of the caps, and now the first settlers have come and you need to build separate elements of the underground bunker and manage the resources of which there are 3 types in the game:

1. Food- it is produced by premises marked with forks;
2. Electricity- the premises are marked with lightning;
3. Water- Naturally, purified water is needed for a normal life;

Premises need to be created to keep the delicate balance of these resources, otherwise you may, for example, be left without electricity. In addition, it is necessary to create rooms for staff rest, if you put a couple of m + f there and leave them for some time, they will soon hide in the room, and from there a satisfied settler and a pregnant “settler” will already come out, pregnancy lasts about 3 standard hours.

Settlers should be assigned to rooms according to their abilities. S-P-E-C-I-A-L, this will speed up the production of resources. Bonuses to the characteristics give different suits, lab coats, armor.

The lazy or the most daring can be given weapons and sent to the wastelands, where they get caps, different armor and clothes and weapons. Weapons are needed to fight off radioactive cockroaches and against enemies from the wasteland.

To speed up development, you can use lunchboxes, you can get them by completing a task, or you can buy them for real money, where without it. Fallout Shelter released more as a companion app than a standalone product, but it's worth noting that this companion product turned out to be surprisingly successful.

And finally, I want to say about the RUSH mode for buildings, by clicking on it you see a percentage, this is the percentage of successful completion of the RUSH function, what it gives when you click on Activate if the process was successful (for example, calculate for yourself at 30% in which cases you will get success, and in which not) you will receive caps and resources instantly, but if not successfully, you will either get a fire or radioactive cockroaches in this room. Well, the percentage will increase. But in general, Fallout Shelter I want to advise you how to rest from the passage of Fallout 3, played, rested and again into battle!

Mikhail Katkof, a well-known product manager who has worked for companies such as Rovio, Supercell and Zynga, spoke on his Deconstruction of Fun blog about what is remarkable about Bethesda's recent mobile game - Fallout Shelter, and what are the reasons for its rapid departure from the top grossing applications.

I got really excited when Betsheda released Fallout Shelter. The series that I first played 18 years ago on my IBM PC is finally available on mobile devices.

AT new game there is a post-apocalyptic theme, and characteristic black humor, and even Vault Boy. Despite its newness, Fallout Shelter feels familiar, and it doesn't have the annoying monetization that ruined the mobile launch of another childhood favorite, Dungeon Keeper. An excellent game that instantly appeared at the very top of the charts.

But after sitting in the Fallout Shelter all weekend, my enthusiasm waned. I didn't want to play anymore. I completed all the quests, my shelter was full of happy inhabitants, busy with their work and developing abilities. I had no problems, no plans that could force me to return to the game.

A few weeks after I stopped playing, Fallout Shelter began to fall from the top positions it had so quickly climbed to. This article is an attempt to comprehend how Fallout Shelter was able to quickly break into the top, and why she stayed there for so long.

Takeoff

It is rare that a game immediately after the launch took a position in the top 10 highest grossing games. Fallout Shelter succeeded: not only was it one of the top 10 best-selling apps for three weeks, but it was also one of the top ten most downloaded games for four whole weeks (both numbers are correct for iOS).

I see three main reasons for this unexpected rise.

1. Strong launch strategy

The launch of Fallout Shelter took place during the world premiere of Fallout 4 at E3, and it was perhaps one of the riskiest launch strategies I have ever seen in the mobile business. No soft launch, no media teasers, no announcements.

It was an “Apple-style” launch: during the presentation of Fallout 4, Todd Howard, in between several exciting videos, suddenly introduced a new mobile game and immediately announced that it would appear in App Store tonight.

Todd Howard introduces Fallout Shelter at the Fallout 4 premiere (Fallout Shelter launch announcement is at 19 minutes into the video):

Announcing a worldwide release on the same day, in the midst of all the hype surrounding the Fallout series, was a very bold move that paid off remarkably well. And of course, Bethesda received great support from Apple in exchange for a limited-time App Store exclusivity.

2. Strong predecessors

The most successful mobile games are iterations of either social games, or other top mobile games. Trying to create something completely new in a highly competitive application market is very risky.

Fallout Shelter can be described as the union of Tiny Tower and Faster Than Light in the Fallout universe

It seems to me that most developers console games fail on mobile platforms ah because of overconfidence. Even though they don't have the skills to produce games for a wide audience, they don't want to learn from their competitors.

To the credit of the developers at Bethesda, they were humble enough to adopt the best experience from the paid Faster Than Light and the freemium game Tiny Tower. So there was a game that has a certain similarity with them and yet carries something new.

3. The right type of monetization

I wouldn't be writing about Fallout Shelter if it hadn't suddenly burst into the top of the highest grossing games. This quick financial success is even more impressive when you realize that there are no building timings or paywalls in the game. (hard restrictions on the progress of the player, requiring the introduction of real money- approx. ed.). I believe a combination of two key elements led to such a great conversion:

1. Most importantly, it's a wonderful design. In Fallout Shelter, the player takes on the role of a shelter keeper. At the beginning of the game, the hideout is very small and there are almost no people in it. The player has to constantly balance between the production of electricity, water and food, eliminate the consequences of accidents and repel raider attacks. Most mobile game developers are afraid that not-so-successful players will lose interest in the game, but Fallout Shelter has proven that this is not the case: failure, on the contrary, encourages players to continue playing and solve problems.
2. When bad luck happens, the player can fix the situation in the vault fairly quickly. Bethesda was very smart in ditching the hateful speed-up timers and outright sales of missing resources. Instead, following Blizzard and its Hearthstone, the developers used monetization in the form of suitcases with cards. Each suitcase contains five cards - a random set of resources. This monetization technique is simple, repeatable and effective, and most importantly, does not cause rejection among the players.

Fallout Shelter uses the same card pack mechanics as Hearthstone to monetize

The fall

Three weeks after the launch of Fallout Shelter began to slide from the top positions of the top grossing games. A week later, followed by a fall from the top of the most downloaded games. In my opinion, such a sharp decline occurred for three reasons.

1. Lack of content

In announcing the release of Fallout Shelter, Bethesda director Todd Howard reiterated several times that this is not a soft launch for the game. Don't get me wrong, I'm just as tired of timers and other aggressive freemium monetization methods on mobile devices as you are, but soft launch has nothing to do with that.

A soft launch in a limited geographic space allows a developer to test demand for a game, set up its economy and tutorials, schedule future content releases, work out bugs, improve stability, test server scalability, and optimize marketing. A soft launch is a way to improve a game before it is released to the players.

Due to the fact that Fallout Shelter did not have a soft launch, Bethesda developers did not know how long the game would last in real world, and also did not pay attention to the fact that the game does not have a breakdown into sessions, which ultimately leads to a reduction in the time it takes to complete the game.

Building may not be quite suitable for this, but I see great opportunities for organizing sessions in adjusting the production and consumption of resources.

Unlocking content encourages the player to increase the number of inhabitants of the shelter up to 100 people. But adding rooms does not bring anything fundamentally new to the game. Meanwhile, additional resources and the rooms in which they are produced should encourage players to master all the content.

Fallout Shelter- good game, which most players will be able to complete in a couple of weekends. Then they want more. And if they don't get anything else, they will switch to another game. Sure, Bethesda could add more content, but that's unlikely to work given the fast-paced launch.

2. Lack of social gameplay

When players cooperate or compete with each other in a game, they can compare their own progress with that of other players.

This possibility leads them to one of two scenarios. Those players who are clearly behind want to catch up and catch up with those who are ahead. At the same time, advanced gamers are satisfied with their progress and are not going to give up their positions.

Obviously, being able to compare yourself to others is very important. And to solve the problem of measurable progress, we apply social mechanics.

There are no social mechanics in Fallout Shelter. Immediately after the launch of the game, we all gathered in the studio and happily showed each other our shelters. The best vault keepers basked in the admiration of their colleagues, while those who lagged behind tried to pick up the pace. We felt the need to share content, and there were no tools in the game to do so.

In the first (and so far only) Fallout Shelter update, developers have added the ability to share photos of shelters. It's more like old-school virality than a real social system.

Personally, I'm sure Fallout Shelter would be a great win if players could fight each other. The ability for players to attack each other would not only create a powerful funnel in the economy (and extend the game as well), but would also add much needed social gameplay as players would want to see each other's hideouts.

3. Lack of new players

In my opinion, another reason for the rollback of Fallout Shelter from the top positions is that Bethesda did not think through the mechanism for a systematic and effectively attract new players after the completion of the organic growth stage.

The rapid decline in the number of new players, combined with the rapid burnout due to limited content, can destroy the coolest game.

Three weeks after launch, revenue began to decline, followed by a decline in downloads. Week 4 update added no new content and failed to stop the fall

An example to follow

I think Fallout Shelter is a huge success in Bethesda's history. Not only did the game generate a decent income in a short period of time, it also introduced millions of players to the Fallout universe by downloading the game.

I sincerely hope that the success of Fallout Shelter will inspire other leading console game studios. Such mobile games can not only significantly expand the audience, but also entertain and develop their own player base.

As soon as I "celebrated" 4 in-game weeks in the shelter, I recruited a little more than 70 settlers, poring over each one individually, goat-horned mutants came running and 52 settlers flew off into oblivion. Neither the rather powerful weapons, nor the pumping of the settlers especially stopped these mud @ kov ... They rush along the level, instantly jump to another level so that you can’t keep up with them. Many of the players can boast of super-pumped Persians with powerful weapons in every room? It seems to me that without a paid robot, which the developers kindly offered us to buy, these degenerates (without serious damage to the shelter) cannot be dealt with. Inadequacy in game balance... There is no desire to play again, reviving the corpses lying around everywhere for big money.

I agree with the previous review. In fact, the developer allows the village to be pumped at the very beginning with gifts and support, then regularly cleans it to zero, extorting money for protection. Full akhtung in terms of the fact that you can randomly get an enchanting level radscorpion at any time, which puts 30-40 inhabitants of any equipment and pumping. Or a herd of death claws through the door that put everyone down. 74 characters with levels 30+, a herd of endlessly breeding mole rats appears - all lying down. 35 stimulants were not enough. Fuck such games, not rest, but checking whether you have loot on the map.

As a fan of the Fallout series, it is very difficult for me to be critical of games, I will say even more, I really liked the 4th part. So when I saw a pip fight and heard painfully familiar melodies, I disappeared into the Shelter for a week. Iga gives a unique opportunity to become a caretaker of the shelter, by the way, despite the cute picture, it is quite hardcore and in my opinion is one of the best two-dimensional survival simulators. But for the sake of objectivity, we must admit that we have a port from mobile platforms with pronounced shortcomings of such applications. Shelter for a full-fledged gaming experience requires an investment of real money, and its uniformity and monotony begin to tire quickly enough. Moreover, there is essentially no end goal in it, having recruited 200 inhabitants and a bunch of loot Shelter continues without any clear goal. But in general, the project turned out to be quite good - 7.0 points.

Played for a while ... In general, waiting for something deep is not here. The game reminded me of the numerous clones of "Travian" - only the duties of the opponents are taken over by the AI. The only difference is that here, alas, doing all these is even more boring. Well, all the damage gameplay in general, it opens if, in parallel with this game, we replay the famous Dwarves, the advanced version of which I was hoping to get here. In total - a game for very long and boring trips in transport, when there is no book, and an external battery is able to keep smart until the destination. No matter what more game, alas, does not apply.

everything is drawn very beautifully, you can feel the spirit of fallout, but what is the point of the game after opening the last room... all weapons and armor. The game is disappointing, it feels like I'm playing a demo version that ends in the middle. I put 6 only for the picture.

Game for a couple of days. Created two shelters, the second appeared after everyone had died in the first due to rapid development and inability to fight back cockroaches. In the second, he no longer made mistakes and now the deathclaws die in the fourth room without killing anyone in the previous ones. He opened all the buildings, and this is a hundred or more settlers, and there is no point in building anymore. One blue item is brought from the wastelands in 24 hours or more. It is not possible to find 21 golden settlers due to the fact that tasks for lunchboxes do not drop out often, and I don’t think it’s reasonable to pay for them.

Imagine a post-apocalyptic world where strict rules of survival apply, a world where the most valuable resource people have become. After a terrifying nuclear war the few survivors have to hide from aggressive mutated creatures, angry bandits-raiders and deadly radiation. Someone was lucky to hide behind the huge walls of small towns, and someone had to settle in underground bunkers - deep underground complexes. Take control of one of these shelters and try to survive in an aggressive environment and the game offers.

you can lose

A good settlement must constantly take care of the most basic resources: water, food and electricity. Without food, people will slowly lose health and die; without water, the level of radiation will begin to grow, negatively affecting all living things; without electricity, entire rooms and even floors will be cut off, so that it will not be possible to produce either water or food, not to mention more specialized resources. It may seem to you that keeping track of such banal elements is easy and you are quite prepared for everything, but I would not be so sure if I were you. Periodically, new potential wards will visit the bunker, which in any case should be taken under your wing. Each person can only do one thing at a time, so there are strong management skills. Someone copes better with strength work, someone is an expert in science, and someone is not averse to killing a dozen kids a la rabbit. The scatter of the parameters of the heroes is quite large, but there is nothing complicated in it. Each building displays a letter that is responsible for the required parameter to perform the corresponding work. Compared, appointed, won.

As coins for building new rooms and upgrading old ones, are, uh, bottle caps? I'm sorry, my knowledge of the world is not that deep, so just accept this fact as a given. The main method to earn them is to speed up the production of one of your rooms. Well, when you push workers, there is a possibility that things will not go as planned, and disaster will occur. Among other things, fires and cockroach attacks are the most common. If there are enough personnel in the room, then it will not be difficult to put out the fire, but if you are unlucky and an empty, say, kitchen caught fire, then the fire will quickly spread to neighboring rooms. What is the risk? Well, people will start taking damage - losing health. Some may even die in an unequal battle with the elements. This is the case when everything is good when it is good and very bad when it is bad. After fixing the problem, you are again free to take risks and speed up work in a particular room. It should be remembered that the probability of failure with each subsequent attempt in the same place increases (over time decreases).

You won't leave!

But there is more problem situations- attacks on the bunker. Armed raiders (local bandits) or mutant animals may well visit "you" home and knock on the main door with their feet, so much so that it will fly off the hinges. Having made their way inside, the opponents will start talking nicely with the local population in the language of bullets and fangs. Immediately there will be general alarm, panic and chaos will begin. The enemies are not very smart, but they can use your elevators. They will quickly spread through the floors and cause a lot of damage to both residents and resource depots. If at the time of the attack you already had little water or food, write wasted. To protect yourself from the deplorable consequences of such situations, you need to equip your wards with clothes and weapons. These items can be obtained in two ways: by sending one of the people into the wild wasteland (outside the bunker) or by opening a case with random contents. Outdoor travel takes many hours of time, so at such moments it is better to turn off the game, after making sure that the warehouses are full. Your scout should be given first-aid kits and radiation protection kits so that on his return they will not find his corpse.

As for cases - they, like caps, can be obtained for completing random quests that are issued one after another ( put out 10 fires, sell weapons, collect 200 water, etc.). Thus, the gamer is constantly busy with useful work. If you are completely unbearable, you can buy several containers for real currency. They will not bring much benefit, but they can open up profitable bonuses for you (rare equipment or even an elite character). In general, it is this roulette game that is the most interesting part, because inside each box of goodies there are as many as four gifts, and all of them are for you. Immediately remembered one cartoon. The influence of the donation on the game is minimal, since in addition to the indicated one, you can only buy an automated resource collector bot, which is of little use. It is the latest acquisition of the project, as it appeared already with the release of the version. The bot works only within the floor, which makes it not the most effective investment.

You turn out to be a pimp...

When you launch the game for the first time, you will feel how addictive it is. Indeed, it will turn out only when the battery of your device finally sits down. I want to finish another quest, send another guy to scout, or risk speeding up the extraction of water one last time. And it never ends. No matter how I tried, run the project on Bluestacks(PC) I couldn't, but I don't really want to charge my tablet every day. Yes, and my main work on the second day of the game comes down to mass reproduction. To be more clear: there are no morals and rules here - you can bring everyone with everyone (but only M + F, of course). This has to be done non-stop. When there are under 30 residents, it becomes impossible to keep track of who is the son, who is the mother, and who is the grandfather - he threw everyone into the living room, and wait ... It's a little disgusting, I'll tell you. But fun, I guess. Plus, residents don't age beyond adulthood, so production can be run non-stop without delay.

Graphically, the game just looks great: detailed, colorful and humorous. At any time, the picture can be zoomed in to see the sights or find a place for new rooms. If you need to do a full crawl or just reduce the amount of lag - there is an opportunity to reduce the image so much that the 3D effects and most of the animation are turned off. Unfortunately, the animation here is done, it seems to me, rather badly. The characters slovenly pretend to work, waving their arms, make stupid identical faces, shoot with their backs and do not move their mouths at all. Their external variety is poor, and although random remarks are amusing, they often do not correspond to what is happening and logic. Saved here and on the music, as it is simply not there. Most of the time you will have to listen to the noise of electricity generators and water pumps, so already in the first 10 minutes you will want to completely turn off the soundtrack. No, well, there is one melody during the occurrence of dangerous events, but it is unlikely that 10 seconds of a song played each time will be very captivating. Education is also not particularly replete with advice, and Russian is not listed among the supported languages, although there is not much to translate there.

conclusions

My opinion? This product has neither mid nor late game. There is no convenient bestiary with filters by tags, no detailed explanation of some aspects of the gameplay, no way to control a large group of people at the same time or issue mass orders. One by one, dragging your inhabitants from room to room is not very fun, there is not enough process automation. came out fun, exciting, but it seems to me that many freak out after the first loss. I prepared pretty well - I reviewed a bunch of video clips before the release. AT this moment You can't call the game easy, because you can lose everything, but you can't call it complex or diverse enough to interest hardcore, challenge-loving fans. Detail work is clearly lacking; It is immediately clear that the developers did not have high hopes for the project. But in vain!