henke on 15/6/2015 at 16:46

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This thing was released for iOS today.

[video=youtube;HY4jCjufLG8]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HY4jCjufLG8[/video]

I was pretty prepared not to like this thing based on what I saw in the trailer. It looks quite similar to other F2P Building games, eg. Tiny Tower, that I've tried in the past. And indeed much of the formula is the same. You build rooms, they start producing stuff. Building stuff costs money, which takes long to accumulate. Of course in a game like this you're inevitably presented with the option to pay real-world money to get more in-game cash. To build a big vault and unlock all the rooms the game requires a lot of time and/or money, but not a whole lot of skill.

Somewhat unique perhaps is the option to send vault dwellers out on scavenger runs. You can equip them with unlocked weapons and armor, and then send them on their way. You can follow their progress via a text-scroll "Spotted raiders, hiding, they've seen me, running, managed to escape, +5XP, etc." I sent a dweller out before I had my dinner, when I started the game up an hour later he'd found a bunch of stuff, gained some XP, and only had half his health left. Pressing the Recall button sent him running back to the vault with his scavenged goods. When I start up the game the next time I'll likely either find out that he's returned safely, or died on the way. It's modern-day Tamagotchi, basically.

Ok so enough whining, is there anything good about this? Sure, it looks good! The art style with the 3D rooms and 2D characters works really well, and when you tilt the iPad the room tilts, it's sort like you're looking at an animated diorama! The interface is slick. When you zoom in on the rooms you can catch the characters talking to eachother, which is neat. At one point raiders attacked and I had to equip my guys with weapons and send them upstairs to fight, that was pretty exciting. And despite it being a rather shallow game which is mostly just about tapping on things, hearing the jolly clinking of bottlecaps rolling in, and watching numbers go up, there is something satisfying about that. And the game really isn't that intense about gouging you for money, at least not for the first hour or two. Since it's a freebie I'd say to any Fallout fan with an iOS device, sure, go ahead and download it. To those of you without an iDevice I say, eh, don't sweat it, you're not missing much.