Fallout shelter review. Review of the mobile game Fallout Shelter: monetization, social component and player retention

In anticipation of the release of the new part of Fallout 4, Bethesda released an original project for mobile devices called Fallout Shelter. This is a shelter simulator in a post-apocalyptic world that is already familiar to us. It was released on Apple mobile platforms on June 14, 2015, and on Android only two months later on August 13, 2015.

A lot has already been written reviewsFallout Shelter in Russian, English and many other languages ​​of the world, so I will try to be concise and meaningful.

The goal of the game is to build a shelter suitable for the survivors of a nuclear war. To do this, you need to dig deep under the mountain, like the greedy dwarf from Tolkien's works. The mechanics are simple and adaptive. There are 3 resources necessary for life: food, water and electricity; in order to produce them, it is necessary to build appropriate premises and send people to them to work. The survivors have S.P.E.C.I.A.L. characteristics, standard for games in the universe, which can be upgraded in the gym, classroom or even bar (this is where you can upgrade charisma). At first, a whole line of potential residents will line up for you, but then you will have to work as Cupid and naturally increase the population of your bomb shelter. The main source of income is the wasteland, to which you will send the strongest and bravest inhabitants. The game has a completely unobtrusive donation, which has virtually no effect on the gameplay. Otherwise, this is an ordinary mobile simulator with RPG elements - level up your characters, complete simple tasks, and receive caps and lunchboxes as a reward, in which you will find weapons, stimpaks, and most importantly, unique residents from the history of the game series.

The main disadvantage of the game is the lack of Russian language and the rather quick achievement of the peak in the game (building the last room). I hope these problems will be resolved in future updates, but for now, our website will help you deal with some of them.

You can get acquainted not only with review Fallout Shelter, but also with .

In order to free download Fallout Shelter you can follow the link (everything is absolutely legal and without using torrent):

Or you can download the hacked version of Fallout Shelter without updates on the 4PDA website.

The game has gained wild popularity recently, perhaps due to its unusual nature, non-forced donation and brand. Everyone should immerse themselves in this world at least once to determine whether they like this game, but it definitely deserves attention.

Most likely, over time, the toy will be released on other platforms. Not yet known will it come outFalloutShelter onWindowsPhone or PC, but we will monitor developments.

Have a good game!

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

I got really excited when Betsheda released Fallout Shelter. Finally, the series I first played 18 years ago on my IBM computer is available on mobile devices.

The new game has a post-apocalyptic theme, characteristic dark humor, and even Vault Boy. Despite its newness, Fallout Shelter feels familiar, and doesn't have the annoying monetization that ruined the mobile launch of another childhood favorite of mine, Dungeon Keeper. An excellent game that instantly reached the top of the charts.

But after sitting through Fallout Shelter all weekend, my enthusiasm had 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 their abilities. I had no problems or 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 understand how Fallout Shelter was able to quickly reach the top, and why it remained there for so long.

Takeoff

It's rare for a game to rank in the top 10 highest-grossing games right after launch. Fallout Shelter succeeded: not only was it one of the 10 best-selling apps for three weeks, but it was also one of the top 10 most downloaded games for four weeks (both figures are true for iOS).

I see three main reasons for this unexpected takeoff.

1. Strong launch strategy

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

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

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

Announcing a worldwide release on the same day, at the height of the Fallout series' hype, was a very bold move that paid off handsomely. And of course, Bethesda received excellent support from Apple in exchange for limited-time exclusivity on the App Store.

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 app 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 console game developers fail on mobile platforms due to overconfidence. Even though they don't have enough skills to produce games for a wide audience, they don't want to learn from their competitors.

To their credit, the developers at Bethesda were humble enough to take the best practices from the paid Faster Than Light and the freemium game Tiny Tower. This is how a game appeared that has a certain similarity with them and yet brings something new.

3. The right type of monetization

I wouldn't be writing about Fallout Shelter if it hadn't suddenly jumped to the top of the top grossing games. This quick financial success is even more impressive when you realize that there are no construction timings or paywalls in the game. (strict restrictions on the player’s progress, requiring the deposit of real money - editor’s note). I believe it was a combination of two key elements that led to this great conversion:

1. The most important thing is a wonderful design. In Fallout Shelter, the player takes on the role of a shelter keeper. At the beginning of the game, the shelter 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 fear that less successful players will lose interest in the game, but Fallout Shelter has proven that this is not the case: failure, on the contrary, motivates players to continue playing and solve problems.
2. When misfortune occurs, the player can correct the situation fairly quickly in the vault. Bethesda did a very smart thing by abandoning the hated speed-up timers and direct sales of missing resources. Instead, following Blizzard and its Hearthstone, the developers used monetization in the form of card cases. Each suitcase contains five cards - a random set of resources. This monetization technique is simple, repeatable and effective, and most importantly, it does not cause rejection among players.

Fallout Shelter uses the same card pack mechanics as Hearthstone for monetization

A fall

Three weeks after launch, Fallout Shelter began to fall from the top positions of the top grossing games. Another week later, there was 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 the announcement of the release of Fallout Shelter, Bethesda director Todd Howard repeated several times that this is not a soft launch for the game. Don't get me wrong, I'm as tired of timers and other aggressive freemium monetization methods on mobile as you are, but a soft launch has nothing to do with that.

A soft launch in a limited geographic area allows the developer to test demand for the game, set up its economy and tutorials, plan for future content, work out bugs, improve stability, test server scalability, and optimize marketing. A soft launch is a way to improve a game before introducing it to 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 the real world, and also did not pay attention to the fact that the game does not have a session breakdown, which ultimately leads to shortening game time.

Perhaps construction is not entirely suitable for this, but in regulating the production and consumption of resources, I see great opportunities for organizing sessions.

Unlocking content encourages the player to increase the number of shelter inhabitants to 100 people. But adding rooms doesn't 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 is a great game that most players can beat in a couple of weekends. After which they will want more. And if they don't get anything else, they'll switch to another game. Of course, Bethesda could add more content, but it's unlikely to work given the fast 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 game launched, we all gathered in the studio and happily showed each other our shelters. The best vault keepers basked in the admiration of their colleagues, and those who lagged behind tried to pick up the pace. We felt the need to share content, and the game didn't have any tools for that.

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

Personally, I believe that Fallout Shelter would benefit greatly if players could fight among themselves. The ability for players to attack each other would not only create a massive economic drain (and also prolong the game), but would also add some 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 Fallout Shelter's decline from the top positions is that Bethesda did not think through a mechanism for systematically and effectively attracting new players after the completion of the organic growth stage.

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

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

An example to follow

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

I told you that in my family everything is a little different from ordinary people. The fact is that my dad is a game designer, and just a passionate fan of games. On the one hand, this is great - our house is full of collectible figures, posters, and other goodies. But on the other hand, the matter is overshadowed by the impressionable nature of my beloved dad. As soon as he gets excited about an idea, he immediately runs to implement it. So, for example, having played enough of Fallout Shelter, he wanted to build his own shelter in case of the impending third world war. The only thing that saved him was his not very large salary - there was not enough money for a plot of land and subsequent construction work (but he decided to dig a basement in a village house).

Anyway, I have a little overview of the strengths and weaknesses Fallout Shelter from me and dad.

Gameplay

pros

• A wide variety of modules for building a bunker, with all the necessary functionality: energy generation, water extraction, radio, reproduction, and so on.
• Upgrading modules - either a simple improvement in characteristics for currency, or expanding the area by combining up to three identical modules.
• Challenge - resources are limited, and the player needs to find a balance to survive.
• Tactics - you need to be able to distribute resources and tasks of your charges.
• Upgrading and customizing characters - from appearance and names to equipment and characteristics.
• The mood of the characters is an important detail that makes the players more alive. They work worse when they are in a bad mood. You can learn about the mood by observing the character, what he is talking about, what he is dissatisfied with.
• Traveling in the wasteland - the ability to send characters on reconnaissance. The game mechanics do this through a text window where the events that happened to the character are described. An interesting point, thanks to which players have to monitor not only the shelter, but also the outside world.
• Random events - fires, raiders and rads. cockroaches! And the larger the bunker, the more difficult it is to keep track of everything.
• Rewards and goals are for those who are not good at sandboxes.
• Low barrier to entry - learning the game takes place thanks to stylish slides and tips. Comfortable.
• Accelerating production is a special opportunity that allows you to develop faster in case of success, and destroy everything in case of failure.

Minuses

• There is simply no dynamics of what is happening - while the characters are working, the player has nothing to do.
• It is impossible to select the difficulty of the game.
• Random events are repeated over and over again, without changing their features or complexity. The bunker is always attacked by three raiders, and nothing else. It is very boring.
• Resources are not collected automatically, and the player has to constantly click on them with the mouse. If you do not collect resources, the module will not produce new ones.
• The characters do not react to anything on their own, even if they are attacked and you have to manually give instructions.
• It is not possible to speed up the game time.
• You can develop a bunker only by increasing the number of characters, and this is very long and tedious.
• Some goals appear ahead of time and are annoying due to their impossibility.
• You cannot change the layout or move modules.
• No loot from raiders, only experience.
• There is no multiplayer, and it is impossible to compare your bunker with another. In an endless sandbox environment, this is a big miss.

pros

• Fallout style, fans will appreciate it.
• The feeling of a living world due to the good detail of the effects in the background.
• Intuitive interface - when resources are ready to be collected, the module is highlighted with a clickable zone. The same goes for character levels.
• Animation of work in modules - each workplace has its own animation.
• The ability to disable most animations when changing the scale saves device resources.

Minuses

• Module improvements are not displayed graphically in any way.

pros

• Each action has its own sound effect.
• The sound creates a feeling of a living world - if you zoom in on the camera, you can hear the crackling of lamps, voices, and the noise of machinery. If you give it away, then the wind, the cracking of stones, and so on.

Minuses

• The sound disappears when the device goes into sleep mode.

Script and dialogues

pros

• Through monologues, characters talk about their mood. A good solution that gets rid of the “Sims mood streaks”.
• The characters flirt with each other and actively use pick-up techniques.

Minuses

• The characters are not at all alive. They almost always smile, which is why the feeling of post-apocalysis is lost.
• The characters do not communicate with each other in any way, except for flirting.

Beautiful graphics and sound create a feeling of a living world in the bunker, in contrast to the dead wasteland on the surface. The first half hour of the game is captivating and intriguing, but the potential is exhausted due to monotonous actions and repetitions of random events. Going out into the wasteland brings virtually no benefit, and losing a character there means 5 hours of waiting for the birth of a new member of the bunker, which is fatal, considering how dependent the game is on the number of characters. The inability to speed up the game and automate the collection of resources, when the same thing happens, is boring. As a result, the game comes down to a completely predictable and monotonous sandbox clicker.

But dad says he’s young, and has already bought a shovel to go dig a bunker in the village this weekend. And I’m scared to imagine what ideas some blockbuster will inspire him with...

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

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

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

Complete missions to get caps and lunch boxes

You can get free Caps and especially LunchBoxes from completing various tasks, so keep checking and try to complete tasks as quickly as possible. Do not try to open the boxes immediately after receiving them; it is best to do this when you are running low on resources, since there is a high probability of dropping a set of critically needed resources.

How to engage in population reproduction?

To begin the delicate process of childbirth, there must be at least one male and one female person in the living quarters. The more charisma a couple has, the better, but do not forget to check that the level is approximately the same; it is unreasonable to place together one hero with five charisma, and another with a measly one. After some time, relaxing in the living quarters, the partners will begin to engage in a process that is natural for people, and the woman will become pregnant. This is a sign that after a while the air of the shelter will be stirred by the cry of a new child. 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 weapons and sending them into the room with the Vault Door during a raider attack. Brave defenders will be wounded, so periodically it will be necessary to organize a replacement, although outside combat conditions people are healed automatically over time.

Build rooms by connecting them

It is prudent to start planning the internal structure of your Vault from the very beginning. 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 premises

Simply grab and drag them, and the numbers above will show how efficiently the residents will work in a particular room. 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 the room. That is, the designation “plus two” indicates considerable indoor efficiency.

The radio room is an important thing!

Build a Radio Room, including broadcasting, to find new people, as well as maintain the satisfaction level of the shelter's inhabitants. 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 consider transporting the Resident to another room that is more suitable for his 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 will tell you about their desires or boast that everything is just fine.

How to maximize the effect of Vault Dwellers?

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

It is possible to sell old items if you change your mind about using them.

How to deal with resource shortages?

If you are not in the game world, your reserves will not be consumed as they are during the game itself.

That is, if you have a shortage of resources, and a new batch of kids is not ready yet, just end the gaming session and return after a few tens of minutes. In another case, if you have energy for the premises, build a room that produces the required resource, immediately receiving a couple of units.

Sale of property

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

: Bethesda managed to surprise gamers with the sudden appearance of the game in the App Store immediately after its announcement. It is now the most downloaded free game and tops many charts, offering gamers a unique survival experience in the post-apocalyptic world of Fallout.

The action in this game takes place on a near-future Earth that has survived a nuclear disaster, in one of the many shelters designed for the survival of the remnants of humanity. You will play the role of leader of a group of survivors, engaged in arranging the shelter and caring for the comfort and safety of its inhabitants.

In Fallout Shelter you can easily see parallels with Tiny Tower and Tiny Death Star. You have to build rooms that will provide residents with food, water and energy - the main resources provided in this game. In addition, you will need living quarters for characters, the number of which will constantly grow, because new survivors will join you, and children will be born to the residents. In the end, your shelter will turn into a real labyrinth, complex, confusing, but very functional.

The developers have provided for each of your residents to have individual parameters, similar to those used in the Fallout series. These are Strength, Stamina, Charisma, Intelligence, Perception, Dexterity and Luck. In the process of work performed by residents for the benefit of the entire shelter, the statistics of the characters improve.

At the same time, each type of work requires certain abilities from residents. For example, water purification work requires a resident to have the Perception characteristic, and the higher the Perception level, the better this resident copes with such work, which means the faster the shelter replenishes its water supplies.

Not only work, but also some subjects help improve statistics. You will be surprised, but in this game your residents are dressed in different types of costumes, and the costumes affect the characteristics of the residents. Put a priest costume on your character and his charisma will increase, a military uniform increases strength, and a lab coat affects his intelligence.

In addition to clothing, your residents need weapons, because the shelter will have to be defended. Since you cannot do without forays to the surface, you will also need equipment for such an eventuality. If you send one of your residents to explore the surrounding areas, be prepared for the fact that you will have to track his movements or receive notifications about them.

From such trips, your explorers will bring back many useful finds, which may include money, capsules, various items, and lunchboxes. All this will definitely be useful to you in the future.

Although Fallout Shelter is distributed using a free-to-play model, it is not like other free-to-play games. There is no premium currency, instead you buy (and sometimes find) lunchboxes that contain 4 cards inside. Each card gives you something - from additional resources and items, to bottle caps, the local equivalent of money, and even new residents.

Cards are divided into three gradations - common, rare and very rare. The cooler the map, the higher the level of items or inhabitants you receive. In addition to purchasing, lunchboxes, as we have already said, can be found, but only researchers sent out can do this. Lunchboxes are also earned for completing tasks.

This game does have timers, but their function will be completely different from what we are used to in F2P games.

You don't have to pay to speed up this or that event - each acceleration is accompanied by a certain level of risk. The percentage of risk is indicated whenever you try to speed up the process of making something in the room.

If the acceleration is successful, then you will receive the resources you need faster than usual, and if the risk works, then the room may burn, explode, or... the authors’ imagination is limitless.

As for the overall impression of Fallout Shelter, it can, without a doubt, only be positive. The game really captivates you for a long time, the gameplay is perfectly thought out and organized, varied and never gets boring.

It may seem slow to some gamers, but its plot itself is such that it does not imply rush or special dynamics - everything in it happens smoothly.