Do you hate life? Do you want to feel highly depressed and sickened?

Sheltered is the game for you! Now, I've played survival games before, and some egotistical flash games that think they are deeper than they are. But none of them. None, has put me in as bad a mood as this one did. I've not even played "This War of Mine" yet, and may pass based on how this one made me feel.

So the world is fucked over by the apocalypse. Your government finally did it and the world is a wasteland. You play as a family of four, and their pet, as they find a shelter in which to survive and live the rest of their short pitiful lives in.

While it does default to husband and wife with two kids, you can play as a same-sex couple with two kids. Race and Gender don't appear to have any affect aside from visuals and possible a pronoun use in a few dialogue options. The pet can be the standard Cat or Doggo, but you can also have a Goldfish, Snake, or a Horse.

Each pet has pros/cons on what it gives you and must be cared for as part of your family. In my experience, it dies off first.

The rest of your family will not live much longer.

In my first game I was still learning the systems and mechanics. RNG factored in a little, but it was not long before my incompetence caused one of my kids to die horribly in front of the Father.

Father was sad. Not just for the loss of his child, but the fact they did not have a freezer to store the meat for later. The Wife complained that the body was still there and I had to build a topside grave.

I nearly closed down and uninstalled the game then and there. That's fucking sick that's what this is. I don't have children, and consider myself child-free. It's not something everyone wants to do. And this is pixillated sprites on a PC monitor. But I really did not want to play much more of this.

The rest of the Bogan family did not live much longer. Each soon falling to radiation or starvation. The end-game screen is borked as it indicates the family died all at the same time, when it was several days before all perished.

My other gripe from this is that the game ends when the original four inhabitants are dead. Even if you have other survivors you allowed in to your shelter and they didn't suddenly eat all your food, get stressed and leave, the game will end.

So what do you have to do to play the actual game?

A lot of busywork and micromanagement. That's what. It's honestly a chore to play.

Make sure the generator has fuel. Make sure you have food. Make sure that you have enough water. Make sure there's a bucket to shit in.

Water is surprisingly easy to manage. Maintaining the filter just takes time and you can quickly craft place down a few tier-2 tanks at the start of the game and never have to worry about it. It rains often enough to fill up 90-120 units you'll use between each rainfall.

Most things can be crafted and the game has several tiers of how efficient it all is. The Generator and Air and Water systems can be upgraded if you have the parts. Extra rooms can be build if you have the concrete to do so.

You can also send family members off scouting. Nearby houses and facilities hold goods you need to craft and upgrade. And if you leave them long enough, they will fill up with more stuff to loot. I'm guessing other survivors are leaving stuff around, or the original search party was not looking well enough.

There are random encounters as they scout. Conflict is usually other traders, but in my second game I found a guy who hired me to kill off some poor sod for no good reason. Did I feel bad? No. Losing the child was bad. This was just some redshirt who had stuff on him. Father and Mother felt bad and gained trauma, eventually leading to more trauma and them breaking down.

My main gripe? It just takes AGES for anything to happen.

This feels like a free to play clicker game, without the free to play 'speed-up' elements. And I'm not talking about 'fast time' mode.

Bad Game. I hate this game.

It works, despite some bugs. The RNG is not too terrible if you plan ahead. And the difficulty is high but not totally unfair.

But I hate it, and the way it made me feel while playing it. If you want to be sad and depressed, give it a shot. I'm going to take a friend's suggestion and find something happy and cheerful to play.

Game Acquisition: Humble Monthly (September 2016)
Platform Used: Steam
Tweet Threads: 1 2 - 22 April 2018
PC Used: Scorptec Venom 2009 MK2

OS: Windows XP
Processor: Dual Core CPU
Memory: 1 GB RAM
Graphics: GeForce 7800, AMD HD 4600, Intel HD Graphics 3000 or above
DirectX: Version 9.0
Storage: 600 MB available space
Sound Card: Windows Compatible Card