Men of wa
There is an attempt to mix up the gameplay with an ill-explained nighttime level that sees you trying to keep the cubs within a certain radius of their mum. Let them stray too far, which they will because they dart in random directions in response to noise, and they'll be snatched up by invisible wolves. That's about as fun as it sounds. In a later level, you have to guide the cubs through a raging forest fire. Dodging falling branches and grass fires should be exhilarating. Instead, it ends up being exactly the same experience as the previous levels, only at a marginally faster pace.
And that's really all there is to Shelter. It's very short, clocking in at only a couple of hours at best, yet it still manages to run out of ideas well before you reach the last of its linear levels.
The save system doesn't help. Losing a cub should be the emotional focus the game, your diminishing number of young serving as both a grim version of a lives counter and a reminder of your past failures, but even that is imperfect. You can subject yourself to the pain of losing or a cub, or you can simply quit and restart the level with a fresh set, with no negative penalty for doing so. Is this the badger-equivalent of save scumming? Possibly. But Shelter would be far more effective if its structure gave more permanence to your losses.
As for what Shelter does right: the game is gorgeous. Its textures aren't really "textures" at all. Rather, they're somewhat abstract paintings of the objects they're meant to represent, pasted onto simple, angular models reminiscent of folded paper sculptures. Think models of trees, covered in tiny pictures of trees. Each of the levels sports a unique color theme, and while the high-gamma might send some of you diving for the black-level controls on your monitors, it does serve to make the burrows and dank caverns that represent safety that much more inviting. While the smaller models look good, it's the large abstract backgrounds that steal the show. The second level's night sky, which looks like the kind of wallpaper you might buy for a space-obsessed toddler, is particularly beautiful. It's a clever bit of thematic reinforcement when you think about it; a game about children that all but resembles a child's pop-up book.
The sound is similarly abstract. Important information, like the location of the cubs or nearby animals, is presented via competent, but not brilliant, sound effects, while the general goings on of the forest are conveyed through evolving drum beats and acoustic guitar riffs. It's certainly an interesting approach to environmental audio, but some of the arrangements – the fox theme from the first level for example – wear out their welcome very quickly.
Ultimately, Shelter may be a victim of its own potential as an idea. It sets out to explore a very compelling set of themes, parenthood, responsibility and the casual cruelty of nature, but it ends up doing so in the most straightforward and predictable way possible. It's almost ironic how a game so adamantly about nature manages to feel so unnatural. Looking at Shelter visuals, you can't help but imagine some kind of godly, heart-breaking mashup of The Oregon Trail, Tokyo Jungle and Pikmin. With badgers. What you end up playing is a linear, overly-scripted, not particularly well-executed version of Frogger. With badgers.
Via joystiq
