14 DAY TRIAL // 
Lately we are invaded with a lot of simulators we did not ask for and did not know we need. After the success of depicting a modern farmer’s daily life we had the chance to feed our OCD by power washing various environments, renovating than flipping houses, popping up the hood and tinkering with various engines, maintaining various roads and highway, or even driving buses or metros. Now, the time has come to also run our own shelter for various pets.
When I first saw Animal Shelter Simulator, being an animal lover and having a morbid curiosity of how far this revival of simulators focusing on mundane tasks can go, I jumped on the opportunity to become the manager of a hospice for cats and dogs. “How bad can it be?!” are famous last words in many cases, and this one is no exception.
Animal Shelter Simulator does exactly what the title suggests: it puts you in charge of running a shelter for animals down on their luck hoping to help them find new homes. In theory it sounds not just a noble but also an interesting enterprise. In reality, it adds up to nothing more than a series of repetitive actions that will bore the fur out of you.
The game itself begins with a tutorial and the premises of a small and functioning shelter, that is equipped with basics. You will feel like you hit the jackpot on Shark Tank and your generous angel investor offered you all the money and resources so you can channel all your energies on saving the pets of the world. True simulation indeed!
After going through the tutorial, you will also discover that running an animal shelter is one of the most lucrative businesses in the world. After each successful adoption, you will see more and more money pilling up, allowing you to think about various expansions and luxury items for your furry friends.
There is no real story to Animal Shelter Simulator, the developers rather emphasizing the gameplay mechanics of a simulator – at least in theory. After only a couple of hours you will realize that this game was put together by someone who has almost no knowledge about how an animal shelter works.
First and foremost, your only two options for rescuing animals are cats and dogs. There are no other animals in the world that need your help. When you come to terms with this fact it will be easier to accept that the game is nothing more than a string of repetitive tasks that lose their appeal very quickly.
The process starts in your immaculately clean office, where browsing through the PC you can select the next meowing or woofing soul you want to save. Once decided, the pet is delivered to you in either a good or bad shape. You will have to nurse them back on their feet, feed them, make sure they are also hydrated and entertained, and let’s not forget clean up after them. After they belief in humans reach a certain level you will trod back to your office, to the same PC and try to find them a new adoptive family. If you are successful the same van that delivered them will pick them up, you will get your reward and you will start over.
It is even more boring than it sounds, because the script repeats itself to the tiniest details. If the pet you receive is in good shape, you most probably will have to groom it. For cats that means brushing them, for dogs shampooing them up and showering them down. After that you have to make sure they have food and water and play with them until their satisfaction gauge feels up.
If they come in sick you will wither have to remove a tick from their body, to bandage their paw or to shave a small section of their fur to be able to apply a band aid. This successfully cures them in a miraculous way. Of course, they still can get randomly sick in your care at which moment you have to draw some blood and send it to analysis in order to figure out if the cold can be cured by syringe or using a pill.
At first even though simple in scope and clumsy in action you can still have fun with Animal Shelter Simulator. But after repeating endlessly the same action you will soon realize that you are only going through the motions. The heart and soul of the game are completely missing, the entire gameplay being a simple structure with very few branches.
The ugly graphics, the clumsy control scheme, and the countless bugs plaguing the game do not help either. Technically, the game feels like someone’s high school project that their parents and other relatives can be proud of. The only good news is that it actually works.
The Good
- The first few hours can be almost engaging
The Bad
- Primitive graphics and gameplay
- Plenty of annoying bugs
- Flawed concept and boring mechanics
Conclusion
Perhaps the only thing that’s worth highlighting is the amount customization options that players have at their disposal. Building a shelter could have been a soothing experience if not for the terrible console controls.
I am pretty sure that the developers had the best intentions, but the end result cannot be even recommended as educational neither for the animal care part, nor for the business simulation. Ultimately, Animal Shelter Simulator is just a bad game that you should not waste your time playing. There are dozens of similar titles that are much more worthy of your attention if you’re a fan of animal simulator games.
Review key was provided by the publisher.
