Review by Mr. Prepper. Tin can rocket – Igromania

During the tense times of the Cold War, a whole subculture of survivalists arose in the United States – people who are actively preparing for survival after the end of the world. Waiting for a zombie uprising or nuclear strike, survivalists learn, for example, to purify water with snakes, hide in the folds of the terrain, and weave ropes from plastic bottles. But, perhaps, the real dream of any survivalist is a personal underground bunker with an impressive supply of food and an autonomous life support system.

The main character Mr. Prepper, the cartoonish paranoid Survivor proves that building your own bunker is actually quite easy. But not really necessary.

This is a standard procedure.

Events Mr. Prepper is set in an unnamed dystopian country that is easily recognizable as the slightly exaggerated America of the middle of the last century. Mowed lawns and pretty white houses coexist with widespread surveillance and the dreadful anticipation of nuclear war. However, the government diligently ignores the likely conflict, and the bulk of the population does not believe in such an outcome – except for our hero. For some reason, Mister Survivor knows for sure that peaceful life will soon come to an end, and is not going to sit idly by. The first attempt to escape from the dystopia – to cross the border right in the car – fails and attracts undue attention of the authorities, so as a plan “B” the Survivor decides … Build a rocket in his backyard and just fly away.

It is most interesting to equip the bunker, but there are only three or four buildings that are really necessary in it.

The player will have to deal with the implementation of this very crazy undertaking. Mr. Prepper is a 2D survival simulator in which you need to secretly build your own “paranoid nest” and, along the way, escape from an impending nuclear strike. To do this, you have to dig, build, trade and establish connections with neighbors, explore resource-rich locations and fight aggressive animals. And the process is complicated by a government agent assigned to the hero, who once every few days searches our house for suspicious activity.

Such an opening sounds quite intriguing. Despite the fact that there are a lot of games in the genre, their action rarely takes place in a society that has not yet collapsed, moreover, with the government in the role of the main antagonist. The only problem is that on a curious idea, everything good, in general, ends.

The confrontation with those in power is limited only by the Agent’s regular visits. No bugs, no denunciations, no sudden roundups

The game may well make a good impression at first. The Survivor has his own house, under which the player is offered to equip the bunker of his dreams: the construction system is simple but pleasant. Almost any household item can be recycled into resources, and in addition to the necessary workbenches and generators, the shelter can be decorated with functional furniture and a variety of decor. Digging in your own bunker is surprisingly amusing at all, but alas, this pleasure does not last long. Whenever you make your first underground garden, like Mr. The Prepper forcefully expels the player to explore the surrounding locations and for a long time forgets about building a shelter.

The presentation of the game is inconspicuous, and the soundtrack consists entirely of guitar busting, which are instantly forgotten

Waiting for a dystopia

Much of the gameplay of Mr. Prepper is not at all about survival and building a shelter, but depressingly monotonous quests and equally monotonous locations: in search of rare resources, the Survivor explores the neighboring forest, an abandoned mine and a dump in the desert. The authors tried to make each area special. The forest is designed as a sequence of small locations, the mine is a multi-level labyrinth, and in the desert it is generally allowed to drive a car. But this is where all the differences between the types of terrain end. Each of them is a set of literally four to five different objects and two or three types of enemies, randomly placed along the way. A fallen tree, a wolf, again a tree, two wolves, a bush of berries, again a tree, a transition to a new location – or a blocked passage, to open which you need to grind resources. Did you manage? Then enjoy another pack of exactly the same linear corridors.

The only real difference between a mine and a forest is that it has floors.

There are also a few NPCs on your travels, one for each zone. Characters distribute certain tasks, and they are made at about the same level as the locations: secondary “kill-fetch-save” is inadmissible without the slightest attempt at game design. In addition, no matter how much one would like to ignore these orders, without them it will not be possible to open sources of rare resources – and, therefore, not to build the desired rocket.

As a result, instead of arranging a bunker and hide and seek with an agent, most of the time you will have to wander through the same locations and fight with equally helpless animals. The surroundings are teeming with aggressive animals: packs of wolves prowl in the forests, the mines are captured by rats and bats, and in the desert there are literally rattlesnakes on all sides. But the combat system in Mr. Prepper is such that it would be better if it did not exist. One-button clicking enemies is already frustrating in itself, so the attack key also coincides with the one that is responsible for the character’s walking. As soon as you accidentally click past the enemy, the Survivor will stop attacking and calmly walk into the indicated place, forgetting about the wolf grabbing his leg. It’s good that the enemies inflict very little damage, and they themselves die from two or three hits – the price of a mistake in Mr. Prepper is zero.

The huge plaque with the words “Escape Plan” did not seem to the Agent a good enough reason to arrest

However, this applies not only to battles. Mr. Prepper is in principle almost non-challenging and therefore not stressful. Almost all resources, including food necessary for survival, are found in abundance, so the only problem will be the limited carrying capacity of the protagonist. And because of this, not only the player’s interest in the passage suffers, but also whole mechanics that simply cannot be used. For example, in Mr. Prepper makes absolutely no sense to build (and even more so to automate) your own garden – the whole game can be played out on non-perishable stew and endless forest berries. And together with vegetable gardens, you can forget about freezers, water collectors and other structures for creating resources: why set up the production of, say, gasoline, if it is easier (and faster) to find it on sale? As a result, two-thirds of the bunker improvements are virtually unnecessary.

This is what a boss fight looks like here.

But the saddest thing is that all of the above applies to the most interesting of the announced ideas – government oversight and Agent visits. Once every few days, an inspector does indeed visit the Survivor’s house: he examines the rooms, looks into the drawers, checks with the counters. However, the problem is that it is easier to get rid of suspicions – it is enough just not to change anything in the house itself. The increased amount of conventional utensils will seem extremely suspicious to the spik, so it is better to store all new things in the bunker. How to hide the bunker from the Agent? With a light movement of your hand, lift the hatch to the shelter from the floor and hide it in your pocket. Literally. Due to such conventions, the Agent’s checks slide into some kind of comical sur.

As, however, and the rest of the game.

Pleased

• good central idea;
• curious setting;
• well-realized construction;
• furnishing your hideout is really fun.

Upset

• too much emphasis on research;
• almost all mechanics are made anyhow;
• secondary quests;
• nondescript audiovisual component;
• the game is not at all about a bunker and not about survival.

How we played

In what: key purchased on Steam.

On what: PC.

How many: about 16 hours.

Achievement of the editorial office

“I am a kind of survivalist myself”

Come up with a sane reason why the hero builds a bunker at all if he is going to escape from the country on a rocket.

Verdict

Mr. Prepper ruins its own potential for the sake of lopsided mechanics and boring grind. Perhaps the upcoming updates will breathe new life into the project, but in its current state the game loses to almost every analogue in the genre.