Game Overview
Have you ever wanted to own your own rescue facility and take in animals in need of help? Not thought of it before but now that I mention it think it might be neat? Don't really care about the plot but are looking for a realistic, fast-paced, and intensive game to help you procrastinate on your work?
Whatever the reason for your curiosity, Shelter Saviors is a game unlike any other! Set between the three fictional towns of Lexington, Greenville, and Riverside, this sim invites you to throw your real-life restrictions to the wind and open your own animal rescue center. Choose from cats, dogs, or horses to start off with, accept abused, neglected, and stray animals into your center, rehabilitate them, and adopt them out into forever loving homes. As your reputation grows, you can begin to expand your rescue to include other species and deal with tougher cases, as well as entering into fun competitions and training your animals to accomplish various tricks and tasks. Manage an entire force of foster families and volunteers, retrain broken-hearted Thoroughbreds no one thought twice about, rehome the entire litter of puppy mill Golden Retrievers, and revive the light in the eyes of reading children at Greenville's local library with therapy pets -- the possibilities and adventures are endless!
A More In-Depth Look
So I've joined Shelter Saviors; what happens next?
To start, you'll be given a plot of land and some money you've apparently been saving up for long enough to launch a fully-functioning rescue. You'll then have to choose the animal species you'd most like to start working with: cats, dogs, or horses. Don't worry: If you're a fan of all three, you'll have the opportunity to add them to your rescue later, and if you aren't, you'll never be obligated to work with any particular species! Shortly after choosing your first species, you'll be given your first rescue and can begin rehabbing him or her. You'll want to head down to the stores at that point, where you can buy any supplies you might need for the animal, and most of these stores will be located in the friendly suburb of Greenville.
Wait; how do I get animals for my rescue?
Well, you don't really go out and get them as much as they come to you, though we may implement missions eventually in the game where you can apply to take on animals in situations such as a hoarding rescue, dogfighting ring, or puppy mill liquidation. For now, in your beginning rescue and until we implement the missions, you'll receive messages asking you if you'd be willing to take a particular animal (or few) into your rescue. You'll never be obligated to say yes, but if you keep turning them down, your reputation may decrease.
While we're on the subject of reputation, let's talk about that for a bit. Your reputation is very important to you as a rescue, because it determines how many animals you receive, the point at which you are allowed to set your adoption fees, the amount of donations people give, and essentially how well you'll be able to do in the game as a whole. We'll go into more details about reputation later, but for now all that matters is that you make good decisions with your rescue so that you can keep your reputation high!
Anyways, to receive animals into your rescue, all you have to do is click the button that says "accept" and then the animal will be under your care! Hooray!
So what do I do once I've gotten my first animal?
Once they've settled in, you can start rehabilitating and training them! You'll also be taking care of them, including feeding, watering, playing, grooming, and socializing with them. Animals will need to be cared for on a regular basis or else they'll get sick, and make sure to take them to the vet regularly for vaccinations! During rehabilitation, your focus will be primarily medical and nutritional, and your job will be to get your animal up to an acceptable health and weight. You'll also want to get the animal comfortable enough with you so that he or she trusts you enough to begin getting over his or her past. Once your animal has recovered well enough, you can begin training! There are several tricks and activities you can train your animal to do, from practical applications such as heeling or halting to fun and games like discipline/sport-specific training. When you've mastered all the requirements for a particular discipline or sport, your animal will be officially trained in that sport and can compete in fun little competitions. And once your animal is healthy again, he or she will be put up for adoption and you will start receiving adoption applications!
That sounds like a lot of work for one user!
It sure is! Fortunately, it won't all be your job. Once your rescue starts gaining reputation and expanding, you'll start gaining fosters and volunteers -- two very different but very important cogs in the rescue operation.
Fosters: temporarily "take in" animals to automatically care for and train the animals your rescue accepts. They don't just take animals from you, don't worry; you can simply assign animals to fosters when you get them, and both their happiness and comfort will drastically increase, as well as training and trust. Unfortunately, putting animals in foster care will decrease their visibility and their likelihood of adoption, but owning a "website" for your rescue can fix that problem! Foster animals do still need veterinary care, so be sure to include them on your vet visits.
Volunteers: take care of feeding, watering, grooming, and playing with the animals in your rescue. One volunteer can only take care of so many animals, however, so until you get enough volunteers to take care of all your rescues, you'll still be responsible for the care of some. Additionally, volunteers cannot train or socialize animals; that aspect of rehabbing is still up to you.
Be aware: fosters and volunteers are temporary unless you receive permanent ones as part of an upgrade!
All right, so I've taken in my first animal and rehabilitated him. How does he actually get adopted?
Good question! Once an animal you take in has been successfully rehabilitated, you'll start receiving applications for him or her. Not all applications will be a good match, so be careful! If you look over the application and decide that the applicant suits the needs of the animal in question, you can approve the adoption and send your little rescue pet off to his or her new loving home. Congratulations!
Unfortunately, because not all people are right for all animals, some applications would be a terrible match for the rescue in question. It's up to you to determine which applications are wrong for an animal and which ones are right. Watch out! If you approve a bad match or don't approve a good match, your reputation will decrease, and in the case of approving a bad match, the animal may be returned. Additionally, if you put off an application for too long, your reputation will begin to decrease as well. It's important to remember to put the animal's well-being and happiness first; even if you're extremely attached, it's not in his or her best interest to keep him or her in a kennel, stall, or crate without a person to love him or her.
But what if I get attached to an animal?
That's the hard part of owning a rescue, but fortunately you do have the option of owning a mascot! Regular members can only have one mascot, while upgraded members can have up to five. Be careful when choosing a mascot, however! You can only give an animal back to your rescue once before each subsequent return begins costing you reputation. If you're going to choose a forever pet for yourself, make sure you're attached to him or her for good. Don't just choose the prettiest animal in the rescue right off the bat because you want one to keep!
Mascots require feed, water, play, and veterinary care just like any other animal, and training is certainly encouraged. Make sure you don't neglect him or her or else your reputation will drop! Mascots will age and eventually pass away just like any other animal, and once he or she dies, you may adopt another one without any penalty.
What about breeding? Can I breed animals in my rescue?
No, and this will never be added to the sim. Why? Because your job is to help cut down on animal overpopulation! A rescue that doesn't spay and neuter its animals, let alone breeds them to create more animals, is hardly a decent rescue at all!
That isn't to say that there won't be puppies, kittens, and foals, of course! Many female animals will come in pregnant or with offspring, and taking in these animals will not decrease your reputation in the slightest. So no worries, you'll still be able to play with all the little cuddly baby animals! Unfortunately, at this time, we will not have separate lines for baby animals, but those will be added in the future.
Additionally, if you house intact animals of the same species together, it is possible that they could breed to create more offspring. Although this may seem like a way around the no breeding situation, this is highly undesirable and your rescue's reputation will be impacted significantly.
So why is this reputation important, again?
Great question! As I mentioned before, reputation controls the success of your rescue by essentially telling the "public" whether or not they ought to adopt from you. It can also lead to donations, more fosters and volunteers, and higher adoption fees for your animals!
Reputation can be harmed by not spaying and neutering your animals, allowing them to breed, approving a bad match on an application, not approving a good match on an application, neglecting your animals, not vetting your animals properly, delaying an application review, continually denying animals access to your rescue, allowing an aggressive animal to injure a person or animal, prolonging the suffering of an injured or diseased animal, keeping too many animals in one location (overcrowding), and returning an animal you took in as your mascot back to your rescue.
Reputation can be improved by practicing good rescue "etiquette" in general, but especially by approving good matches on an application, denying bad matches on an application, making elderly or chronically ill animals mascots, providing higher-end items to your animals, putting an animal down to prevent further suffering when unavoidable, euthanizing an animal that is too far gone aggressively, participating in reading, therapy, and service animal programs, and maintaining a high level of comfort among your animals.
All in all, if you take care of your animals and their well-being, your reputation will increase, and the results are worth it!
What happens if my animals get sick or injured?
Just take them to the vet clinic, no worries! Our illness and injury system is set up so that all animals have a random chance of getting sick or injured from time to time, so it's all part of the game. Of course, vaccinating and deworming your animals can help lessen the likelihood of their getting sick, so make sure you take them on regular vet visits to get everything squared away! Don't worry; having a sick or injured animal doesn't indicate that you're a bad rescuer. All it means is that your animal happened to not feel well one day, which is simply a part of life!
What's this comfort thing you mentioned earlier?
Comfort plays a big part in your rescue as well! The way we have it set up, every animal has a page (or pages) on which all accessories are placed, from collars and beds to bridles and polo wraps and everything in between. Various animals have various preferences for items and such, so it's up to you to determine whether they need a sweater/blanket for the cold or if their discomfort is coming from another item or lack thereof. Comfort is on a scale from 1-100 and can change from place to place, such that undersaddle or walking discomfort may not be the same as stall or kennel discomfort. The average comfort is averaged between all possible pages.
Comfort itself ties into both the rescue and training. If a rescue has several animals that are uncomfortable, the rescue's reputation will drop, as people naturally prefer to support a rescue that puts their animals' needs first! Additionally, if an animal is uncomfortable, he or she will not perform as well during training, and his or her happiness and trust will stay at a significantly lower level. Consistent levels of discomfort may also suggest underlying medical issues, such as arthritis or some sort of ailment, so it's important to keep an eye on it.
So say I want to expand my rescue? How do I do that?
Well, when you first start the rescue, you'll receive a small plot of land to build on as well as being surrounded by other possible plots of land. Naturally, you won't be able to fit everything on your land, but as you gain money and reputation, you'll be able to purchase additional land and open other rescues or add specific buildings or structures, such as an agility field or horse riding arena.
What about getting my rescue's name out there?
What a wonderful and oddly specific question, as though the writer of this exchange very awkwardly and obviously threw that in here so she could address it! Advertisement is actually a pretty big part of your rescue, so it's worth putting a bit of effort into it. There are sites to advertise your rescue all over the city, from restaurants to the library to the courthouse and everywhere in between. You pay a small fee to have your rescue "advertised" to their customers, and in return may receive some donations depending on the amount of traffic they receive. Keep in mind that donations are never guaranteed, so advertise wisely!
You may also sign up pets for "adoption days" at the local pet stores. These adoption days temporarily boost visibility and subsequently adoption of the pets you choose to sign up, so they're great options for foster animals that may not be seen much otherwise. Keep in mind that you can only bring a certain number of animals to an adoption day!
Upgraded members will also have a "website" that they can use to advertise their animals, which is another great idea for foster animals. This "website" doesn't require any additional work aside from simply assigning animals to the available slots, and it will help boost the adoption rate of the listed animals significantly!
Okay, back to the animals. How do you know what they've been through and all?
Each animal has a "backstory" assigned to them, whether it be physical abuse, neglect, loss of an owner, or some other story. These stories are well-fleshed out and there are several different variations, so you'll never get bored of looking at them! You can find the backstories on your animal's page and will also see them when you are first offered the animal to accept into your rescue.
You mentioned competitions earlier. How do they work?
This is a feature we owe entirely to the persistence of several members here on CS, so a big shoutout to them for convincing me to do it! Competitions aren't quite like normal competitions, as the animals don't have any specific stats that would gear them towards any particular discipline. Rather, animals are trained in a discipline and then place in competitions based on their training, trust, experience, and comfort, as well as breed pre-dispositions and other stats that would tie in with the discipline.
Sound confusing? Don't worry! It's not so bad. Basically, instead of having physical stats like head, shoulders, legs, etc., your animal has stats like manners, aggression, energy level, comfort, and fitness. These stats and others are what makes your animal successful in a competition, because not every sport needs a high energy level and aggression will typically mess with any sport, etc. so if you match your animals stats with what you know is valued in the sport, you won't have any problem placing well!
Additionally, while you may win some money at a show, the most important aspect of competing is the publicity it gives you. Competing with an animal and placing well will most likely spike the animal's popularity among potential adopters and boost your donations and volunteers for a while!
How can I get involved in the various cities?
There are plenty of ways to interact with the town citizens! One huge way is using animals as therapy pets, especially in reading to children at the local library. By training a dog or cat in therapy and taking him or her to the library, he or she can "read" to children there and help boost their confidence. In addition to bringing joy to all the little kids, your rescue will get a nice boost in reputation!
You can also get your dogs certified as service dogs, although they have to start small in order to make it. When you have a puppy that seems perfect for the job, you can submit it at 6 months old to the local service dog trainer. If he or she passes the course, your puppy will grow up to be a guide dog or service animal and help make a difference in the world! Be aware that you'll still be responsible for the dog's training up to a point, and you'll be on a tighter schedule there. If you slack off and miss the deadline, it'll be too late to certify your dog as a service animal.
Finally, with horses, you can give riding lessons to the little children in Riverside! These can be either therapy rides or regular lessons, though therapy horses will require more training and approval before being qualified.
Additionally, you can follow a variety of court cases going on in the courthouse! From time to time, an animal abuser will be prosecuted in the courts, and the transcripts of the proceedings will be released as time goes on as well as the final rulings on the case. These transcripts and rulings have nothing to do with the actual game, but they may be fun to follow!
And that's about it! If you have any questions, just ask! I'd be happy to explain anything you'd like to know!
