Life in Bunker Reviews

This game could be fun if it wasn't for the raw stupidity of the 'fellow bunker residents'. As soon as the first few stones have been cleared in making way for a new area, its like a call goes up. Startled, the random residents look up from what ever they have been doing (eating dirt, licking the walls, or playing with faeces) and make a stampede to get to any new area they can. When the dust settles, and the new walls are in place - you will usually find the majority of residents in pockets of air BEHIND the walls where they stare blankly at the wall and start to cry. If freed, they will even see someone building the last section of wall and make a beeline to be on the other side again. I also had a resident who broke a toe on a treadmill... at the start of the game when I don't have any treadmills. I would like to be able to play this game, but at the moment its causing rage-quit. If I wanted to be this angry, I would be talking to my in-laws.

I payed 5$ for this and I'm getting it refunded. Seriously, this kind of game heavily relies on the AI of the inhabitants and that AI is awful. Starving to death? I'm just going to walk around. Moleman hole causing my residents to be attacked and killed? Nah, I don't feel like covering that up right now. I fail to understand how this game released and hope my problem is some sort of user error and not how this game managed to get released.

There are random mobs spawning. Your bunker citizens engange them without the user's order or without the user beeing able to tell them to disengage. They also do not have any self-preservating AI, so they won't flee. I can't help you if you think this leads to fun.

At release I would have only recommended Life in Bunker to base-building / management / strategy enthusiasts as we don't get many of these titles. However at the end of April v1.01 build 1239 was pushed out and I have to say it is quite the upgrade, including many bug fixes, additions, sandbox mode and a bunch of scenarios and new achievements that dramatically increase the size of the game to make it a satisfactory purchase, for the money, and for anyone with an interest this survival style base-building game. Now it's a easy recommend to any with an interest. Also check out Prison Architect and War for The Overworld and keep an eye on Maia for similar titles.

As a former Dungeon Keeper and Fallout fan, overall, this is pretty cool. After reading previous reviews from old builds, it seems the game has come a long way. This is good for a game that has 2 developers. There are some balancing issues. I'll get to those later. Oddly enough, being a long time big RTS guy and hearing this was too easy, it was actually a challenge. Sandbox mode there was not 1 second where I wasn't clicking trying to keep my dwellers alive. So much so that I didn't have any time for a creative approach. One big open room with the essentials. Once I got there, I could slowly start building my vision of a well made vault. This was with aging turned off. With aging turned on, it was purely survival... no time for anything pretty except keeping your people alive. I don't care how good you are. This almost felt like "work", more than fun gameplay. With over 20 hours on record so far, I know how to play the game how they've intended. It's not that complicated. So... balancing issues. Also, AI. A lot of them "slack off", won't do their jobs... won't go to the doctor when they should, get food when they should, or won't clean up garbage when they are just walking around. Clicking on the dweller themself, it often just says "walking", "lonely - going for a chat", "Slacking" etc. It's difficult to maintain a large population to account for all the people not actually doing their job. There's also not enough resources to account for the "glorious" looking vault you expect to create. Without serious diligence and changing around the settings (I only play Sandbox), your "vault" is going to look like unorganized crap trying to survive 50 cycles. Not very rewarding. Out of pure determination, I spent an entire Sunday and there's only enough resources (All 4 floors) to make one floor look like a serious vault. But I had to turn off aging. I'm not sure where the improvements need to be made, but there's several nuances that if resolved, could result in a fantastic game rivaling Dungeon Keeper. Personal thoughts: I wish the textures were a little less "cartoony" and the models a little less blocky. This is just pure immersion. Save the blocky models and low res textures for low quality graphic settings, and more Fallout looking realism for Ultra. Something to shoot for. Also very sad there is no multiplayer feature - or at least co-op. I hear this won't ever be implemented. But it's fun to think about. All that being said, great job for a team of 2! 20 hours of entertainment for 15$ isn't bad. Keep up the good work folks. Update: Seems the game has started breaking. Filling in the last corner of the entire floor with a few farms and they are flashing no water and no power when several lines are running to it with plenty of power and water to spare. Oh well, it's been a fun run.

Review as of 03/12/2016 -(3rd UPDATE) --------------------------------- ***As of 03/12/2016 there has been little said about patches or updates. Most topics on the community hub are a few days old too. Not a good sign. **Almost 5 hours played and I seem to get bored after an hour or 2. I tried both what seems to be the easiest setting and "normal"; however I am not hitting that "lose yourself" in the gameplay mood I have with other strategy/sims. **Dev communication is on point -They released information for possible additions on 2/29/2016, however there are no set patch dates or any kind of ETA on when we could see more content. They had some bug fixes roll out but nothing game changing. The game is enjoyable overall and I feel that with strong updates the game could become something great (and well worth $16 or more even)... just as it is now I would wait and see what the developers do within the coming weeks. Feels like a beta more than a release. Pros: >>Strong Survival/Strategy/Sim potential. >>Game has a rough charm and systems that could work well if they were more polished/in-depth. >>The multiple layers system allows for many possibilities when designing a bunk. Cons: >>Research can be completed almost too easily (especially if you have more than 1 scientist). >>Bunk residents are generally annoying – They don’t seem to manage their jobs and personal affairs very well. >>Older residents and children are completely useless in terms of gameplay (maybe add a classroom function for children(unlocks 1 additional random job choice or something) and add in some chore style jobs for elderly(teaching children, maybe only elderly can do research even)). Tip if you buy: >> Play on 1 or 2 speed (> or >>) ... Playing on 3 is fine but you will zip though the game pretty fast to cycle 50. **You don't have to end at 50 but it seems to be the soft end game goal. For now I will vote “Negative” and update as I play throughout the month of March. I really WANT to like the game more and hopefully some updates will help. TL:DR - Game seems like an Early Access rather than a released game. For an easy, norm, hard playthough stopping at 50 cycle you may get about 10-12 hours of gameplay out of it. Not horrible for $16.

I still do recommend this game, but I have mixed feelings about it. I recommend it because I love the Dunjeon Keeper, Evil Genius, base-builder genre with complicated ressource management. You'll get a bit of satisfaction on that end. Downside is: it's more like a mini-game to be honest. 5 hours, and you're done. It's not worth the 15$. There's no real interesting scenarios, or tech tree or sort of advancement or reward from making a Big Bunker. Once you've reached understanding of the mechanics and reached equilibrium of your first bunker, you will soon lose interest. It could be widely improved by adding interesting or funny tech advancements and increase difficulty gradiently on these and it could turn into a ground breaking game that would complement the DKII base-builder genre. It has all the right things in the right places, it just feels incomplete for now. So: recommended for those that love base building/ressource management games and want to contribute and get a bit of satisfaction on that. Not recommended for those who mind losing 15$ for something that doesn't have a lot of replayability.

So here's the deal. After the apocalypse, you're in charge of managing a bunch of humans underground. You have to keep an eye on a number of their needs such as their health, hunger, hygiene and fitness. You also have to monitor power, water, oxygen, ore and building supplies. You can also encounter creatures that will attack your humans on sight. To increase your population you have to incubate babies. To keep your bunker alive, you have to replace the people that die e.g. by old age, fighting creatures etc. Furthermore, when your people become old they 'retire'. The younger generation have to pick up their slack and it's a constant balance of trying to fill in for them and grow your population. I only wish that there were more research options as it's pretty easy to have a scientist constantly working to rack up those reasearch points or scenarios as there are only three in the game. I love management games and there aren't many bunker management ones out there. I've been following this game since it launched and it's made some good improvements. The developers are only a team of two and this is only their first or second game. Love their work!

5.1 hours to understand all the mechanics and beat it, with 100% the achievements. Not worth $15.99. The AI is clunky and unresponsive, mutiple time works gets in the way of others, or walk on the other side of walls, or not respond to their jobs. The UI is terrible, and unintuitive. You end up clicking through 5 different menus and views to do two actions...like swapping from construcing pipes to wanting to view the overworld. I've requested a refund. Lastly, it's easy. Bare bone's builder with nothing unique or grasping, or challenging. Resource management is a breeze by the 3rd attempted game. The biggest thing that I didn't understand, is why do you have the ability to make rooms when mechanically there's NO penalty for having a waste bin, in the kitchen that houses your reactor and the sleeping quarters. Don't waste your money, $15.99 is too expensive for low quality like this.

As a lover of this kinda of genre I was sorely dissapointed in Life in Bunker, however nothing is wrong with the mechanics and actualy building part, though it doesn't have enough variety for my taste. All of my frustration at the game can be lain at the feet of the bunkers residents. They are finicky, idiotic slackers. Even when the future of the bunker and their race is at stake, they will happily slack off while suffocating because the generator is dead. Farmers outright refuse to actually farm, leading to food shortages and starvation, and god help you if your people suffer from disease because the medic just despises work. Could it have been a good game? Hell yeah, though a bit lacking, it's got a solid foundation, however the stupidity and slacker nature of the residents means they're a bigger threat than anything else. Until that issue is fixed, I cannot reccommend this game, and I'm genuinely sorry for that. The residents are just too frustrating.