I was so ready for Fallout Shelter: Seasons.
Not casually interested.
Not, “Oh hey, that looks neat.”
I mean counting-down-the-days ready.
I knew when it was coming. I was waiting for it. I was planning to get in there, start the new seasonal vault, see what Bethesda had done, earn the rewards, form opinions, complain about things, praise other things, and eventually tell all of you exactly how many cans it deserved.
One day to go.
One. Day.
And then I decided to make a WordPress theme.
This was apparently a mistake.
Not because the theme was a bad idea.
Because the theme reproduced.
Suddenly there were themes.
Then there was NAJ Themes.
Then there was a toolkit.
Then there were plugins.
Then there was &WhatKnots.
Then there was a chat plugin.
Then apparently the chat plugin needed a Discord bot because why the hell wouldn’t it?
At some point in this process I finally made my Fallout Shelter account.
That was several days ago.
I have barely touched the damn game.
So here we are.
My long-awaited review of Fallout Shelter: Seasons.
THE GAMEPLAY
No idea.
THE SEASONAL VAULT
I assume it contains people.
Possibly rooms.
Maybe even a radroach.
Couldn’t tell you.
I’ve been staring at WordPress.
THE SEASON REWARDS
Haven’t gotten any.
How could I?
You generally have to play the game to earn game rewards.
Bethesda has stubbornly refused to award them based on how many hours I spend arguing with CSS.
Frankly, this feels discriminatory.
THE PROGRESSION
Mine?
Excellent.
The vault’s?
Negligible.
THE SEASON ITSELF
I was genuinely excited about this.
That’s the stupid part.
I wasn’t procrastinating because I didn’t care.
I was practically standing outside the vault door tapping my foot waiting for the thing to launch.
And then my brain went:
“You know what would be fun?”
No.
Apparently I did not know what would be fun.
Because instead of relaxing with a game I had been waiting to play, I accidentally started building software.
Again.
And because I am apparently incapable of having one small idea without attaching seventeen additional ideas to it, “I’ll make a theme” turned into an expanding ecosystem of projects that now requires charts, testing, documentation, bots, and probably federal oversight.
Meanwhile, somewhere in the wasteland, I assume my Experimental Vault is sitting there in complete darkness.
A lonely Dweller is probably staring at the vault door.
“Do you think the Overseer is coming back?”
No, Steve.
The Overseer is troubleshooting a sidebar.
“Has anyone seen Frank? Overseer sent him out when we arrived days ago…no weapon, no clothes.”
“No, Mildred.”
SO…IS FALLOUT SHELTER: SEASONS GOOD?
I don’t know.
That is the review.
I refuse to pretend otherwise.
I haven’t played enough of it to tell you whether the season is fun, whether the pacing is good, whether the rewards are worth chasing, or whether I’m eventually going to become deeply annoyed by the entire thing.
All of those opinions require something I currently lack:
Experience with the thing I am supposedly reviewing.
Which makes this possibly the most honest review I have ever written.
I can tell you I wanted to play it.
I can tell you I was excited for it.
I can tell you I fully intended to review it properly.
And I can tell you that somehow, between “one day until the new season” and now, I ended up building a WordPress theme company instead.
So congratulations, Fallout Shelter: Seasons.
You have achieved something no other game has managed.
You lost me to WordPress.
RATING: UNRATED
I can’t give Fallout Shelter: Seasons any cans.
I haven’t earned any of its rewards.
I haven’t played enough of the season.
I can’t tell you whether it’s good.
Apparently I can’t even tell you what happens in it.
I can, however, tell you how to build a WordPress theme.
I can also tell you, don’t rely on me during the apocalypse…unless the internet is completely out.
Nobody asked me to do that, either.