To the Rescue! A Dog Shelter Simulator First Impressions

Recently, I had the opportunity to take To the Rescue! A Dog Shelter Simulator for a spin, and while I wasn’t sure what to expect, I found a very cozy, dog centric experience that was more fun than it probably has any right being. With a fantastic gameplay loop and tons to actually do, To the Rescue! should be a big hit this summer on Nintendo Switch!

Guess what? In To the REscue! A Dog Shelter Simulator you will be *GASP* running a dog shelter. Your love of animals gets to you, and when you find a lost puppy where no home exists, you decide to help out a friend and work at the local animal (dog) shelter. Each day will provide you the opportunity to do a variety of tasks, all of which culminate in one ultimate goal – to get dogs adopted.

Throughout your time at the shelter you will need to tend to the needs of the dogs, including food and water, entertainment, and more. Keeping the dogs clean is also a huge requirement, as know one wants to adopt a dirty dog.

Throughout the day, folks will enter the shelter looking to adopt a dog, and will ask for a specific kind of dog. They might want a small pure-bred dog, or a large, playful dog! It will be up to you to find 5 dogs that might fit their requirements and put them on display. The person will then look at each dog and reward you with stars dependent on how close they come to what they wanted. Get enough stars and the individual will adopt one of the 5 show dogs.

The gameplay loop sounds simple, and in writing it really is. But your time is limited, and you will get penalties for overtime. After all, a shelter on a budget cannot afford to pay staff overtime!

So in practice, you will need to be very efficient, doing chores and tasks as fast as possible, and sometimes losing out on an adoption because you are just to busy attending to dog needs. If a dog sticks around for too long, becomes sick, or just isn’t wanted, you might be required to send them away / put them down (the game lets you choose what method you will use when you start).

I can’t wait to spend more time with To the Rescue! It’s got a great gameplay loop that is really addicting, and I can’t wait to see more of my dogs get adopted!