Shelter (Fantasy Visual Novel)
Shelter, made by Rausmutt, is a complicated game. It doesn't neatly fit into any particular genre. It's a dramatic fantasy scifi action porn comedy, if I were to label it, which, as you can tell, isn't an easy task. There's a lot to like about this game and a lot of disparate elements that come together to form a tight cohesive whole, but one that's not too tight for a knot.
Shelter is about a human named Luke who helps run a shelter where canine adventurers can stay and relax at. A holiday called Skies Ablaze is coming up and for various reasons, Luke spends it alone every time, but he finally finds a way to celebrate it with his closest friends. He plans to spend that night with them, but until then, he needs to pick someone to spend the rest of the day with.
Now... I could make an entire essay about what makes Shelter so good. I'd say it's probably the first furry visual novel not mostly or entirely written by Howly, who wrote Adastra, Arches, and most of Echo, that has felt this thematically and tonally rich. But unlike a lot of games in this genre, it does not try to mimic Howly, but still manages to tap into his strengths. There's strong messages about racism, exoticism, the meaning of freedom, the harms of hero worship, the difficulties of fighting hierarchies both in practice and concept, self-care vs altruism, and the fear of mortality. There's also hints at autism allegories and anarchist principles that may be unintentional, but are so well integrated into the setting and story that they feel like natural extensions of the more prominent themes.
But this isn't to say Shelter is entirely serious. It's also an extremely silly and horny game, full of dog puns and meta humor. That fact is obvious if you play the first hour or so, especially if you manage to get a bad ending. And to that end, it's really effective. It's very funny and charming and silly. And that in itself is integrated into the more serious elements. Rune is by far the silliest and horniest of the route characters, but he got that way because he fought and sacrificed A LOT to have the freedom to be that way, and you can see that from the beginning as he's the most physically scarred character in the main cast. His hedonism and goofiness is his way of enjoying the freedom he fought for.
But if there's one thing that stands out about Shelter, it's its gameplay. I know it's weird to praise a visual novel with mostly dialogue choices, quick-time events, and one somewhat confusing minigame for its gameplay, but most furry visual novels often only have dialogue choices as opportunities for interactivity and even some really good ones like Arches and Remember the Flowers don't even have that. I'm not criticizing those games for doing that though, as focusing on story and even abandoning dialogue choices has many of its own advantages, but the fact Shelter branches as much as it does really makes it stand out a lot, especially since it's still so tightly written. Because of that, I rarely use any save slots at all. I certainly save sometimes out of a nagging feeling I should, but even then, I rarely load up a saved state ever. There's so many branching paths of events to do. A lot of side quests and unlockables and hidden scenes. My favorite thing to do is boot up the game from the beginning and do slightly different dialogue choices until I get to the part I left off at in my last session. I have nearly completed everything available in the last update (v33) and I only very recently got through enough branching dialogue to safely keep a save file of the moment right before the route split. It's truly fun to have a visual novel open ended enough that I can have unlockables and completionist challenges to do. It's really a fun game on top of being a great story, especially since diverging branches are written around each other later. There are a handful of continuity mistakes, but given how complicated that is to keep track of for a story of this nature, it's impressive there aren't way more. And that's all without sacrificing the story or the core themes. In fact, I believe those act as the anchor for the game's narrative.
Overall, Shelter is an amazing game. If it weren't for how extremely NSFW this game is, I would give it my highest recommendation. In fact, I will, at least for anyone who's 18+ and isn't squeamish about gay sex and descriptions of gore. It might be my new favorite game, at least depending on how it ends up. It's currently unfinished, but it is possible to get to Burry's and Rune's good endings and Max's route is shaping up to be my favorite one with some surprising themes of mutual aid, capitalist realism (or maybe more broadly hierarchal realism), and the meaning of justice. Both of the multi-route side quests have unfinished best endings, and there are a few more unfinished branching dialogue choices. But you can go 30 hours without running out of stuff to do as it is and it might be more if you're not like me and don't skip action and sex scenes because you just can't get yourself to enjoy them when they're written out in most media, mostly due to issues with visualization skills and not really due to any fault of the authors. And with that rant about oddly specific personal stuff out of the way, keep on yiffing.
Links
Itch.io
Side Tangent: This game is so shockingly gay that the biggest twist that shook me the most is the singular instance of a feminine pronoun. There's no female characters and although even tamer characters still tend to talk about sex a lot, straight sex doesn't get mentioned at all and neither do any females, with the sole exception of this reveal. Or at least there were no other incidents that stood out. But it's safe to say Shelter fails the Bechdel test hard, so much so that it's a mystery if there are even any women in its world at all.