Lauren Morton
My favorite farm sims have memorable characters and a whole lot of property customization. I’m usually skeptical of the 3D ones because they often feel pretty clunky. But Dragon Shelter‘s colorful art style has piqued my curiosity. That, and the emphasis on cooking (and dragons, duh) are what I’m hoping can sell me on this one within its first season.
Day 1: Anybody home?
I arrive at my grandpa’s overgrown old cottage alone. Where’s he run off to? Apparently I don’t know. There’s only enough time on day one to read several tutorial popups telling me what to do next (oh dear, that ta-dah noise is going to get on my nerves fast), cut a few trees with my axe so I can use wood to fix my bed, and go to sleep.
Day 2: There’s always free seeds
Today I get to walk into town and oh, jeez, everyone here is Eeyore-level sad, heads facing navels and all. Even the music is depressing. The mayor tells me the town’s in shambles and everyone’s gone away and maybe I could help the couple folks who are left.
Well then, it’s time to roll up my farm simming sleeves. The merchant wants berries which I can pick a ton of growing wild on my farm. The carpenter wants me to fix a cart by chopping wood. The gardener wants me to try growing wheat on my farm. Done, done, and done!
In the midst of doing all that though, I’m surprised by which things Dragon Shelter considers worthy of popup explainers versus what goes completely unexplained without even an indicator in the interface. Basic things like navigating my backpack are very fiddly and there’s a “tips” button to find out which season seeds grow in before I buy them—important information that’s available as a tooltip if you use keyboard and mouse but requires the unmentioned button press if you use a game pad, which Dragon Shelter recommends.
The tool animations and movement aren’t clunky though, so that’s one for the pros and one for the cons column on my normal gripes with 3D farm sims.
By about 8 pm I’ve acquired a shovel, watering can, pickaxe, wheat seeds, and a blueprint for an outdoor kitchen. I don’t have the time or enough energy meter left to clear a spot on my property for it, so off to bed I go.
Day 3: Time for a jam session
I spend all morning clear cutting a large section of my yard to plop my outdoor kitchen onto. It comes pre-equipped with an oven, cauldron, matches, and a couple other basics so I can make some berry jam for the mayor.
The menu for queuing up recipes to cook is, like all the others, awkward and shabby-looking. I’m a bit of a snob about interface designs, sorry. It’s just a shame the environments in Dragon Shelter are so cute and the menus don’t match at all. In fact, what happened to the nicer-looking HUD that’s in some of its Steam store page screenshots?
(Image credit: Wild Forest Studio)
The cooking system is easy enough to understand, though. A list of visual steps for the recipe I’ve queued appears in the top left when I step into my kitchen:
- Take berries from the basket
- Put them in the fruit press and hit a button several times to mash
- Pick up the cauldron and carry it over to add berries, water, and sugar
- Place it on the fire
- Grab logs for fuel
- Etc, and so forth
It doesn’t have the “oh god the food is burning!” hustle of something like Overcooked or the minigame-ification of each step like Palia, but I can see the promise.
Day 4: Cursed kitchen reno
What the heck? How do I add new cooking stations to my kitchen? Why is this not something that had a little ta-dah popup to explain it to me? I’ve been standing here half the in-game day confused.
Oh, I can’t add stations while a recipe is queued up. There’s nothing indicating that as the problem, but it’s tucked into the “cooking” portion of the help menu. I would cook a berry pie for my current quest but my wheat isn’t finished growing. Fine, I’ll go to bed early!
Day 5: Dragon!
Finally I meet a dragon today! The liquid-y critter crawls out of the pond next to my house when it smells the berry pie I’m cooking. I feed it raw berries and we’re best friends immediately. It doesn’t seem like I can give it a name though. It’s just “water dragon,” bummer.
Cooking with my dragon friend is quite cute. It will try to do the next step in whichever recipe is queued up, like adding water (from its mouth, aww) to a cauldron for berry jam while I go grab another set of berries to mash for the next jar of jam in the queue. There are moments it gets a little confused if I’m working too fast for my dragon to pick up a step. It seems to work best if I start the process but then let my dragon finish a recipe while I jump ahead to begin the next dish so we don’t step on each others’ toes.
Day 6 – 9: How to train my pet dragon
I spend my first few days with my dragon pal growing wheat and potatoes, chopping wood on my farm, and cooking bread together. My dragon will automatically help with what obviously needs doing like watering crops right when we wake up. I can also queue up chores for it like chopping trees or rocks if I equip it with tools.
The carpenter offers to make me a trampoline for my dragon to enjoy and, boy howdy, if you thought cows playing with beach balls was cute in Fields of Mistria you’re going to love a dragon bouncing on a trampoline.
On day nine the mayor tells me to start earning the trust of all the townsfolk with gifts and quests and I can use the “request board” to deliver them recipes they want like baked potatoes or bread.
Day 10: Standard farm simming routines
Alright, the “just one more chore” feeling of a farm sim has finally kicked in. Here’s my day:
- Water my crops
- Collect sticks and hay to help the merchant fix his stall
- Cook 4x baked potatoes with my dragon
- Deliver one baked potato to the merchant so he’ll fix his store
- Deliver the other baked potato to the gardener to earn some friendship points
- Feed two baked potatoes to my dragon because it’s hungry
- Sell produce so I can buy nails from the merchant to give to the blacksmith for a quest
I’m only just now noticing that there doesn’t seem to be a map. Which is making it tricky to remember where to turn in quests. The bigger issue is how small the world feels. I’ve been just running back and forth between two areas: my farm property and the tiny town. Is there more to the world? I can’t tell.
Day 11-13: The chores continue
In week two my chores continue: The mayor needs me to bring clay and hay to repair a dovecote so the village can have contact with the world outside again. The new rancher needs the watering dish fixed for his giant insect-looking critter. I’ve got to buy more nails from the merchant to fix the pier and I’m getting a bit suspicious of all the excuses the blacksmith has for why he can’t just make nails himself.
I’ve welcomed a new alchemist, a weaver, a fisherman, and a bard to town. So many folks have come back but they’re all still comically sad. The mayor proposes I cook food for a village festival, so maybe that will help the mood around here.
Day 14: It’s very cute, but…
Dragon Shelter goes for the 14 day season instead of 28, so I’ve already made it to the end of spring. It seems that I’ll be adding more stations to my kitchen to expand the recipes I can take on, but there don’t appear to be a bunch of other crafting type stations that I’m going to plop on my property to create goods. I should unlock animal tending on my farm soon (aside from my dragon) so I’m eager to see that part too.
It’s a cute game, but much smaller than I’d expected, so far. Shops don’t have interiors (yet?) so I just talk with the owners outside. The villagers themselves really just deliver quests and don’t have memorable personalities. If there’s more to the world than just the two areas, I’ve no way to know yet. Its store page references “a vibrant fantasy world filled with magical biomes,” but I can’t tell when those other areas might appear.
From what I’ve seen so far, Dragon Shelter leans mostly on the novelty of doing chores alongside my dragons and the increasing demands of the cooking minigame as I add more stations. It doesn’t seem likely to deliver a detailed story or intense profit min-maxxing of some other farm sims. It’s just dragons and vibes, but they are good vibes.