Working at a dog shelter is one of those jobs that sounds wonderful at first, but is inevitably far more stressful, complicated, and full of poop-scooping than expected. In that way, To The Rescue by Little Rock Games is a surprisingly accurate simulation. While appearing initially comfy with an appealing art style and plenty of dogs, the game can very quickly overwhelm you if you aren’t prepared. You only have two hands after all, and there are oh so many dogs to pet.
To The Rescue starts with picking from a selection of set character appearances, choosing a canine companion, and naming them. Once that’s done, the game quickly escalates from tending to a lost puppy to starting your first day working at a shelter. There you learn the basics like feeding, cleaning, restocking, and presenting dogs for potential adopters. There’s quite a lot to do to keep each dog happy and healthy, and being able to hold only two items at the start means you will be going back and forth a lot. Then, after two whole shifts, the mayor deems you ready to head the town’s brand new shelter all on your own. I appreciate a game that doesn’t drag its feet, but To The Rescue really throws you in the deep end, especially when you begin managing construction and staffing later on.
Screenshot via Siliconera
The dogs themselves come in a lovely array of breeds, with generated names, traits, and preferences. The only trouble is that those types don’t really end up affecting things all that much. It’s fairly simple to arrange the dogs with similar food preferences together, but keeping difficult or violent dogs separate may be challenging. The actual adoption process is also not especially strict. You simply pick five dogs to display and, if their collective adoptability rating overcomes the visitor’s reluctance, then a dog is adopted. Though visitors have their preferences, you can often overpower them with a display of decently clean, well-fed dogs. When you have upwards of 20 dogs to look after, then that simplicity can be a blessing, but it also means you don’t have to engage that much with the trait system or the dogs in general. Rather than getting to know all these little friends with their funny little names, you feel incentivized to get them clean, fed, and out the door. Again, probably like a real dog shelter, but it does make it a bit disappointing mechanically.
I also had some issues with poorly explained mechanics and controls indicated by very small icons. I spent a good while unable to pick up any items, because I’d locked myself into leashing mode with an accidental press of the thumb stick and didn’t notice the small UI indication as I flailed about trying to take care of all my tasks. The frequency of visitors was also a factor, as I assumed that like other business sim games you would have a limited time to serve them. Not so in To The Rescue, as potential adopters will happily wait in your lobby all day until you are ready to showcase some dogs. Upgrades like extra item slots and more leashed dogs at once helped quite a lot, but honestly it was this revalisation that made the game much more manageable, and it isn’t explained.
There are also quite a few bugs and glitches. Beyond things like the game screen popping up before it had properly loaded or being unable to interact with dogs, there were also system errors and crashes. During the tutorial, I was tasked with moving a certain dog to a new kennel, but doing so didn’t progress the task. I eventually fixed it by placing a different dog in that kennel, one who happened to have the same name. I also experienced the menu selection plip disappearing several times, only coming back after opening and then closing the start menu.
The building screen can be a little tricky to parse on the Switch’s small screen. Screenshot via Siliconera
There’s definitely satisfaction to be had in keeping on top of the endless influx of visitors, furry friends and the accompanying mess, but the game is mechanically far less sentimental that you might expect. If you like shop management type games then To The Rescue! is a good time with a lovely and pretty novel theme, but those looking for specific focus on the canines might find themselves disappointed.
To The Rescue! is available now on Nintendo Switch and PC or Mac via Steam.
