Shelter Fall is a run-based survival strategy game. One run is twenty days long. Each day you plan; each night you defend. This page explains every system, then ends with the mistakes that kill most early runs.
Five survivors, balanced supplies, no special rules. Easy gives you six survivors if you want a gentler start.
You cannot end the day while anyone is idle. Tap a survivor to pick a job, or use Auto-Assign — but read the next section before you rely on it.
Above the End Day button you get tomorrow's resource change and up to three warnings. If it says you are short on food or ammo, fix it now, not tomorrow.
One event fires each evening. Costs are printed on the button, and risky options show their odds. Later days draw heavier events.
Watch it, speed it up with the multiplier, or skip it. Skipping resolves the fight from your actual defensive strength — it is not a free pass.
Kills, breaches, shelter damage, ammo spent, who got hurt. This is your feedback loop: breaches mean your perimeter is too thin.
| Resource | What it does | Running out |
|---|---|---|
| 🍖 Food | Eaten every day, one per survivor. | Survivors starve and lose health. |
| 🪵 Materials | Builds and upgrades defenses and buildings. | Nothing gets built or repaired. |
| 🔫 Ammo | Spent by defenders during the night. | Night damage drops heavily. |
| ⚡ Power | Runs research and automated defenses. | Research halves, turrets go offline. |
| 💊 Medicine | Heals the wounded and treats disease. | Injuries do not recover. |
| ❤️ Morale | Group state, 0–100. Drives work output. | At zero you get one grace day, then the shelter falls. |
Spending what you do not have is not free. If a choice costs more than you hold, the work still happens but the shortfall comes out of morale — and the option warns you before you pick it.
Every survivor does one job per day. Traits and perks change how well they do it.
| Job | What it produces |
|---|---|
| Gather Food / Materials / Ammo | The three scavenging jobs. Your income. |
| Build Defenses | Spends materials to raise and upgrade the perimeter. |
| Repair | Restores damaged defenses and shelter health. |
| Defend | Fights in the night scene. At least one is strongly advised. |
| Research | Advances the current technology. |
| Heal | Treats the wounded, spending medicine. |
| Scout | Reveals map tiles and finds caches. |
| Rest | Recovers health and lifts morale. |
Auto-Assign is not a strategy. It spreads people across gathering and keeps one defender. It will not build your perimeter and it will not repair after a bad night. If you only ever tap Auto-Assign and End Day, expect the shelter to fall around day five.
Five types, each upgradeable to level 5, and each can be placed on a chosen flank — left, centre or right. Enemies that get past them damage the shelter directly.
Shelter health only drops once attackers get through. A destroyed shelter ends the run even if every survivor is alive — which is the most common way a promising run dies.
Nights run in real time. Waves scale with the day you have reached, and boss nights arrive every fifth night from day 10 and on the final night.
| Enemy | Behaviour |
|---|---|
| Walker | Slow and common. The baseline threat. |
| Runner | Fast and fragile. Reaches the wall before you are ready. |
| Raider | Human, armed, hits harder than a walker. Appears from day 4. |
| Tank | Heavy armour, slow. Soaks an enormous amount of fire. |
| Brute | High damage. Breaks defenses quickly. |
| Boss | Night-defining. Plan the whole day around it. |
You get three orders per night. They are the difference between watching a loss and steering out of one.
A burst of extra damage from your defenders. Best saved for a wave that is about to break through.
Emergency repair on your weakest defense mid-fight. Use it on the piece that is about to fall, not the one already gone.
Dropped on a chosen point, hitting a cluster of enemies. Worth waiting a few seconds for the group to bunch up.
Twenty-five technologies and ten buildings. Research needs a survivor on the job and progresses per day; with no power it still advances, at half speed.
Buildings change what is possible rather than giving flat bonuses — a Greenhouse or Med Bay produces food and medicine on its own, a Workshop lets you craft medicine, a Watchtower improves the night, and Storage raises your caps.
One event each evening, drawn from 79. Some are quiet character moments; others are turning points. As the run goes on, the draw shifts toward consequential ones.
Five scenarios change a rule of the game. Any of them can be combined with any difficulty.
| Scenario | Rule change | How to approach it |
|---|---|---|
| Standard | None. | The baseline twenty-day run. |
| Last Stand | No gathering ammo; crates drop from kills. | Kill efficiently — every shot has to earn its replacement. |
| Exodus | Shelter loses 5 HP per day. | Keep a repairer working permanently. |
| Plague | All survivors start sick. | Rush the cure tech; keep medicine stocked. |
| The Siege | Double waves, extra starting walls. | Lean on walls and turrets; ammo is the bottleneck. |
Meta points are earned every run, win or lose, and buy permanent upgrades. Once you have outgrown them, Prestige resets for a deeper bonus — with a confirmation step first. Survive day 20 and you can continue into Endless Mode, which still earns points, kills and best-day records.
Still stuck? Support has troubleshooting, save and purchase help, or email mip@gmx.biz.