Shelter — not everyone gets in

What is Shelter

Shelter is a survival debate game about who gets into the bunker, played over video. The world has ended — an asteroid, a zombie virus, a machine uprising or one of two dozen other disasters — and the bunker has half as many places as there are players. Everyone has to prove the colony cannot survive without them. Traits stay hidden until their owner reveals them, so timing and bluffing matter as much as a lucky job.

How a game goes

• 4 to 12 people play five rounds (three in Fast mode; Hardcore has no action cards and two exits per round from round two). The bunker has places for half the table, a length of stay and three features, like a hydroponic farm or an armory.
• In round one everyone’s job is revealed and each player introduces themselves. After that, each speech reveals one trait of the speaker’s choice: sex and age, health, hobby, phobia, luggage or a fact.
• After the speeches comes a discussion and a secret vote. You cannot vote for yourself.
• The vote leader and the closest runners-up — up to three — get 20 seconds each to defend themselves, then a final vote decides who stays outside.
• The player voted out reveals every card and gets last words.
• When as many players remain as there are places, the doors shut.

Action cards and the epilogue

Every player also holds one of twenty secret action cards: swap health, luggage or jobs, expose a hidden trait, spy on a whole card, veto, gag, sabotage, a hidden cache, immunity from the next vote, a double vote and more. Each can be played once, and the whole table sees who played it.

When the doors shut, the epilogue rates the survivors: is there a doctor, an engineer, someone to grow food, can they carry on the human race, do the bunker’s features help? Then a threat arrives from outside — raiders, a generator failure, an outbreak — and you find out whether you let in the right people.

Round events, secret goals and the traitor

From round two every round opens with an event: a blackout cuts speeches to half a minute, a cracked wall takes one place away, a new wing adds one, quarantine makes the vote open, jamming switches off action cards.

Everyone also has a secret goal, like getting in together with a certain player or keeping doctors out. Voted out but goal done? It is a draw, not a loss. With the Traitor rule (five players or more), one player secretly plays for the colony to die.

How to survive the vote

• Do not show your best card too early: a doctor revealed in round one becomes the obvious target of everyone who needs a doctor less than a place.
• Read the disaster. A zombie outbreak needs defenders and medics, a flood needs engineers and food — argue for the skills this world needs, not the ones that sound impressive.
• Use the defense speech. Twenty seconds is enough to point at a weaker player and remind the table what you bring.
• Watch the game log: who revealed what, who played which card and who voted for whom tells you where the alliances are.
• Keep notes on players — only you can see them, and they make the final vote much easier.

How to start

Sign in with email or Telegram, press Create table, choose Shelter and send your friends the table link. Camera and microphone work right at the table, and the AI host announces the disaster, the rounds and the results. The host of the table picks the mode, speech and discussion time, defense speeches, open voting, action cards, events, secret goals and the traitor. Cards, the host and hints all switch to English with the site language.