The games that inspired parts of To The Rescue! include Stardew Valley, Prison Architect, and Animal Crossing, all life-simulator experiences with different mechanics and styles. Game Rant spoke with the couple behind Little Rock Games, Tanner Marshall and Olivia Dunlap, who shared what inspired their game and also what makes it start apart from other simulators.

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Games That Inspired To The Rescue!

From the beginning, To The Rescue! was a game about saving dogs. Dunlap and Marshall began working on the game as an undergrad hobby, and it developed into a more serious project as they discovered its potential. Since it is the first digital game Little Rock Games has created, they looked at other games for ideas. Marshall said, “The biggest one that we always throw out is probably Prison Architect.” There were a lot of design inspirations in terms of particular ways the inmates have file folders with parts of their backstory like why they’re there.

Dunlap said they also looked at games like Stardew Valley and Animal Crossing. She said they’re both really cute games that probably have a lot of audience overlap, but also let players control a specific character - as opposed to Prison Architect, in which players simply look over everything and build structures.

One trait of To The Rescue! that set it apart from simulators is some of the difficult topics the game addresses, such as euthanasia. Dunlap and Marshall decided to put euthanasia in their game as a way to respectfully show the sort of difficult decisions real shelters go through (though players have an option to opt-out of this mechanic).

With such a serious topic addressed, they also looked into narrative games that touched upon the subject of death. Dunlap said, “Because we are representing some of the harder things in running a dog shelter, we also looked at some games that address difficult topics in really interesting ways.” One such game that helped inspire them was A Mortician’s Tale, a short narrative game from 2017 by Laundry Bear Games that’s about death and working in a funeral home.

To The Rescue! is releasing on November 4 on Mac, PC, and Switch.

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