Rescue Team (PC)

Despite the entire time management genre quite reasonably being focused on your ability to complete tasks within the given time limits, some games have struggled to contextualize why you need to do so before the timer runs out. There might be weak explanations like a door that will shut if you aren’t quick enough or maybe the grander plot involves pursuing a villain so dilly-dallying in general should be discouraged, but Rescue Team gets around these questions by basing its gameplay around the actions of a search and rescue team following a set of disasters. Putting out fires, rescuing stranded survivors, and rebuilding homes is definitely a reasonable motivator to get things done quickly.

After a set of three islands are torn apart by tornadoes, the player assumes the role of the talented Rescue Team who arrives to set things right. Being a time management game, the game’s 60 levels focus on the player giving orders to workers who move around on a set of defined paths. Each level has its own set of goals, these usually playing into the game’s theme of disaster rescue such as sending a helicopter out to rescue people trapped in high places or dousing fires, sending a boat out to pull people out of the water, and rebuilding the buildings and structures in the area so they can resume normal operations. Doing so will require keeping on top of your resources and clearing obstructions that block these all-important paths so work can be completed as quickly as possible, and while running out of time won’t lead to people dying or anything that serious, there is a level rating system where your rescue team’s efficiency will be rewarded with trophies and in-game money.

As for what that money can be spent on, the game begins with your personal island home being destroyed by one of the tornadoes, the cost of repairs being incredibly high even for something as simple as a window. Over the course of the game you’ll be able to spend this cash to tidy up your yard, rebuild support beams, fix your garage and vehicle, and otherwise make the home’s exterior look nice again after the weather devastated it. While this is a purely cosmetic reward for a job well done, it is a satisfying one to engage with. Gradually seeing the house come together into something presentable is a steady form of progress, and while you can breeze through the whole game only settling for lesser trophies, completing the stage within the par time will earn you the gold trophies and much more money that can go towards these costly repairs. Thankfully, you don’t need to perfectly beat every level on the islands to complete your home renovation, but getting a good amount of gold trophies is still key to having the house in ship-shape once you complete the adventure, and going back to tidy up your times in a few levels if you haven’t finished your work is fairly easy to justify because of the tight level design featured in Rescue Team.

Each level in Rescue Team starts you off with at least one worker, the player able to acquire more if they can find other workers trapped behind rubble. These workers are responsible for almost everything you need to do, so finding the best path to efficiency often involves having as many hands on deck as possible, especially when it comes to collecting renewable resources like the byproducts of rebuilt restaurants and sawmills. Actions performed by the workers almost always have a food toll, a lot of a level’s early pace set by how well you can keep them fed and plan your actions so there isn’t too much downtime as you wait for food stores to be available. Other resources are important though like wood for building bridges or stones to rebuild roads. Not every action will be performed by a worker though, because once you are able to rebuild a helipad or dock you’ll gain access to helicopters and boats that work on their own provided you can pay their fees for operation. While your workers are running around town rebuilding houses or businesses and breaking apart debris, you can send out these vehicles to do their work, thus adding another element to the strategic balance you need to maintain at all times. Some later levels get creative with how the vehicles factor into things as well, such as the boat sometimes needing to salvage driftwood or other resources since there’s none available on land or the pace of your helicopter’s efforts more important than what your workers are doing if you want to complete the level on time.

Limited time power-ups augment how certain actions unfold as well. Picking up these powers at the right time can make a level with plenty of helicopter work go by much quicker as it gets a speed boost, and your workers have their own speed boost that can make completing a long list of necessary tasks speed by. Raising the production speed of resources from certain buildings is also key to doing certain levels in a reasonable amount of time, and poorly planning your actions can have the very tangible impact of things slowing down as you need to wait for jobs to resolve or certain necessary items to become available. Strategy is definitely a key aspect of getting your tasks done in Rescue Team, with it actually being possible to instantly screw up a level if you do not use your starting resources to open the path to necessary acquisitions. However, the game’s levels do start off easy enough so you can learn the ropes and the timer for a stage won’t start until you make your first order so you can get the lay of the land, meaning that smart thinking is required but you can make the necessary plans before putting them into action.

However, even if you think you have a solid game plan, the level timers for getting those precious gold trophies are surprisingly tight. While you don’t have to click every resource or task that needs doing the moment they become available to succeed, proper planning is needed to get some of the par times successfully. Surprisingly, it’s not too uncommon to find you missed out on the gold trophy by mere seconds, making it easy to justify going right back into the stage and retrying it when you couple it with the fact that a well done stage takes less than 5 minutes. Despite individual levels being so short, they are incredibly active because you’re constantly managing all the different tasks necessary for success, the game achieving a solid balance between the need to remain involved due to your role as commander of the rescue team but not being too hectic since you’ll be able to think out your actions as your team gets to work. It is a shame you can’t queue actions and need to wait for a worker to be back at base to give them new instructions, but having to be a bit more engaged to get the job done doesn’t hurt the experience in any meaningful way.

THE VERDICT: Coordinating search and rescue efforts is a smart fit for the time management genre, and Rescue Team does a good job of adjusting the concept into the resource gathering and worker coordination that make up its gameplay. Tightly designed levels ask for the player to consider their work orders properly if they want to earn the gold trophies and tidy up their island home. Different elements like the helicopter and boats along with the power-ups mean that Rescue Team isn’t just about clearing paths and rebuilding resource generators too, the player needing to strategize properly to ensure the rescues and relief efforts can be completed in a reasonable timeframe. Exploring its concept fairly well and building some surprisingly challenging levels allows Rescue Team to provide casual fun that requires some tactical skill to complete.

And so, I give Rescue Team for PC…

A GOOD rating. Rescue Team’s theming may be a little simple and the fact some levels have you rescuing gems from damaged areas instead of people is certainly a little odd, but compared to something like Ballad of Solar where the story and gameplay are intensely mediocre, Rescue Team was able to take its concept and express it through the gameplay. Coordinating the reconstruction and relief efforts in a damaged part of the island isn’t just a good way of justifying why you’re rebuilding broken businesses or needing to clear roads of debris, but you also have features like the helicopter and ship that add extra considerations to your actions with their separate requirements and capabilities. The power-up system also serves as a smart additional factor for increasing a level’s complexity as you need to pick the right moment to speed up resource generation or get your workers moving to their jobs faster. Path design is done fairly well to pace the game in a way where an eye for strategic action is needed to keep your team working at a good clip to get the gold trophies, with the island home being a low pressure way of rewarding your success. Tinkering with the level design to emphasize different aspects like the vehicles, worker travel time, and resource scarcity all do a good job of mixing up the 60 levels featured in Rescue Team, and if it wanted to go further all it would need to do is keep introducing new tactical considerations and accommodating those designs in the same manner.

Like many time management series, Rescue Team is just the first in a rather prolific series, there being at least 10 games that come after that explore different aspects or fantasies of what a search and rescue team can be. However, this humble start came out of the gate by exploring the idea to make for a fun and strategy-focused time management experience that feels a natural fit for the genre. Whether countering mad scientists, poachers, and even aliens is a good direction for the series remains to be seen, but this start where you’re just rebuilding an island after weather phenomena is an enjoyable execution of a grounded idea and just complex enough to keep you engaged thanks to its nicely tuned difficulty.