I’ll freely admit that among the genres and subgenres I tend to struggle with the most on the Switch, both visual novels and simulations are at the top of the list. It isn’t that I haven’t played simulation games that I’ve enjoyed, I’ve always loved the likes of SimCity, the classic Theme Hospital, and a variety of management sims, it’s more sims that are geared to represent manual labor jobs or things in that more realistic vein that I have issues with. While Carrier Deck is more of a management sim in principle, with you trying to identify threats and dispatch the appropriate responses to them on an aircraft carrier, its very narrow focus makes it harder to enjoy, though some may find its real-world military basis to be of interest.

Through the game’s pretty extensive, and generally helpful, tutorial you’ll be taken through the paces of what it takes to identify, assess, and then deal with the various threats the vessel may confront. Whether these are from the air, land, or sea, thankfully you’ll find that you’re equipped for pretty well every contingency, your job is just to stay on top of things and make the proper assignments to get the job done. Through a combination of sending out various craft you’ll be able to perform reconnaissance, trying to detect any potential adversaries in the area that you’ll need to deal with. As soon as any are identified you’ll then need to send out the appropriate response, ensuring that they’ve been equipped with the proper loadout for handling the given threat.

The thing is, while they can continue to pile on a higher volume of threats, and then needing to take into account things like keeping your different craft in good repair, there just isn’t much room for variety within the confines of the game’s structure. While you could possibly say the same of some other switchboard operation games, the key difference is that the better options out there in this vein typically pull in what sound and feel like real world stories in order to further immerse you in the experience. In this case there are simply threats that you need to deal with, and your timeliness, success, or failure are just about what score you get in the end. It isn’t a terrible game by any means, it’s just a very limited one.