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Rimworld

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The past couple days I have been deeeeep into Rimworld. It's a simulation game very (VERY) similar to Prison Architect, but instead of running a prison you build a space colony. There's a little less micro in terms of what you're building (ie, you don't need to build showers or worry about complicated security setups), and instead you're fighting off raiders in tactical combat and equipping your colonists with weapons/armor. Another cool addition is that events in game (severe weather, bandit raids, etc) are generated by an AI storyteller (the developer compares it to the Left 4 Dead Director) to keep things exciting.

 

This is a screenshot from the first game where my colonists didn't die immediately. Most of the colonists died in a raider attack, and the final one dug a hole into this mysterious room behind where I was building my base. A robot centipede emerged, killed Zippy instantly, and burned down my colony.

 

wepluhH.png?1

 

RIP Zippy

 

It seems to be the work of one person (a former Irrational designer, Tynan Sylvester) and I've been really impressed by it so far. Now that I have a fairly advanced colony and I'm starting to get hit by larger attacks with long range weapons I'm finding some aspects of the combat frustrating, but I feel like I'm learning how to handle different challenges with each playthrough so it's staying interesting. In particular, trying to handle mortars and snipers has been a challenge. I suspect that if I had bought some long range weapons and spent some time training a soldier up by hunting I'd be fine, but my current colony is on the verge of collapse after fighting off first a large group (8ish people with 2 mortars), immediately followed by a centipede and 2 scythers. Too many people have injuries, and we're not really able to harvest food fast enough while maintaining defenses, so I think the next big attack will probably wipe out my colony.

 

Anyone else playing this? I haven't really heard anything about it, I discovered it 'cause I saw Rocket (the DayZ guy) tweet about it and investigated so I'm curious if other folks are digging this game as much as I am.

 

http://rimworldgame.com/

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I'd be playing it right now if it were on iOS. Are there any good builder/sim games on this damn platform? ;( Every single one just seems crafted around mugging you with in-app purchases.

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This was my most successful settlement so far. The screenshot was taken about 2/3 of a year in, after surviving the first winter. In the top right of the map is a very large group of raiders with 2 mortars, and this picture was taken to capture the glory of this town before marching off to fight them.

 

In the ensuing battle, Blue lost a leg, Macy, Ivia, and Joe were killed outright, and Navarro took a shot to the stomach. Navarro was the doctor and lived long enough to put a peg leg on Blue before succumbing to her injuries. We pushed the attackers back, but not long after a ship crashed just south of the town. I built more turrets to fight off the invaders, but expanded too rapidly and overloaded my power grid. While I scrambled to build more wind turbines, my defense turrets were down and a small group of raiders showed up and wiped my injured skeleton crew out.

 

0SnoDjG.jpg

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I'm really impressed with the additional work that's been put in since the last time I looked. Might be worth a purchase.

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Wasn't this made by someone who's real big into ""Ethics" in Games journalism"? I've been avoiding it because of that but that was a while ago so I may be miss remembering.

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Chris Remo streamed some Rimworld yesterday and it was good https://www.twitch.tv/idlethumbs/v/78597270

 

Watching the first part now, and I'm really digging it. The awkward love triangle is the best.

 

This game seems really interesting, but like Chris, I'm not very interested about the raid aspect of the gameplay. How much is that stuff affected by the settings? And will the gameplay become too boring if raids are not an issue anymore?

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I don't think I would have time to play this, but it was great watching the Thumbs stream. Saw part of the second one today when Chris was playing it.

 

Rimworld is hitting the news also:

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2016-07-18-fraudsters-force-rimworld-dev-to-stop-giving-out-steam-keys

 

People always finding and using loopholes. :(

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Watching the first part now, and I'm really digging it. The awkward love triangle is the best.

 

This game seems really interesting, but like Chris, I'm not very interested about the raid aspect of the gameplay. How much is that stuff affected by the settings? And will the gameplay become too boring if raids are not an issue anymore?

 

Yeah, the combat balance is one of my biggest issues with the game right now...the developer (Tynan Sylvester) is currently doing an AMA on reddit and I asked about if he has any other plans for late-game than just ramping up combat. Right now, I think the combat controls awkwardly and is just extremely unforgiving, so I tend to turn the difficulty on it down a bit. If you don't want to see it at all, you can play with the chillax storyteller on the easiest difficulty and it becomes a non-issue; I tend to play with the normal AI storyteller with difficulty turned down a bit, which means that early raids will just have 1 or 2 enemies, so things can go sideways, but you don't necessarily need to build a fortress immediately.

 

There are some other ways to challenge yourself than increasing the combat difficulty though! Mainly, the arctic biomes are pretty challenging to deal with at first, since you can't grow food and there's little or no wood on the map. There are also two new starting scenarios that are a bit more of a challenge (one where your tech is limited, and one where you start with only one colonist). 

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I picked this up and have been enjoying it. I'm always looking for a nice doll-house simulator to recreate victorian dramas in the style of Downton Abbey. I've been playing on freeplay or base-building, and still barely make it through the first winter.

 

It has the ease of use that Prison Architect has; but has more of the the doll-house qualities I'm looking for, for example most characters won't be trying to dig out an escape from my doll-house. But the social systems are robust enough to create the dwarf-fortress like relationships, which is the glue of any good doll-house.

 

One custom starter group I made is "The Ten," based off of the American drama television show, "The 100," where a space-station sends 100 of their juvenile delinquents down to the planet (they got grounded). Naturally this meant crash pods of 15-25 year olds with all the high-drama traits forced upon them. I forget exactly how this devolved inevitably into horror.

 

I've had a few good runs with the "rich single colonist" start. The first guy builds everything, then a traveller comes and helps a little, then some raiders are taken as prisoners, then I try and recruit the prisoners, but accidentally keep them naked and cold, then one prisoner dies of infection, ruining the chances to recruit the other prisoner, so I set free the living prisoner, sending them off into the woods still naked and restrained. Some Abbey this was. Probably good by Prison standards.

 

As for my obsession with doll-house aspect of this game. The obvious choices, The Sims and Stardew Valley, aren't available on mac. Stardew Valley will be in a few days, though.

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The Sims has always been available on Mac? Although I personally run it in Windows via Bootcamp because the performance is better.

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Ya but plasticfish, there wont' be any naked escaped prisoners in stardew.

 

My rimworld story is

The world went on fire

My crops went on fire

My wooden walls went on fire

My colonist couldn't take it anymore and started wandering aimlessly

My colonist went on fire.

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I was noticing as Chris was playing RimWorld that all of his rooms have doors. Is this actually encouraged by the game? Most houses don't have doors on every room, and if they do, they're rarely ever closed. For that matter, do you need to even have rooms? Why not just have a large open space?

 

Also, do they not need a restroom? Are they using a latrine or something?

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I think someone complained about privacy in Chris game, so maybe separate bedrooms is a good thing? I'm not 100% sure though.

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I think someone complained about privacy in Chris game, so maybe separate bedrooms is a good thing? I'm not 100% sure though.

 

They might have just wanted some distance from Nick "Jeff Goldblum" Breckon.

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I remember one of the colonists specifically complained about having their sleep disrupted, and another complaining about having to share a bedroom when Chris forgot to put a vent between two bedrooms, so private quarters seem to be encouraged.

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I'm liking your anecdotes about this game. I think I'll get it this weekend.

 

The guy really should mention Prison Architect on the website though, ideally where a whole load of other games are prominently cited as influences. Only seems right. :tup:

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This got me browsing back to the Dwarf Fortress website, where I see they just released a 64 bit version. I might end up playing that this weekend instead, in between bouts of Minecraft and Overwatch.

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I picked this up because of the podcast discussion, and I'm in love. I never got my head around Dwarf Fortress but I could see myself spending alot of time with this.

 

My first game lasted about half an hour. I went in completely blind so I've just been learning everything by ear. I saw a big structure on the water near where I started and realised it was artificial. So I was curious, and I sent someone over to break the wall down and see what was inside. Suddenly my screen flashed red and I get a message that I've awoken some "Ancient Killer Robots". Sure enough, two Ancient Killer Robots step out of the structure and gun my poor doctor down. They then make a beeline for my colony, break down the doors, and kill my other two colonists in their sleep.

 

If you see a big building that doesn't have an obvious entrance, stay the fuck away.

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It feels like "Rich Explorer" preset was created to be a sort of beginner's taste for medium and late level tech. It provided a quick way to learn to love mounted turrets, power generators, and most important- coolers for food refrigeration. This in turn presented me with what I seems to be the late game crucial resource... Components.

 

So now my runs are oriented around obsessively getting a components factory running. This is tricky as it and the steps leading to it are resource intensive, for resources that may or may not exist on your map. Designate a researching, but him or her in the prettiest room, since they'll be spending all their time there. The empty abandoned are great for early-game pretty rooms, they love stone floors.

 

Another late game resource, plasteel, seems to be mined from those ancient ruins. So military might is baked into the game progression as well, just to mine that stuff.

 

As far as the peoples needs. They desire 'space,' which includes having private bedrooms that are also large. I've been doing 6 x 6 rooms, this allows for a double bed, a small table, chairs. Wood is ugly to them, but its better than nothing, and if you keep the spaces clean, they seem to deal with it well enough. A few potted plants go a long way.

 

I've also begun save-scumming heavily, as catastrophic failure is so easy to achieve. Doing this on the same fort creates bizarre memories of alternate lives of horror. Is this the sand bag pile where people were dying trying to rescue other wounded people by dragging them over the sand bags, while being shot from stray bullets from the automated guns, which are trying to mow down the horde of angered antelope, which is mauling the people rescuing the people trapped by the sandbags?

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The Sims for Mac isn't available through the Steam store, I hadn't thought to look outside of that. It is on Origin, but I'm not willing to deal with just for The Sims. 

 

Another thing I like about Rimworld is that it resembles the mods used for my

, which used Fallout style mods to give Dwarf Fortress a post apocalyptic feel. Which is Rimworld default mode.

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