RimWorld - Damned Colonists in Space

[Zombra]

Name games that have fun crafting in them. Bonus points if it was made in the past decade.

Compared to that of the dull Orphan Age demo, the crafting in the colony-focused RimWorld is a million times more fun.

 

[Alienman]

Been trying the 1.0 beta. It's good I guess, but I got to say I'm disappointed that the world isn't simulated more. I'm kinda already bored and I'm not far into my colony. Sure, I have played it a lot already, but the knowledge that everything that happens in the game is scripted puts me off. Like in the current game I have built my colony on a road, with factions on both sides.

Spoiler

If the game was simulated this could have been very interesting. Like setting up a toll-station or something like that, or just watching caravans from the towns passing through would be cool enough. But nope, nothing like that is going on, and it makes me feel kind of sad - because I know this is the final version and the world sim is basically untouched from the earlier versions. I don't think mods can make much changes too it either. So it's just building for survival, and occasionally survive the scripted sequence...

Usually I look forward to a 1.0 game release, but this only feels anti-climatic unfortunately.

 

[Zombra]

This is the final version

Is that right? No more development after release?

 

[Alienman]

I got that impression yes. He is kinda tired of working on the game,, something with 5 years of support and development is "enough" for a game.

Edit:

Some interesting stuff here:

Tynan about the upcoming 1.0

 

[Saark]

He makes a pretty good point though: No matter how much more time would be spent on adding new features, or making the simulation more lively, complex, or realistic - eventually people will get bored with the game. At this point in time RimWorld already has a pretty long life-cycle, and the plethora of mods that are available give the game a breath of fresh air when the vanilla game is starting to get stale.

Him moving on now is probably for the best. Theres a shitton of early access games that are in EA-limbo because the developers keep adding stuff, and people keep the expectation of there being another big batch of features once the game goes gold. That almost never happens. It is different here though, we can enjoy the game for what it is now and the fairly active modding scene will keep the game alive for a few years. If we're lucky we get to be there for when he releases his next game.
Ever since I followed this project, I always got the impression that he is an extremely smart and focused developer. His approach to designing the game has been very strict and frankly a lot of other devs could learn a thing or two from him. Many games suffer because the devs keep focussing on features that only a vocal minority wants, which ultimately harms the game. Many devs are also too afraid to let their game go live and move on. I can appreciate Tynan deciding for the game to be complete enough for a full release.

This is not to say that the game couldn't be better. It has so much potential still, and I'll be sad to know that this potential will probably never be fulfilled. It's probably the closest to a worthy DF successor, and knowing that it won't get closer to DF by adding more layers or features makes me kinda sad. Here's to hoping his next game will be as good as this one, because I definitely got my moneys worth out of RimWorld, and will keep doing so for atleast a year or two.

 

[Alienman]

I agree of course, I got my monies worth too. I think I have clocked 600 hours or something insane like that, and I understand a dev gets bored and swamped with a "forever-in-EA-game" if he decides to add too much. Tynan seems like a good guy too. The problem I have with the game, since the addition of "the world" is that it's all just a big tease. Currently, at the state it is in, it just feels unfinished, and I think I would actually prefer the game as it was before the world addition - just a random map to survive on, without this tease of a big simulated world to explore and live in. I have mostly played the game in hopes of something really cool being added to the world, and the caravan addition was actually one of those things, but unfortunately it turned out it was just a scripted segment like everything else. I mean, it's still fun to go to mission, to kill a bandit camp and so on, but you are not doing anything in the world. That bandit camp spawned just so you can raid it etc. And now with 1.0 coming up, it's mostly fixes for the actual colony building stuff. Nothing wrong with that per say, but my favorite aspect, the actual world is nothing special at all... just a backdrop for a mission generator script.

Maybe I was just expecting too much, coming from Dwarf Fortress. Battle Brothers suffered from the same thing. It was supposed to be more simulated, but eventually turned into a scripted adventure with level scaling. Oh well, not really sure what to say and I'm just repeating my points. Game is done, I feel it's mostly a shame it didn't go full sim, like Dwarf, since scripted sequences even with mods will kill the sandbox experience eventually. I would love to plunge another 200 hours into it, but as it looks with 1.0 even with eventual cool mods I think I might be done with the game

 

[Saark]

I totally agree about the whole world-map part. It paved the way for even greater things to happen, and the caravan/questing features were good starts, but I think we all knew that having a functioning world-map and non-scripted interactions between factions/characters to be incredibly ambitious. For how little it would ultimately add to the game, it's just not a feature worth spending time and resources on. I still want it really badly, maybe one of the modders will manage to make it work, who knows. I'm still enjoying the fuck out of the Cthulhu mod, really any mod that increases the amount of resources/buildings to keep the sim going for just a little longer is nice.

At the end of the day it's still a sim where you set your own goals within the defined parameters of whats possible. While the world-map leaves a lot of room for potential new features, knowing that they won't be there is sad but also understandable. You can still LARP the shit out of the game once the initial difficulty of building a new colony is over, and some of the mod-storytellers are incredibly unforgiving without being straightup unfair. I also have yet to "finish" a game in a tropical biome, I always get reamed during the first 3-4 months because people literally get 5 diseases at the same time.

 

[Alienman]

Yeah, I know Toady is very unique, maybe I'm hoping Tynan would go the same way

Going from passion project to INSANE passion project.

 

[Saark]

I wouldn't wish that amount of autism on my worst enemy, let alone a dev I like.

 

[Alienman]

Hey, it's autism that brings in money. Toadys patron brings in almost 6k each month. I wouldn't mind working on something I love getting that amount of money per month.

 

[Zombra]

RimWorld has sold over a million copies now, seems like money is not an issue in Tynan's life at this point.

 

[Space Satan]

Tynan is a kind of ideal developer. He is in contact with the community, he tells SJW to fuck off, he is making the game more and more mod-friendly etc. IMO this guy deserves every penny for RimWorld and if he'll make a DLC - I expect it to be good, rather than Horse armor dlc

 

[Alienman]

RimWorld has sold over a million copies now, seems like money is not an issue in Tynan's life at this point.

Of course, but a bit different approach, since Rimworld is being sold.

 

[SmartCheetah]

Well, too bad for Rimworld. But who knows, maybe he'll move to another, more interesting project? He learned a lot from developing it.

New Project means more money, and he might be thinking about that as well. Especially if the new one would end up more simulated and more similiar to Dwarf Fortress than RimWorld is.

 

[Destroid]

Well, too bad for Rimworld. But who knows, maybe he'll move to another, more interesting project? He learned a lot from developing it.

New Project means more money, and he might be thinking about that as well. Especially if the new one would end up more simulated and more similiar to Dwarf Fortress than RimWorld is.

It would be much faster to push Rimworld in that direction than start again if that was his aim.

 

[Saark]

I wouldn't expect him to do another sim after he's "done" with RimWorld. Afterall he previously worked on Bioshock Infinite in a small capacity, went on to write a pretty good book on game design, and then started on developing RimWorld. Dude seems like he just does whatever he feels like doing. RimWorld might've been a fluke, his next project could just turn out to be a shitty FPS or something like that.

However he seems to prefer narrative-driven games, or rather, let the player be able to create their own narrative within the parameters of the game . So if we're lucky he might stick to the sim or even rpg genre.

 

[Fedora Master]

I'm really not impressed with Rimworld, I must say. There isn't actually much content once you figure out how to make your colony run smoothly. The biomes are all boring as fuck as well. Yea, sure, you can make a literal Space Concentration Camp if you want to but it takes ages because you're dealing with only a dozen or so pawns, unlike DF where there's an endless stream of useful cannon fodder in the form of immigrating cheese makers.

 

[thesheeep]

I'm really not impressed with Rimworld, I must say. There isn't actually much content once you figure out how to make your colony run smoothly. The biomes are all boring as fuck as well. Yea, sure, you can make a literal Space Concentration Camp if you want to but it takes ages because you're dealing with only a dozen or so pawns, unlike DF where there's an endless stream of useful cannon fodder in the form of immigrating cheese makers.

If you compare every game to DF you will always be disappointed.

But I agree that beyond one "playthrough", I did not feel the urge to play another for a long time (guess I'll do another once 1.0 is finally out).
That said, it took quite a few tries until I was able to pull it off and it lasted a few dozen hours until I considered myself "done" (I didn't actually escape, but it only seemed to be a matter of more time at that point).

 

[Fedora Master]

Haven't "beaten" it yet either because it's so damn slow. It feels a little as if the devs knew they lacked content and made everything take ages on purpose. Tribal start gives you people but shit research, crashed survivors gives you tech but very few people and rich explorer gives you tech and resources but good luck getting a pawn that's worth anything. I expected a little more from a game that gets so much praise.

 

[Zombra]

There isn't actually much content once you figure out how to make your colony run smoothly.

Have you advanced to Randy Random yet?

 

[thesheeep]

Haven't "beaten" it yet either because it's so damn slow. It feels a little as if the devs knew they lacked content and made everything take ages on purpose.

I honestly like that it is more on the slow side - with phases of high activity mostly when some kind of shit hits the fan.
It allows you to take a breath, look at stuff, watch your guys butcher their friends or just look at the cute turtles, immerse yourself, plan ahead and/or optimize your stuff.
And when nothing is going on and you are just waiting, that's what you can speed up time for.

If it was just stress, stress, stress, every second, I probably would have stopped playing a couple of hours in as that really isn't what I'm looking for in such games.

Also, yeah... Randy Random

 

[Fedora Master]

I may be complaining but I still can't stop playing, so make of that what you will.

 

[Damned Registrations]

Are you guys not playing with mods? You're missing out on sacrificing prisoners to elder gods in exchange for their favours.

 

[you know what time it is]

Hardcore SK + Rim of Madness is quite great, yes. Plays well too, without any conflicts afaik (just gotta disable one of the RoM mods that adds a few items/weapons). Giddy-up! (big tamed animals can be mounted for work/travel/battle purposes) is a pretty fun addition as well, makes sense in the context, works seamlessly, highly recommend it.

 

[Fedora Master]

Are you guys not playing with mods? You're missing out on sacrificing prisoners to elder gods in exchange for their favours.

Every time I tried the Rim of Madness stuff the strange mist event crashed and fucked my save.