from Hacker News

RimWorld: A sci fi colony SIM driven by an intelligent AI storyteller

by singingwolfboy on 11/22/22, 9:16 PM with 136 comments

• by pdntspa on 11/22/22, 11:10 PM

  I love Rimworld but this game's idea of "fun" is perpetually moody colonists doing stupid shit the moment one of their myriad needs aren't met. They have no chill, and no decorum, and YOU the player get to clean up their messes. In this universe, the role of God -- you -- is to be their magical space nanny, master planner, and babysitter.

  That and the difficulty curve skyrockets the moment mechanoids or the bugs show up, and they always show up way. Too. Early. (At least now I can easily turn them off without having to make my own scenario)

  I love this game but it is a frustration generator, not a story generator. And the way the creator gets about "storytelling" reminds me of how certain Hollywood directors simply can't shut up about the supposed "magic" of entertainment. Blegh.

  edit- I also have a bone to pick with the way the creator ruthlessly works to eliminate anything that makes the game easier... whether its sappers that magically know exactly where to dig tunnels to get around your killbox, or artillery being gimped because it was a way to punch up a few classes with regards to some of scenarios, or turrets now ignoring prisoners/slaves turned hostile. It feels like the game that the creator wants and the game I want are dramatically different, and continuing to diverge.

• by cube2222 on 11/22/22, 10:06 PM

  RimWorld is excellent!

  The only problem I have with this kind of game though is that time flies by really quickly for me with it. I think it's been 10 minutes while it's actually been an hour; next time I look at the clock it's 3am.

  I only have this with games like RimWorld or SimCity (city builders, simulators) and it's actually the main reason why I play them so little. They're too "just one more thing".

  So yeah, recommended but with a caveat.

• by cwkoss on 11/22/22, 10:51 PM

  If you like RimWorld, I recommend checking out Stardeus.

  The feel is very similar to Rimworld, but the setting is that you're a spaceship's AI system, and you have a bunch of humans in stasis. The goal is to find a habitable planet for them to colonize.

  Was released last month and is still in Early Access, but it's definitely in a playable state.

  The asteroid fields are brutal, build your ship like an onion with thick walls ;-)

• by smoldesu on 11/22/22, 9:19 PM

  Heavily recommended to any management-sim fans. It takes the best mechanics from games like The Sims, Factorio and Dwarf Fortress without watering them down or limiting the modding community. The price is on the steep side, but the developer is great and works with the community plus releases native builds for Mac, Linux and Windows.

• by karaterobot on 11/22/22, 9:43 PM

  Dwarf Fortress and Rimworld are currently on the front page. I don't know why, but I like it.

• by YesBox on 11/23/22, 12:00 AM

  If you're interested in playing a new game in this genre, I've been developing a city builder game over the last year, heavily inspired by Dwarf Fortress, Rim World, Cities: Skylines, Sim City, etc.

  My game will have more granular demand (not just vague "you need more commercial zones"). The player will see the interior of buildings and will be able to watch their sims live their lives.

  Im working on getting version 0.2 release by Q1 2023. The game is isometric now! Working on releasing a new vlog to show it off.

  I developed a new path finding algorithm to build big cities. Here's an old version of the game path finding 1,000,000 units to their own unique destinations:

  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x0HCnQqF5K4

  Subreddit:

  https://reddit.com/r/Archapolis

• by focusgroup0 on 11/22/22, 9:38 PM

  One of the deepest, most replayable strategy and sim games. So many subsystems that mesh together for unique emergent behavior.

• by atum47 on 11/22/22, 10:37 PM

  I used to watch a YouTuber doing a video series on RimWorld, he was able to "tell" a really good story that was happening in his world [1].

  I want to someday start playing it, right now I'm not because: I rather play on the console laying on the couch, I'm working to much to invest in the game. It seems to have a step learning curve.

  1 - https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PL_lgEqY9K6UXUVco5XysDNAeU...

• by chanandler_bong on 11/22/22, 9:27 PM

  Rimworld is great. Almost 2,000 hours in and I am still learning and evolving my gameplay.

  Some people play hardcore/survival mode with hundreds of combat-related mods, others play it as a version of Stardew Valley. It is totally up to you how you want your game to be.

• by p1necone on 11/22/22, 9:56 PM

  Rimworld is fantastic, but I never manage to play it for more than a few hours without getting a strong urge to stop and play Dwarf Fortress instead.

• by shin_lao on 11/23/22, 12:02 AM

  Rimworld is one of my favorite games ever.

  Wanna lead a team of misogynistic cannibals? You can. Wanna be a mad scientist that extracts the brain of his prisoners to create deadly robots? You can. Wanna build a village of drug-friendly pacifists? You can.

  What's fantastic about this game is how many things are optional. You don't have to care about climbing the ladder of the empire if you don't want to. You don't need to build the space ship. You don't need to go to war with your neighbors.

  Two big "flaws". The AI can sometimes throw at you problems that are too hard, like enemies to strong as it not always estimate correctly your strength, which brings me to the biggest flaw of the game: combat.

  Your characters can literally throw themselves into enemy fire and need a lot of micromanagement for combat. Worse, the combat model is such that a guy in a power armor can be defeated by tribesmen with bows and arrows, that's because projectiles and armor isn't really simulated entirely.

  An extension called "combat extended" attempts to remedy this, but I find it has its own problems.

  That's me being pedantic, the game is incredible, go for if the idea of building your own base and story is attractive to you.

• by jacksonkmarley on 11/23/22, 12:54 AM

  I got this on steam, started with the tutorial, and after a few minutes couldn't imagine getting any enjoyment out of playing this. What am I missing? The level of micro-management seems so high, and simple actions seem to require clicking through like 4 sub menus.

• by robohydrate on 11/22/22, 11:20 PM

  I didn't particulary find RimWorld to be very fun, but I did end up enjoying Oxygen Not Included, which is a side-scrolling 2d colony management sim that's a bit less serious and way more quirky.

• by drexlspivey on 11/22/22, 9:47 PM

  The graphics seem almost identical to Prison Architect so I assumed it's the same company but no. What's the story here?

• by Kiro on 11/22/22, 9:53 PM

  Another generic post about an extremely well-known colony simulator, with a title downplaying the significance. Both RimWorld and Dwarf Fortress are genre-defining cultural phenomenons. It's like posting Linux and making it sound like something unknown. What's going on?

• by Sohcahtoa82 on 11/23/22, 12:26 AM

  Also known as "War Crime Simulator"

  In that game, if I get raided, then I try to capture as many as possible. If they have crappy skills, I'll just harvest their organs and turn their skin into leather to make sand bags. If they have good skills, I'll feed them the leftover human meat from the organ harvesting until I eventually convince them to join my cause.

• by iamthirsty on 11/22/22, 9:36 PM

  This game has been out for ever. If it hasn't been posted on here many times before I'd be shocked.

• by SergeAx on 11/23/22, 2:45 AM

  I bought RimWorld year ago, but looking on its' silly graphics and cannot make myself to download and start to play it. I have no problem with ONI, because its'silliness is a part of gameplay. I am really glad that Factorio received a graphics boost before 1.0 release.

• by KaoruAoiShiho on 11/22/22, 9:36 PM

  I found this storyteller thing incredibly difficult to understand when first i heard about this game. But it turns out it's basically just a difficulty level and isn't interesting at all.

• by PointyFluff on 11/22/22, 10:41 PM

  A single threaded heap of hot garbage-collection.

• by flatiron on 11/22/22, 10:48 PM

  I was hoping it was on sale! Today is the first day of the autumn steam sale. I bought enough to wait until the next one.

• by SeanAnderson on 11/22/22, 10:29 PM

  This game inspired me to get into simulation video game development as a hobby! :)

  Easily one of my favorite games of all time. Do not let the graphics and dense UI turn you off. It's worth the effort.

• by hristov on 11/22/22, 10:22 PM

  Rimword -- if Dwarf fortress is a little too complicated for you.

• by oneshot-a4yukdk on 11/22/22, 10:36 PM

  Greedy bustards hiked price in regional currencies (28% in my case) right before I decided to buy a dlc! Even Factorio (legendary for no sale policy) haven't hiked yet. Great game btw.

  [0] https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/294100/view/34221999...