It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad Rimworld!

It has been a bit of a video game lull for me lately.  But never fear, my impulsivity usually comes to the rescue in a good or bad way.  This time my random grab turned out to be a great thing.  I picked up the indie survival, strategy, sandbox, [insert random other descriptor] game Rimworld.

In Rimworld you are in charge of a small group of survivors who have crash landed on a random planet.  These survivors each have their own personality, quirks, and skills.  The game starts you off with three characters--you have virtually no control over their stats or skills and are allowed to "roll" to randomize them.  It is impossible to create a perfect colonist with all the skills you want.  This randomness is part of the challenge and can make for some interesting situations later on.

Each colonist has a set of skills that range from shooting to gathering, from extinguishing fires or performing high-tech research.  They also have unique personality traits like being a pyromaniac who randomly sets fires and will never extinguish them or a sluggish laggard who refuses to do any manual labor.  Some colonists have an interest in some skill areas and can raise those skills if they are set to do tasks they enjoy.  Along with these traits is a gender and sexuality set of code that has garnered some eyebrow raising among some sets.  Your colonists flirt with each other, they start relationships--which can be good or bad, and occasionally they get into fistfights if their advances are spurned (once I had one colonist beat another to death).  They also have moods which are directly influenced by their current conditions.  Do they have enough food?  Did they have to sleep on the ground?  Are their clothes in poor condition?  All of these factors can add a mood debuff if they aren't taken care of.

My third colony in its second year.

Initially you get to choose your settlement site and there is some strategy involved in this.  It's something I haven't fully grasped as of yet.  Your colonists crash land and then you set about making a settlement for them.  Colonists have very basic needs--they want shelter, they want to eat, and they want to be protected.  Your first task is creating a shelter, building some beds (no one likes sleeping on the ground), and then making some plans for how to survive.  Planting crops, planning for electricity, temperature, and crafting are all good first steps.

It's when you start to feel comfortable that the game throws a wrench in your gears.  Hostile tribes attack your settlement, a lightning storm starts a devastating fire that wipes out all your crops, a herd of mad animals attacks your settlement...these are just some of the random events that happen along the way.  At the beginning of each new settlement you create you can choose an AI "storyteller" which decides the rate, difficulty, and type of events that are thrown at your little colony.  These storytellers have cool names like Phoebe Chillax who allows for a more laidback approach to play, but who steps it up in the late game.  If you're feeling truly adventurous you can choose Randy Random who will toss anything at you at any time.  I've settled on Cassandra Classic which is a more traditional approach to events.

The difficulty can also vary widely based on the seasons.  The planet goes through a four season cycle where summer and winter can be especially brutal.  Your colonists are prone to heatstroke in the summer and hypothermia in the winter.  Providing appropriate clothing and temperature controls can greatly help with negative mood debuffs.

At first glance Rimworld reminded me a little of Prison Architect, but after playing it....a boatload....I have found that it's a complicated little mess that I enjoy so much more.  The story of your colony can be quite hilarious when spelled out in story form.  My first colony was doomed because I didn't realize that my food was going bad because I didn't have a freezer.  When the winter non-growing season rolled around I tried to scramble and hunt some food, but there was none to be found.  My second colony fell victim to a herd of man-eating muffaloes who rampaged through my camp and managed to disable everyone (I wasn't being cautious enough and told them to attack).  I'm on my third colony now and think I have a better understanding of how things work.  The game will undoubtedly toss a real zinger my way soon and change that.

For an early access game Rimworld offers a vast, quirky, and fun survival game.  There are numerous mods out there that add new storytellers, expand on items in the game, or add any number of new and interesting items.  I was a little hesitant about the $29.99 price tag, but Rimworld has definitely delivered and is well worth it.