I Came, I Saw, I Discovered...and I Didn't Even get an Achievement!

I mentioned last week that I was spending a chunk of time trying to knock out the entire Discovery Mode tour in Assassin's Creed: Odyssey.  The good news is that I finished it!  That's right, all 30+ tours and every single discovery location--aaannnd, I didn't simply just click through stuff, I actually read the additional info!  Now, I'm someone who generally doesn't care about achievements, if you get them, great, but they aren't something I feel overly compelled to complete.  For some dumb reason I really wanted to get an achievement for completing all of Discovery Mode.  Spoilers...there is no achievement!  Once you've completed all the guided tours you get a "thank you" cutscene, and that's it.  On the plus side, I did learn many new details about life in ancient Greece and the design of the game--that's a good enough achievement, right?  It also made me want to go visit Greece and see some of these sights and artifacts (of course, not right now with pandemic and whatnot).  Mission-somewhat unsatisfactorily--accomplished.

Once I finished Discovery Mode, I spent a bit of time tooling around in normal Odyssey, but I haven't been feeling particularly compelled to stab another 10,000 people.  I've sort of been bouncing around with different games--spending some time playing PC Building Simulator, because I've made another goofy, internal goal of getting my shop to max level (I'm currently at level 26--only 5 more levels to go!).  When I get tired of building PC's I shift gears to the story generator/survival sim RimWorld.  RimWorld has seen massive improvements since I first started playing it in early access several years ago.  The improvements include making the process of escaping the planet much, much more difficult.  I'm hoping this time my poor colonists will make it...fingers-crossed.

My colony.  Note the ominous grizzly hanging around....

My newest colony started off with the basic colony setup--I opted for three colonists with decent technological skills.  In picking who my three colonists would be I tried for a normal balance of useful survival skills--early on I try to pick colonists with decent growing skills, at least one person with decent combat skills, and someone with medical skills.  The trickier part is keeping track of the individual personality quirks and picking people who aren't going to have truly devastating traits.  I only did a so-so job on this front and made one fairly stupid choice.  Two of my colonists have a trait called "gourmand" which means that when they're stressed, they will react by going on food binges.  These binges can put a serious dent in your food stores and fortunately I've managed to stay ahead of any serious shortages (it was really tricky in the beginning and my colonists were basically cooking enough to eat daily).  Calling the trait "gourmand" kind of makes me laugh because I've made it a core part of my desperate food recovery strategy to pillage the corpses of any animals killed by other animals.  So, I hope my stressed out colonists enjoy bingeing on the partially-eaten corpse of a yak or the leftover turtle that they scraped up.  Sounds delicious!

Naoko can't do dumb labor, but she's a good medic.

The worst choice I made in the early game was picking a colonist who is incapable of dumb labor.  The early part of the game requires a boat load of dumb labor--tons of gathering supplies, hauling, building, and scrapping to survive.  So, one of my colonists was basically a useless consumer of food...but, she is also the person with the highest medical skill.  I decided the best option for her would be to have her be the researcher--a job she was willing to do.

The colony has lurched along and managed to avoid any catastrophic events so far.  I really wanted to gain another colonist to help with labor, but failed to recruit any captives and, for some reason, any capsule crashes coincided with other events that kept me from rescuing people (once, a capsule crashed in the midst of a pack of manhunting ibexes and another time it crashed right before a raid).  Finally a random person decided to join my colony and it has helped a ton with getting more resources gathered.

There have definitely been some hiccups for my colony--a meteor crashed on my refrigerated food storage area and destroyed some of my food stockpile; two of the colonists got into a social fight which resulted in the loss of a leg for one of them (the good news is that I managed to level up crafting and crafted him a prosthetic leg which my medic could use to replace his destroyed leg)--the colonist with the lost leg also narrowly avoided being devoured by a pack of manhunting labrador retrievers due to his slow speed...that would have been a tragic death.

My colony will survive!  (MAYBE.)

In some other gaming news, if you're looking to pick up some free games, the Epic Store is currently offering Hitman (2016) and the three Shadowrun games for free!  I haven't played this iteration of Hitman, but was a fan of the classic games--I grabbed it.  The Shdaowrun games are turn-based, RPG, cyberpunk games that are fun games--I would recommend picking them up.  The second game in the series is particularly good.  (Here are links to my reviews for two of the Shadowrun games--apparently I never wrote up a review for Dragonfall which is definitely the best in the series--Shadowrun Returns Review,Shadowrun: Hong Kong Review)

RimWorld in Full

I originally wrote a review for the strangely entertaining survival sim, RimWorld, while it was in early access.  Recently, I decided to try my hand at rescuing a new group of unfortunate lost souls.  This foray hasn't resulted in success for my whacky crew, but it did give me a chance to check out some of the changes that have come to the game since its full release (which was actually back in October of last year).

For my newest survival adventure I chose the default difficulty and settings--three survivors, Cassandra Classic as my storyteller, and "normal" difficulty.  One of the big changes I noticed from the last time I had played was that the squad selection screen seemed more detailed--it's easier to swap out characters among the 7-8 choices you are initially presented with--you just have to drag and drop the ones you want.  I always try to pick a crew that has a diverse set of abilities and includes some of the most valuable early survival skills (I like to lean toward growing, construction, and doctoring).  In RimWorld it's always a balancing act between positive and negative traits--I decided to keep one character who was old because he had relatively high cooking and research skills.

The grave of Beefeater...RIP loyal companion.

The early stages of any colony are always a bit rocky and my colony was no exception.  Almost immediately a grizzly bear began hunting the companion animal (a dog--weirdly named "Beefeater").  By the time I scrambled my squad into combat, Beefeater had succumbed to his wounds from the grizzly attack--then, the tough decision about what to do with Beefeaters remains loomed over my squad--his death could provide my crew with some much needed sustenance...but, that seemed way too macabre so Beefeater was the first victim laid to rest in the settlement graveyard.  It seems like any predator animals in the area of your colony are much more likely to attack animals AND humans.  As a precaution, it's probably best to hunt them down.  I lost numerous tamed animals to predator attacks (and my colonists ate them...unless they were bonded).

Once my colony was fairly established and on the road to having some semblance of normalcy, I set about building up defenses and researching toward a starship to escape.  The caravan system also introduced optional world events--these random events give you the option of forming a caravan to rescue prisoners (as recruits to your colony), have peace talks with enemy factions, search for hidden/guarded valuable loot (including the AI persona core), or actually travelling toward a downed starship.  My colony grew rapidly from 3 to 6 residents due to some various events--one event that was new to me was the arrival of "wild men."  These are humans who live in the wild and can be "tamed" and then recruited into your colony.  You can choose to ignore these humans who will roam around the map and do their best to survive (chances are they will wander right into your settlement because of the convenience of accessible food).  I ignored one of them until they were disabled by the cold and then decided to rescue them (you could just let them die....it seems kind of evil, but if your numbers are too high....)

My starship is built.  Surviving the onslaught is another matter.

Building the starship is no laughing matter and it has become much more difficult in the full release.  Each portion of the ship requires materials that can be difficult to find and that require quite a bit of crafting (advanced components require regular components, gold, and plasteel...each ship part requires several advanced components).  On top of that, there is the matter of tracking down the AI persona core (you can wait for the ship event to happen or hope that you can take a caravan to a guarded AI core).  Once the ship is fully constructed you also have to wait through a "power up" period of 15 days.  During this period your ship emits a signal that is detectable by all the baddies and your base is almost constantly raided.  Through some creative save scumming I reached this point and then decided to give up.  Ugh.

RimWorld has been much improved since its days in early release and I was impressed by the number of new items that have been added into the game.  There are many more options for defensive items and weapons, allowing for a much more robust security system.  I was also happy with the fact that colonists will now organize and stack items rather than letting them take up valuable storage space.  Cleaning has also become a much more important task--certain rooms, like the hospital and kitchen need to remain sterile and other rooms receive a negative mood modifier if they aren't clean.

The main building in my colony.

One of my major complaints about RimWorld is the fact that gameplay can fall into a bit of a lull when you're between tasks or unsure about what direction to take next.  I always hit a figurative wall or boring at a certain point in the game and it takes some serious refocusing to soldier on.  If it has been awhile since you picked up this delightful survival sim, I would recommend checking out all the changes present in the full release.

Out of the Frying Pan...

My current RimWorld colony.  Fingers crossed that they make it.

Well, I finally got tired of playing through Borderlands.  I made it to the end of the second game and then realized that I had absolutely no desire to continue playing through the multitude of DLC and then trying to slog through The Pre-Sequel (which I consider to be the weakest game in the series).  Instead, I decided that I would attempt to accomplish my RimWorld  goal of finishing one game on permadeath mode.  As a point of reference, I've attempted permadeath many, many times and have always failed abysmally.  This last round was no exception.

It's always kind of weird that the demise of my permadeath colonies usually comes at a time when I'm feeling pretty good about how things are progressing.  My colonists were settling into their new home, I had managed to replace the flammable wooden walls with stone and fortify my base, my freezer/pantry was well stocked in preparation for winter, and two of my colonists had even recently gotten married (I love it when this happens--the mood boost from marriage is great).  I had been playing this colony for about 6-8 hours--possibly the longest that I've managed in permadeath.

Through my numerous failures on permadeath mode, I've learned that being extremely cautious is the best strategy.  Don't take any unnecessary risks if you don't have to!  Every time any sort of dangerous situation popped up--packs of maneating animals, for example--I promptly garrisoned my colonists inside of the base with the doors locked.  Sure, your colonists have to spend a few boring days locked up, but it's better than getting bitten to death by a pack of maneating bears.

Sadly, the demise of my colony came at the hands...err, mouths...of a pack of maneaters.  One of my colonists just happened to be hunting a hare in the corner of the map...the exact corner where the maneaters entered the picture.  The notification popped up and I quickly took account of the positions of my people.  Three of them were safely tucked into bed...but where the heck was number four?  I started scrolling the map to find him and realized that he had ran almost all the way back to my base.  The pack of maneating huskies had taken him down relatively close to the front door of my base.  I decided that since it was just three huskies that I could probably take them down with my remaining colonists and rescue the poor idiot who had been taken down.

I activated my colonists and positioned them behind some sandbags so they could take aim at the marauding canines.  Just for future reference, three colonists are no match for three maddened huskies.  I could only cringe as my colonists managed to take out two of the huskies and then watched as the last husky and last colonist went down at almost the same time.  I decided to wait until the bitter end and was shocked when one of my colonists managed to get up!  Maybe they could survive this calamity....  I quickly had the original wounded colonist lug all the other colonists into the base.  This was a mistake and I should have instructed him to focus on the colonist with the highest level of medical knowledge and treated them first.  Instead, the rest of them bled to death while he carried them all into the base.  Then, he bled to death himself.  It was tragic and stupid.  I kicked myself for not leaving the original colonist outside to his own fate--maybe he would have recovered and managed to evade the huskies?  Most likely he would have died, but the rest of my colony would have been fine.  My desire to save everyone is what doomed this colony.

I've decided to give permadeath a rest for now and to instead focus on playing at a higher difficulty level.  I'm not sure I have ever finished a game at "rough" difficulty.  I'm currently giving it a go and am having some success.

One thing I love about RimWorld is its ability to create scenarios that are so different from each other.  Your ultimate goal is the same--to escape the planet--but how you get there is completely different every time.  This keeps the game fresh and makes it a ton of fun.  As RimWorld creeps closer to its full release, I am finding that I can still be completely immersed in this weird, management/survival sim.

UPDATE:  2/11/18
I spent a lot of time this weekend nursing my "rough" colony along and have reached the point where I'm preparing to build my ship and try to escape.  This is the point in the game where I always have a difficult time and the "rough" setting seems to make it even worse.  Normally, there's a ton of research to be done to even get to the point where you are ready to start laying down the framework for your ship.  I usually try to have the rest of my colonists working to stockpile materials so the ship can be built quickly after the research is done.  I did this, but I've discovered that building the ship is much more complicated than on the lower settings.  Each ship part requires rare materials and a ton of components (or, even worse, advanced components).  I've managed to find some gold, enough for my building needs, but uranium has been a real pain in the buttocks.  I've scraped together a measly 27...enough to build maybe 1 cryptosleep casket.

I don't know if I'm going to have the patience to see this thing through to the end.  This part of the game is the one part that I hate--I always enjoy the early part.

The Sad Story of Crashville

Mass Effect:  Andromeda news has occupied a large portion of my time and thoughts lately.  I feel guilty about dedicating too much time to it--I just can't wait!!!!  (P.S. I haven't pre-ordered and deserve a medal for self-control and following the "don't pre-order" principle) Enough about that.  After finishing a marathon game of Dragon Age:  Inquisition I decided it was time to return to one of my more recent favorites--RimWorld.  (I've written about RimWorld before right here....give it a read if you aren't sure what I'm talking about) Since my many catastrophic attempts to defeat permadeath mode, RimWorld has undergone some significant updates.

Those updates include adding a spherical globe that, I suppose, is slightly more realistic (you still have to settle on one landing area).  Probably the most significant part of the update is the ability to form caravans.  You can designate a group of survivors, supply them, and then designate a destination.  This feature alone makes the world seem much larger than the small square your colony occupies.

For this go round I decided that I would play what I consider to be the most difficult of the pre-made scenarios.  I picked the option to start with a group of five survivors at the tribal level (on challenging difficulty with Cassandra Classic as the storyteller).  It's nice to have a few extra people in your camp to start with, but having your tech level be at the neolithic level is a little brutal.  The amount of time to research anything takes significantly longer.  This is especially true when you get to the higher tiers of research.  Gathering food and keeping it fresh is also more complicated as the lack of refrigeration makes stockpiling much more difficult.  Producing tons and tons of pemmican takes up a large amount of space and requires gathering both meat and plant matter.

Once I had the food situation somewhat under control a new set of problems arose--every single attacking faction outclassed the technology of my group.  My ragtag group of survivors wielded spears, knives, bows, and one pila.  Here's where I admit to the decision to allow some light to heavy save scumming.  Yes, I saved!  And I loaded!  And sometimes I reloaded!  There...that is out in the open.  It felt somewhat justified since I picked a more difficult scenario.

Lots of happy couples in this playthrough.  Do it for the mood boosts.

Managing to survive a few random attacks (and a few reloads.....) my colony finally seemed to be thriving.  I noticed a few major differences from the permadeath parade.  Firstly, I seemed to get a large amount of cargo pods.  It felt like every few days yielded some new swag from the heavens.  Secondly, permadeath seems to really try to kill you.  I had some really difficult random events--one that included radioactive fallout that slowly poisoned and killed everything on the map and another where a volcano erupted and the amount of sunlight that reached the planet was significantly reduced.  I didn't encounter anything that crazy this time.  Oddly enough I also had a very high number of colonist marriages (and, as a first, one divorce).  Marriages are the best for many reasons--each marriage is a happy occasion that involves a party and a long lasting mood boost.  Married colonists enjoy a more positive mood and can receive a boost when there's "lovin'" involved.  The high rate of coupling might have also been caused by the fact that my colony became quite large with eleven colonists.  I usually like to keep it around 6-8, but learned quickly that now, if you rescue someone from a downed escape pod they will automatically join your group.

Eventually I made it to the point where I could begin researching and building the coveted ship.  This was made even more difficult by the fact that I had picked a map that had a very limited number of components but fortunately had a large amount of steel.  My villagers mined a veritable boatload of steel and then crafted it into components (aided by a few crashed cargo pods with components inside).  Research takes so long at the neolithic level that I had time to completely mine the entire map and begin the laborious process of gearing up my colonists by building weapons and armor.  There was still a copious amount of downtime....so much so that I actually thought about scrapping the whole thing.  This was further complicated by the fact that I didn't realize that you now need uranium to build ship cryptosleep capsules and the reactor.  Uranium is exceedingly scarce and I completely forgot that it could be mined with deep drilling.  Once I had Googled the lack of uranium and had the epiphany that I could deep mine it.....sheesh, did I feel dumb.

The colony of Crashville managed to escape from one of the most painful scenarios that I have played.  My next goal is to conquer permadeath.  It's going to happen.....hopefully.  I thoroughly enjoy RimWorld but there are still a number of small things that irritate me (remember that it is early access).  My biggest irritation comes from the inability to assign colonists to stack items--stockpiles are frequently overflowing due to the fact that items often get strewn about at random in small stacks. I really wish they would assign a task for organizing or some sort of organizational personality trait or skill.

I attempted to form a caravan but quickly discovered that the nearest colony was twelve days away.  The amount of food to supply a three person caravan (sure, I could make a smaller one, but what if they got attacked?) for twelve days is absolutely insane.  Starvation seemed to be in the cards for these poor souls so I cancelled the caravan.  There needs to be an easier way to choose routes and specify the amount of food that a specific route would take.

Oddly enough, if you are completely mining out a mass of rock you can suffer from "roof collapses" that can crush your colonists to death.  I don't know if I'm missing something obvious, but this seems a little nuts since there really isn't a way to destroy the "roof" on rocks.  It would be nice if this was remedied.

I plan on returning to RimWorld and dooming another group of unfortunate colonists in the dance of permadeath doom.

2016--My Conflicted Year in Gaming.

With the holidays firmly under our belts and stacks of cash/gift cards now waiting to be spent, what better way to celebrate than picking up some fantastic new games?  Oh and the holiday Steam sale is currently plugging along at full....well, Steam!  It's a great opportunity, in the words of the twentieth century poet Snoop Dogg, to "Drop it like it's Hot!"  Oddly enough, I'm having a difficult time doing exactly that, which serves as an accurate reflection of how I've felt about gaming in 2016--conflicted.

Where does this confliction come from?  Mostly from the fact that it has become an acceptable trend to release broken, buggy, poorly optimized, or unfinished games to paying consumers.  As I look at my Steam wishlist and see that almost every game on it is currently on sale, I still can't pony up the cash.  Dishonored 2 is a game that I've been looking forward to for quite awhile.  The trailers looked awesome (but that's the entire point of trailers) and I greatly enjoyed the first game.  Unfortunately, there have been numerous complaints about the game running very poorly and that it was released in an extremely poorly optimized state.  There have been patches to address the issues but until I start reading glowing reviews...I think it'll have to wait until a different sale.

Another game on my list is a whopping 67% off and I still can't bring myself to buy it.  Deus Ex:  Mankind Divided was released fairly recently and didn't have the performance issues that Dishonored 2 reportedly did, but did have a very clear aim--to leech as much money from gamers as possible.  According to reviews the main story was short and the only way to finish it up was to purchase day one DLC.  To pay extra...on the first release day!  Ridiculous!  The DLC season pass also featured a number of items that were only usable once.  Plus, there are microtransactions in a single player game.  No, just no.  They can keep their 67% off because I refuse to be treated like an ATM for the big developers to pump money out of.  It's a huge disappointment.  What ever happened to treating customers fairly?

But I don't want to be a total downer; I played some great games in 2016.  Here is a list of some 2016 games that are worthy of celebration:

1.) Stardew Valley.  Never in a million years would I have imagined playing a game about making friends and farming.  I also have very deep seated skepticism about pixelated retro-feeling games.  Luckily I put that skepticism aside and discovered a game with a heart of gold.  This world needs more Stardew Valley's and the enjoyment of being kind, even to pixelated video game people.

My early Stardew Valley farm.

2.) RimWorld.  Although it is an early access game, I have already sunk many, many hours into this enjoyable and quirky survival game.  It has been my permadeath frustrator and has ended in so many ridiculous situations, but I still want to play it.

One of my RimWorld colonies that made it.

3.) Halcyon 6:  Starbase Commander.  I have to admit that I haven't finished this game yet, but I had a blast even getting to the point where I stopped playing.  Managing a starbase and defending the galaxy from a catastrophic alien invasion is the basis of Halcyon 6.  The combat seems to draw from games like Final Fantasy and is a turn-based strategy funfest.  This is another one of those pixelated indie games, but it panned out.

4.) XCOM 2.  Yes, it definitely falls into the category of "games released in a buggy state," but after those bugs were fixed this game turned into an intense followup to Enemy Unknown.  Basic features were improved and new, punishing timers were added to force players into thinking quickly rather than thinking brutally (the "kill em' all" mentality doesn't work well).  If you're a fan of turn-based strategy and don't mind being pushed, this is one you want to play.

5.) The Witcher 3:  Blood and Wine.  I cannot write enough about The Witcher 3, it has quickly become one of my absolute favorites.  The Blood and Wine DLC saw Geralt travelling to the beautiful, sunny region of Touissant to solve a series of murders.  The DLC added a huge new region filled with new monsters, characters, quests, cards, and an interesting storyline.  This is how DLC should be done--a full expansion rather than some half-assed minor features.  If you tried to complete every quest and map feature you could easily sink another 40+ hours into it.

The final shot in Blood and Wine.   Geralt and Yennefer at Corvo Bianco.

 Blood and Wine also features something that I've always wanted in my massive RPG's--the perfect happy ending for my hero.  It's very satisfying to see Geralt return to Corvo Bianco, his new home base, to find either one of his sorceress lovers or a cherished friend waiting for him (if you opt out of romancing a sorceress it will be either Dandelion or Ciri).  It's nice to imagine the "happily ever after" scenario.

Even though there were some clear disappointments this year these five games (or DLC's) would make great additions to any library.

Death of a Save Scummer

I've admitted it before, but I will admit it again...I am a shameless save scummer.  My general attitude about saves is "why have them if you're not going to use them!"  And use them I do.  Anytime things get a little hairy there's always that handy quicksave and quickload button.  Go ahead and admit that you do it too, it's alright.  I didn't really think it was anything to be ashamed of until I started researching Iron Mode runs in XCOM:  Enemy Unknown (not for the weak!).  There was so much negativity around saving and re-loading that I realized that I should work towards weaning myself off of the satisfying drug of non-failure thanks to saves.  Now the time to put that into action has come!  And it sucks.  Massively.

What game would be better for testing out my newfound resolve than RimWorld!.  I had managed to successfully rescue two different bands of survivors (on regular difficulty with some scumming) and was feeling pretty good.  So I started up another scenario and opted for "permadeath" mode which only allows you to save when you exit.  Then the failures started to stack up.  I had initially ramped up the difficulty to "rough" only to find out that they ain't a lyin' about it being rough.  My colony would survive for awhile but always seemed to be at least one technological step behind every enemy.  The enemy would be sporting some flashy personal shields and my poor colonists would be trying to club them.  It was a disaster, so I decided to swallow my pride and turn the difficulty down to the "some challenge" mode.

In "some challenge" I lasted longer, but that was about it.  There would always be some crisis that would turn into a "game over" moment.  One time a pyromaniac colonist started setting fires while the rest of the settlers were carting stuff from a downed cargo pod across the map.  By the time they got back the entire structure was engulfed (probably should've made multiple buildings).  The icing on the cake was when the AI decided to throw a raid into the mix.  I could only watch as my colonists got injured and there was no medicine, no beds, and no way to recover.

This is the way the world ended...once.

The subsequent attempts resulted in similar results with only one getting close to completion.  It also seemed like the AI was throwing some real curveballs my way--once I got a horrible random event involving toxic fallout.  Radioactive fallout settled on the map and only those indoors were protected.  Settlers could venture outside, but only for short periods.  Everything on the map besides my settlement was completely wiped out.  Fortunately I had enough food stocks to make it to the end of the disaster--only to watch as my colonists were wiped out by an enemy siege.  In a different playthrough I landed the volcanic winter event (which I think is an intentional way to counter those wussy people like myself who set up in a tropical rainforest zone for year-round growing).  Volcanic winter means that the sun is partially blocked--solar panels generate less electricity and crops and plants grow slower.  While not as catastrophic as the toxic fallout event, it still was a real zinger....and my colony still ended up failing.

My last attempt was the deal breaker.  I had managed to make it to the point where the ship was almost completed--I was just waiting for the coveted AI core event to happen.  Then the sieges started happening.  Sieges have been my downfall because I still haven't fully figured out how to counter them.  If you attack early and have a little luck, you can take them out before they have time to set up.  That strategy worked well until my colonists couldn't hit the broadside of a barn and got picked off one by one.  I was so close!  Just one stinking ship piece (although to be fair, probably not that close because the AI core event was still quite a ways off).

For now I'm taking a bit of a break to let the frustration wear off.  Even though I have failed over and over I feel like I am learning more about the mechanics of the game than I would if I had continued to save and reload.  I'm thinking that personal shields and artillery stations are probably the best plan for countering sieges--I need to step up my defensive game!  Failure isn't always a bad thing--even if it does feel frustrating.

Some day.....some day I will save a colony.

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.