RimWorld

RimWorld is a 2D sandbox simulation building game with an "AI storyteller", that generates random events to test your colony and eventually lead to your doom, except if you manage to escape. You start the game as three survivors from an escape pod landing on a randomly generated planet at the edge of the known galaxy. Your duty is to build a new spaceship and escape the planet, while facing waves of enemies.



Starting off with only three colonists or "survivors", which are also randomly generated at the start of the game, you can't really do that much with them, but you can still set up the basics. To get more colonists, you have to capture enemies or get lucky with random events. Capturing enemies is not that easy either, as they come with the goal of killing your nearly defenceless colonists, you have to manage to fight them back and injure an enemy to capture them. Later on, you will face massive attacks from a variety of sources and they will bring bigger fire power, to knock down your walls.

World generation creates a landmass with varying biomes which can be anything from tundras to rain forests, each biome has different temperature ranges which affects your colonists, crops and animals. I would recommend that you pick a biome that stays above freezing temperatures, so that you can grow crops without needing to prepare beforehand. The cold temperatures do add extra challenge, mostly the ability to die from frost bite.

How your game will play out will all depend on your skill and even something called "The AI Storyteller". It has three settings, Cassandra Classic, Phoebe Friendly and Randy Random. They each play by different rules and create challenges according to your current conditions. But Randy Random is where the fun lies, be prepared for stuff that makes nearly no sense and leads to your very quick doom if you're not careful, but it will seriously make your game much more fun in my opinion. While Phoebe Friendly is more of a sandbox building mode kinda AI which won't send death so often.

The aim of the game is to build a space ship to escape the planet, but you can take as long as you want. Many of the tasks that you will need to do require electricity, it is one of the most important resources and is not simply to manage. You will have to build solar panels that only work during the day, or more expensive wind turbines. You will have to set up a grid network to connect all your power hungry objects, and even set up batteries to store the extra charge for when something happens, like a solar eclipse or an electric fire.

All of your colonists also feature a "mood system" that dictates how they are going to feel, if they go much too low, then they'll go insane. Everything affects the "mood system", even the traits that your colonist starts with, which can be a permanent boost or even negative. Colonists also have other traits that affect which temperatures they are comfortable with, and loads of other stuff which affects how they fight and how they work.

With the power of electricity you can also manage the temperature of your rooms, you can make a fridge for your food, or heated bedrooms for your colonists. If you're creative, you can set up a heating death trap or even a freezing cold room to take the enemy by surprise. But be prepared to pay for it in electricity.

The combat system is very similar to the one in Dwarf Fortress, Each body part can be individually injured with varying effects depending on the location and severity of the injury. But one thing it does better then Dwarf Fortress is the ability to add prosthetics to the body to replace damage parts. If your guy has no leg, no problem give him a peg leg or even better a powered bionic leg. The combat system is almost completely automatic, you just tell your guys to go somewhere and they will fight any enemies they see. They will use cover and leaning corner shots to take down the enemy, but they will use the same tactics against you.

Conclusion:

Chances are, you're going to have a lot of fun. It is at a distance a simplified Dwarf Fortress, but it is set in a sci-fi future where people have colonised many planets in the galaxy. But I feel it is much more like Prison Architect with more freedom then Dwarf Fortress. It makes things easier, and still makes itself challenging with random events.

Get it here!