Exapop

the environment, and each other. Will your colony survive the Rimworld?

Cassandra Classic is the default AI storyteller.

An early game base consisting of a small farm and security.
Gameplay

Rimworld is a top down view colony management game. You control colonists with keyboard and mouse and give them tasks which will, hopefully, be good for the colony. Some characters are better at certain jobs than others and it’s up to you to create efficiency. Through your input, colonists will begin building homes, farming, creating items and researching technology. Every so often you will be attacked by the game’s chosen AI storyteller who sends enemies to kill you, has your colony plagued by disease, or inflicts fatal heat waves. The game plays out in real time but will allow you to adjust the game speed and pause the game at will.

The early game Rimworld Tech Tree
Playerbase
Rimworld combines different genres very well, appealing to gamers of all sorts. If you have played Grand Strategy or Sim games then you will find something familiar in Rimworld. Strategy Players will enjoy expanding their reach, defending land, and developing their empire. Rimworld is really good at making you feel like you’re progressing with colony development because of its research system and the technology it rewards.
Sim Enthusiasts will enjoy the quirks, traits, relationships, and stories that develop around their characters. The game is very good at convincing you that these colonists are varied as you begin to understand their strengths, weaknesses and personality.

What is Rimworld about?

Rimworld is about the stories it creates by setting up mechanisms for happiness and survival.There are different AIs which will cater to the different player genres that RimWorld can accommodate. These offer different playthroughs and difficulties by changing the amount of effort you need to make your colonists happy and the ways you approach combat when protecting them.

An example of a Rimworld Character Sheet

Developing a colony and focusing your efforts on providing the best aesthetic for your colonists will make them very happy. Happiness goes a long way in Rimworld because if your people are below a certain threshold, they will susceptible to a mental breakdown rendering them uncontrollable and useless to the colony for a short amount of time. Luxury items can protect your colony from dying from within. Focusing entirely on survival and maintaining only enough luxuries to stop people from going crazy and killing each other is another approach to the game. For some players, a warrior who can protect the colony will always be more useful than a crafter and materials that could be used for defensive fortifications or multiple freezer systems will be better spent there than on art supplies. These two play styles will create their own stories. One scenario can involve a utopian community focused on opulence which ultimately ends by siege of the enemy. Another can be an all work no play colony where the death of a pet could put one person over the edge causing them to start fires everywhere and weaken the colony just before an attack.
This game doesn’t have a definitive end goal and plays out in a sandbox-like environment. Even though there isn’t an end or a story like in a single player campaign, the game does present you with an objective that ties into the lore. The general premise is that you crash landed on this Rimworld and you want to build a ship to escape back into space. But there isn’t a reason to leave whatever civilization you develop. You could even opt to send only the worst of your colonists into space and get rid of the dead weight without guilting the community.

Rimworld firefights get intense and show similarities to RTS and Tactial RPG games.

Rimworld has an active mod community and limitless replayability experiences.
Replayability
For some people RimWorld will be the only game they buy and play for 2017. This game has an insane amount of replayability by offering over 8 biomes with significantly varying degrees of mountain density. Meaning, you will always have map diversity. The colonist creation process will make you want to find your preferred colonists. For example, you will settle for a doctor who starts fires because that’s better than a sexist drug addict who can’t read. The scenarios that come with the game allow different stories to form around five tribals, three survivors, or one really rich dude and these different perspectives will have their own difficulties because of the technology gap and value the AI storyteller puts on a colonists life when creating conflict. Personally, I enjoy the Tribal Game.

Design

The design of RimWorld works well and the top down view of a 2D world doesn’t compromise the gameplay at all. The controls do not feel clunky and are properly labeled which allows you to know exactly what you’re doing as you do it. In my experience, I use the mouse 90% of the time. The interface fits 16:9 resolutions well and shouldn’t clutter your actual game space. The graphics do enough to distinguish colonists from each other and enemies and the environments look really nice.
Sound

RimWorld music and sound definitely sticks out to me and I like it. The music is sci-fi western themed and tries to set a mood of exploration and grandiose, which it does pretty well.The sound effects during combat and while cooking, farming, mining, researching, and etc., all do a good job at giving you enough information to know what’s being done and even by whom. Even though the game is designed to accommodate more units, machinery, and noise you won’t have to worry about important information cues being drowned out.

Rimworld has Overwhelmingly Positive reviews for a good reason.
Reasons To Buy It
This game really is fun if you’re this kind of person who likes to:
Chill out and drink coffee while
playing a game and/or watching a stream
Micromanage colonists, develop empires, or watch relationships develop among virtual people
Play games with massive amounts of replayability, single players games, and sci fi games.
Play games that don’t need good computers to run

TL;DR
Rimworld is a great game that you should buy because it’s fun and successfully takes the best parts of other genres and blends them together. At its core, this is a colony management game where you will watch over virtual people. It’s up to you to make this sandbox game rewarding for you and your colonists. If you like a well made video game that offers great replayability and diverse content then this $30 purchase will be for you. So if you enjoy strategy, RTS, and sim games then you should consider Rimworld as your next library purchase.