Sagrannus Gaming: RimWorld (Alpha 12)

Reviewing a game that is not yet out of alpha/beta is a difficult thing to do, to say the least. As others, such as Jim Sterling, have pointed out, as soon as you begin asking for money for a product, that product is open for critique. This, I certainly do agree with. However, the problem is that games in alpha or beta are not necessarily representative of the final product, and as they are ‘works-in-progress’ they cannot be critiqued in such a certain manner.

Naturally, I am not saying this out of context for the sake of putting words on the page. Not at all. I am saying this because today I am going to talk about a game that is still in alpha. Because of the caveats raised above, I shall write this in the same format as my other reviews, but shall not give the game a review score.

Again, not finished product. Alpha. Me write good.

RimWorld (Alpha 12)

Developer: Ludeon Studios and Tynan Sylvester
Publisher: Ludeon Studios and Tynan Sylvester
Genre: Story Generator
Released: Not yet, bucko.

From the word go, RimWorld is different. Described by its developer as a ‘Story Generator’, not a ‘competitive strategy game.’ So, what does one compare it with? The developer explains the game in the following way:

‘RimWorld follows three survivors from a crashed space liner as they build a colony on a frontier world at the rim of known space. Inspired by the space western vibe of Firefly, the deep simulation of Dwarf Fortress, and the epic scale of Dune and Warhammer 40,000.’

Just from that, I was intrigued. So many wonderful themes and ideas jammed together? That could result in one of two things: Either a mess, or a masterpiece. RimWorld, at present, certainly seems destined to be the latter. The premise is interesting, and well thought out, and the execution – even still in Alpha – is fantastic.

Gameplay

RimWorld is primarily mouse-driven, with hot keys assisting. The gameplay seems complex at first glance, but is intuitive and relatively straight-forward.

Your landing site, m'lord?

First of all, the player must create a world, determining its size. Then, they must pick where on the planet their colonists will crash land, as well as specifying how large said area will be. With a number of biomes – desert, arid scrubland, temperate, tropical, boreal, tundra, and ice shelf – to choose from there is plenty of choice available as all the biomes have different climates, growing seasons, and rainfalls. This choice is further augmented by the four terrain types: flat, small hills, large hills, and mountainous. Lots of choices, and lots of replayability. The player is also required to choose their difficulty setting, and 1 of 3 AI types, each of which result in a different ‘story’ (ultimately this determines the frequency and severity of random events). Once all of that is done, the player must choose – through random rolls – three colonists. The player must assess the health, age, skills, and traits of their colonists, trying to produce a team that is likely to survive, and be less susceptible to mental breakdowns (or more, if the player has a masochistic streak). The story telling really starts here, with 3 protagonists who come with interesting backstories and personality traits.

Like a nanny, but with scarier bedtime stories.

The player can control the passage of time, pausing it should they need to stack up some instructions for multiple colonists.  A bar across the bottom of the screen gives easy access to any menu you desire, which all pop up in simple windows.

Most players will be using the Architect menu most, as it is from there that you give all the building orders to your colonists, set storage areas, growing areas, and restricted zones. The player is expected to plan out the shelter, power grids, food supplies, security, and sundries for their colonists. From the Architect menu, they can do all of that. While there are a few items that are in tabs that you might not expect, it is relatively logical.  

Choose your party.

While you can leave it automated, to get the most out of your colonists, you can set what activities each colonist prioritises – using your nous, or lack thereof, to determine who will do what best. Thankfully tooltips are here to help, showing you how good each colonist should be at each given task. A further elements is passion: colonists are passionate about different things, and so ultimately you want colonists doing things they are passionate about, as they will be happier and more willing to do those things, and will also increase their skill level in that area faster than people who don’t care about what they are doing. While you can tell a colonist to do something immediately, they do operate semi-autonomously, basing their actions on how you arranged their priorities. Don’t boss them round too often, it isn’t good for their mood. The priority system is a fantastic element of the gameplay, and one I can barely applaud enough.

Random events, which are part of the ‘story’, will take up a lot of your time. Even so early in development, these events are many and varied. From toxic fallouts that trap you inside your base to manhunting boomalopes or raiding pirates, the variety keeps you guessing, and stops you from falling into a routine. You can’t step away from this game, or it will punish you for not paying attention. At times, often when you are unprepared, a series of consecutive raids can leave your colonists wounded and your base in tatters. More than once, I have lost half my colonists to hypothermia after a nasty raid knocked out my power generation. But this, as Ludeon Studios say, is all part of the story. Even a playthrough that ends in cannibalism and starvation has a great story, ultimately limited only by your imagination.

Welcome, my friends, to Hell.

There are a number of ways to grow your colony. Wanderers can join, you can offer sanctuary to people fleeing pirates or angry tribes, you can buy slaves from pirates, or you can capture people (friend or foe) passing through your territory and try to turn them. All options are viable, though some may have negative impacts on your relationship with your neighbours.

Should people be wounded, they can be treated in your hospital (if you bothered to build one), and should limbs or organ need replacement, you can have your medical personnel perform operations to give people prosthetics (whether a bionic eye, or a wooden peg-leg). Naturally, if you are an unsavoury sort, you can harvest the organs of prisoners to sell on the black market. I often found myself tossing up whether to wait and hope that an infection is survived, or whether I should amputate the limb. I love the medical system, as it really is great.

Shelter first, luxury later.

For a lot of the game, survival is your main concern and is often reduced to living day by day. This makes the game exciting, and makes success all the more rewarding. The end-goal at present is to build a ship to escape the planet, but honestly I had so much fun building large bases and researching new things for my colony, I didn’t want to leave…

The gameplay, even now, is solid, engaging, and entertaining. Things that aren’t around at present that I wouldn’t be surprised to see are: water management (slightly nervous, this could make it really hard), colonists having children, vehicles, multi-storey structures, nuclear power.

Graphics

Charming, clear, and people with no legs.

Despite its simplicity, the look of RimWorld is great. Everything is clearly defined, and the little, legless people that glide around the world are actually quite charming. The different biomes look markedly different, which is nice. Perhaps most outstanding is that despite this ‘simplicity’, a lot of work has clearly gone into the design of every single visual asset, and it shows: this game is a looker, and has a unique aesthetic at that.

Sound

The sound effect are great, and seem to accurately match the activities they are assigned to. One feature I love is that if a weapon is being fired off-screen, it sounds muffled and distant. While it is a small detail, it adds to the immersive nature of RimWorld’s sound production. The music is charming, and does not intrude. That said, it is well written, and its often calm melodies juxtapose poignantly with the at times depressing setting and events. There is a nice western twang to it all as well, tying back to the aforementioned Firefly inspiration (also, to me, a little of the StarCraft Universe. More can’t really be said, the music is good, as are the sound effect. Naturally, there is no voice acting.

Re(Playability)

Helpful prompts, info, and events abound.

Is RimWorld playable? Yes, very much so. As I covered in the Gameplay section, even in this early stage, RimWorld is intuitive and well set out, allowing players to dive in. Further, there are handy prompts and in-game tutorial texts that help guide the player in the beginning, making sure they have everything they need to survive.
On the replayability front, things are even better. With the diverse biomes, terrains, 3 AIs and 5 difficulty settings, from the outset the cast replayability is obvious. From there, you need to acknowledge that no two games are the same – the maps are randomly generated, (most) players will take a different set of colonists at the start, and different people will join the colony. Crops might fail, and other random events will change how you play. This game doesn’t want you to have a routine, it doesn’t want you to have a method, and I love that.

Conclusion

As I said at the offset, reviewing/critiquing a game in Alpha is hard – fraught with caveats. However, even at its current stage (Alpha 12), RimWorld feels more expansive, more fun, and better polished than a lot of games that are ‘complete’, even some AAA titles. As I have said before, I love to see games made by developers who love what they do, and are passionate about their vision. It’s challenging, and you will fail many, many times, but the charm and the storytelling of RimWorld will win you over, and you will lose many hours to it, but won’t regret even a second of it.

I will be watching the continued development of RimWorld with significant interest, and be reporting to you about it whenever I can.

You can get RimWorld here: http://rimworldgame.com/

It's a beautiful world...