From indie developer Ludeon Studios comes a new addition to the ever growing survival/base building genre. It’s been called “Dwarf Fortress in space”, but does it shine in its own right? Read our RimWorld review to find out.

Platform Used For RimWorld Review: Apple Mac 2.4 GHz Intel core i7, 8 GB 1600 MHz DDR3, NVIDIA GeForce GT 650M 1024MB
Developer: Ludeon Studios
Genre: Indie, Simulation, Strategy
Recommended If You Liked: Dwarf Fortress, Prison Architect
Price: $29.99USD
Rating:

Reviewed by Roger

Prologue

Elida snapped. She had watched her friends be captured, slept in a cold empty bed, scrounged desperately for raw food to ward off starvation – she had even resorted to eating flesh from a fallen raider’s corpse. Her lover, Christian, was gone, captured by raiders, and everything was wrong. She threw herself onto Yulian, pummeling him with her fists. Yulian was terrified by her sudden psychotic outbreak: this woman whom he’d once longed for was now more animal than human, so he turned and fled. She pursued him briefly, but turned her attention to their new injured companion. She beat the poor soul to death as he lay helpless in bed, then carried his corpse to the table and fed on his flesh. Upon venturing back into the settlement, Yulian found Elida, collapsed on the floor. Despite all that had happened, he nursed her back to health once more. However, all hope was lost. The 2 survived for several more days, struggling with starvation, fire, misery, and madness, until Elida died of starvation while Yulian lay unconscious. He joined her soon after.

RimWorld

So that was how my first game of RimWorld ended! It may sound dark, but this game can be very unforgiving if you’re not prepared. RimWorld is a base builder from Ludeon Studios. You may often hear its gameplay compared to Dwarf Fortress, while it’s graphics have been compared to those in Prison Architect. However, RimWorld stands apart in its own right. It has the open world survival and emergent storytelling aspects of Dwarf Fortress, but it packages them in a much more user friendly way: the UI is (mostly) straightforward and intuitive, and the graphics are clean and easily readable.

What’s it about?

In RimWorld you manage a group of colonists, setting tasks for them or giving them direct orders, with one goal in mind: survival. The world can be an inhospitable place, and there are numerous structures you’ll need to build in order to maintain your colonists’ health and sanity. There are also random events to contend with, from assaults by technologically advanced raiders, to heat waves and solar flares. As you build your settlement, these random events will trigger, often leaving you scrambling to deal with them. As the game progresses, these random encounters will get worse, so you’re constantly driven to research more effective solutions for whatever is thrown at you.

Continue reading on the next page…

[schema type=”review” url=”http://store.steampowered.com/app/294100/” name=”RimWorld on Steam” description=”From indie developer Ludeon Studios comes a new addition to the ever growing survival/base building genre. It’s been called “Dwarf Fortress in space”, but does it shine in its own right?” rev_name=”RimWorld Review” rev_body=”I’d highly recommend RimWorld to anyone who’s remotely interested in the survival/base builder genre, and especially to anyone who has ever want to play Dwarf Fortress, but has been intimidated by the UI. Ludeon Studios have crafted a very solid game that can provide many hours of entertainment.” author=”GameReviews AU” pubdate=”2016-09-19″ user_review=”5″ min_review=”1″ max_review=”5″ ]