Rimworld

Sims, survival, and base building.

Rimworld

Rimworld is a fun game of base-building and survival. Depending on your settings, it can be brutal and unfair. 

Gameplay

Rimworld is largely a sim type game where you give your dupes/pawns/sims do all the work. However Rimworld has a bit more micromanagement than most. Quite a few things have to be ordered directly. Also, there is very little automation in the game. The job priority system is pretty good, but there are many situations that are not covered so be prepared to frequently override orders.

Goals

There is a lot of sandbox in Rimworld. Simply surviving can be challenging and it's easy to make your own goals. The victory condition isn't especially satisfying but there is a lot of fun to be had on the way.

Compared to Other Games

Dwarf Fortress: Rimworld is very much like Dwarf Fortress but more accessible. The graphics are primitive and the interface is decent but not great. It's not especially noob friendly, but compared to dwarf fortress it's a piece of cake. There isn't as much depth as Dwarf Fortress, but there is as much "game".

Sims: If you removed graphics from Sims, it would have a lot of similarities. You build houses and manage pawns needs. You can do a lot of evil things in Sims, but nothing compared to Rimworld where you can harvest organs, get your enemies addicted to narcotics, and sell slaves.

Oxygen Not Included: ONI is nicer to play, a better sandbox, and much prettier. It feels smoother, like Rimworld has disjointed systems cobbled together. ONI also has a great system for automation of machinery and pawn. While I generally think Oxygen Not Included is better, Rimworld has more game to it. For the most part it's easy to survive in Oxygen Not Included but beyond that you have to establish your own goals. It's a whole lot of fun getting to those goals but challenges are self created. It's "fun" figuring out how to clean the carbon dioxide from the base, but it's your fault you got there in the first place. Rimworld throws periodic events at you that have to be dealt with immediately.

Recommendation

Watch someone play for a bit. If the art style is a turn off, skip it. I liked it a lot, but I burned out after 100 hours and that doesn't come close to Oxygen Not Included.