Episode 154 - A Farm Upstate - Rimworld

A Warg is hunting the podcast for food! Welcome back to the
podcast! Today, we’re going to be talking about Rimworld, a colony
sim strategy game. Rimworld is one of those games that you probably
either already love or have never heard of, which is to say, it is
exactly what its audience wants it to be, but appears absolutely
inscrutable from the outside looking in. In Rimworld, your goal is
predominately just to survive by collecting resources, managing
colonists, and handling combat, all of which can become vastly more
overwhelming than it appears on the surface. That sense of not
being able to quite manage everything feels like it is an
intentional decision, though. The game bills itself as a “story
generator,” and a well-oiled machine of a colony, while satisfying,
doesn’t exactly generate many stories. Having to handle unexpected
breaks in the system, and in your colonist’s emotional state, keep
things feeling tense and unexpected. As a simulation-heavy game,
and one made by an extremely small team, there isn’t much power
left for the cutting edge graphics, which have not been pumped up
on level three, that you may be used to in modern games, but it’s
simplistic style fits well and is part of a presentation that does
not slouch in other areas. The sound design in particular is
outstanding, with instantly recognizable sound cues for different
actions and events, and a soundtrack that will, subjectively, rock
you into another dimension. The UI, on the other hand, can be a bit
confusing at times and lends the game its notoriety for being
immensely difficult to get into if you’re new to the genre. It is a
complicated game with a lot of deep systems and a lot of strategies
to learn and develop, so you’ll have to listen to see how we
adapted. We’re going to be talking about the struggles of starting
the game, the wackiness the mechanics can bring to the table, and
determine which famous work of Spanish surrealist art it most
resembles. Thank you for listening this week! Once you listen to
the episode, it will become abundantly clear that one of us in
particular is a massive fan of this game, so it comes highly
recommended if you can stomach the learning curve and the amount of
time it will suck out of your life. But I also get that it’s a
tough game to start, so we’d love to hear your experiences. Have
you been playing for years, or did you pick it up recently? Have
you played with the DLCs or only vanilla? What do you think about
Thrumbos? Let us know in the comments or over on our Discord. Next
time, we’re going to be finally talking about Kingdom Hearts 2, the
last in the main trilogy we haven’t talked about so expect that to
be kind of the reverse of this episode. We hope you’ll join us
then!