What happens when you take the style of Introversion’s Prison Architect and dump it in space? You get a little something called RimWorld, where we build a colony to survive the harsh frontier.
Indie developer Tynan Sylvesteris is behind RimWorld (no pun), and with 22 days left on its Kickstarter he’s already beyond his goal of $20k CAD. Now he’s shopping the idea on Steam Greenlight.
If you’ve played Prison Architect then you’ll see an immediate familiarity with how the world presents itself, except Sylvesteris takes us to other worlds.
The setup is that our colonists are actually crash survivalists looking to found a shelter, and then eventually it becomes a new home. Each character has their own backgrounds and traits which can affect how they work and behave. More colonists can be added to our settlement through rescuing others or even capturing enemies and turning them.
”Over the course of long games, players develop a motley group of refugees, pirate raiders, purchased slaves, and crashlanded survivors. The diversity of people makes each colony unique,” he described. ”You won’t get hundreds of colonists - we want to keep the number small enough that you can know each one individually.”
To keep us on our toes, entertained and challenge, an AI Storyteller of our choosing will be dictating events happening throughout our colonies lifetime - think Left 4 Dead’s AI Director.
• Cassandra Classic aims to create a rising curve of tension over the course of the game. Early on, the most dangerous thing she’ll do is send a psychotic squirrel after you. Later on, bands of scavengers will arrive. In the late game, look forward to combined-arms attacks from mercenaries mixed with lightning storms and crop blights. If you want a traditional tension and difficulty curve, go with Cassandra.
• Phoebe Friendly is for the player who just wants to build and watch a colony grow. She’ll occasionally create minor disasters, but nothing that would threaten the existence of the colony. If you want a more relaxing game about growth and success, choose Phoebe.
• Randy Random follows no rules. He may give you some amazing stroke of luck, like a trader selling an advanced weapon for a low price or a group of helpful immigrants, followed by a near-unbeatable pirate attack combined with an electrical fire. If you think losing is fun, you might want to try Randy.
Check out the RimWorld Kickstarter campaign for more and don’t forget to visit the Greenlight campaign. Tynan Sylvester is developing RimWorld for PC, Mac and Linux. Over 3,000 backers have pledged about $86k CAD.
