Tynan Sylvester

RimWorld is a construction and management simulation video game developed and published by Canadian-based developer Ludeon Studios.

With the release of Alpha 13 on April 6, 2016, a new social aspect to the game was introduced.

Characters were given the ability to have social relationships with each other, and an opinion system was introduced.

These relationships can benefit or detract from the needs and joys of a character, and poor social relationships may result in fights.

Animals in the game may be domesticated or tamed, and can form relationships with human characters, but they cannot be controlled directly by the player.

Certain animals may be taught commands, which vary from simply obeying its master to defending them if attacked to occasionally carrying and storing items.

Players can research new technologies by constructing research stations.

These research stations allow players to progress along a tech tree, starting at tribal technologies like simple clothing, all the way to space-age technology like nuclear reactors for a spaceship.

Players may harness electricity, which unlocks a plethora of machines and increases the colony's efficiency, but they are forced to find ways to generate electricity, including wind turbines, solar panels, or geothermal power stations.

Originally called Eclipse Colony, it was initially released as a Kickstarter crowdfunding project in early access for Microsoft Windows, macOS, and Linux in November 2013, and was released on October 17, 2018.

The game was released for PlayStation 4 and Xbox One as RimWorld Console Edition on July 29, 2022, with development and publishing being handled by Double Eleven.

Rather than a test of skill or a challenge, the game is intended to serve as an AI-powered "story generator", where the game is used as the medium for players to experience narrative adventures.

The game has received outstanding reviews from critics.

The game takes place in the distant future, where humans are spread across the universe but cannot travel faster than the speed of light.

Planets and star systems develop in isolation from each other, and while some societies advance technologically, others regress due to war or disease.

As a result, there is a massive range of technological levels of societies, from Neolithic tribes to reality-transcending machine gods.

Rimworld has a small variety of starting scenarios to choose from, although the core narrative is the same.

The player characters (referred to as "pawns" in game documentation) are stranded on a procedurally generated planet located in the frontiers of known space (a "rim world").

The characters have a randomly generated set of positive or negative traits which affect how they can contribute to or endanger the colony, the decisions they make, and how their existence affects the other characters.

As time goes on, more characters will join the colony.

Characters can be rescued after crash-landing on the player map, they can wander in, or they can be captured after a raid.

To end the game, the player must either research and construct a spaceship, or find a broken-down ship with the help of a friendly AI.

After starting the ship, the player must defend it for fifteen days as other desperate inhabitants of the planet attempt to seize control of it.

After escaping the planet with at least one colonist, the credits roll.

With the Royalty downloadable content, the game can also end by hosting the High Stellarch, leader of one of the factions that inhabit the Rim, and leaving the colony with them.

With the Ideology DLC the Archonexus ending is made available, which involves selling the colony for part of a map to the Archonexus, a massive AI-controlled computer capable of controlling the entire planet.

The objective of the game is to ensure the survival of a colony of people, fighting against various environmental and/or internal events through randomly generated events in a customizable world.

As the game progresses events become progressively harder and the player can unlock more advanced technology through research.

The game has a top down, two-dimensional view.

In-game events are procedurally generated by an AI storyteller, which is central to gameplay; game difficulty, event difficulty and difficulty progression depend on its settings.

The AI storyteller will analyze the player's current situation and choose events based on what it assesses will make the most interesting narrative.

The game has three preconfigured AI storytellers, "Cassandra Classic", who follows traditional storytelling techniques of rising and falling tension, "Phoebe Chillax", a more laid-back storyteller, and "Randy Random", who forsakes narrative altogether in favor of randomness and excitement.

There are 6 different preset difficulties to choose from along with a custom difficulty option.

These influence the severity and frequency of events as well as the good, neutral, and bad balance of events.

Events can range from simple occurrences such as wild animals wandering into the map or spacecraft debris crash landing to catastrophic long-lasting events such as cold snaps or volcanic winters.

The game has two save-modes.

Commitment mode acts as Rimworld's permadeath mode, disabling manual saving, and Reload anytime mode allows the player to save and load freely, giving the player a chance to undo an event.

The characters' mental stability is represented by a mood meter, affected by basic or complex needs, personality traits, and character backstories.

Characters require food, rest and shelter but will also request a place to sit while eating, well-made and undamaged clothes, or enough time for recreation like stargazing, cloud watching or playing chess.

If needs are left unmet, characters may undergo "mental breaks" such as going into a daze or even going berserk and attacking other characters.