2017

Latest Game Obsession? RimWorld

While watching twitch I happened to stumble across an amazing stream of RimWorld, and ever since then, I longed to play it. It reminds me a lot of Stonehearth (which I have been playing a lot of lately), but far more complicated and involved which is absolutely fantastic.

The game is heavily story driven – perfect. You pick to start out on a planet with one, three, or five colonists based on the story line you’re going after. I started out with one, a rich lady looking for adventure. Your belongings are scattered all over the ground and you have to build yourself a base for survival. You can set the difficulty of the game to various levels, I picked one below rough – you can also pick a story method. Random events, story driven events, or a mixture. I decided to go with random on my latest adventures.

Your colonists have stats, they have personalities, they have flaws. They come with wounds (some of them) from previous adventures. They have skills (or they lack skills).

You finally move all of your items to an area you’ve designated, only to realize you’re going to need shelter – and fast. While you’re trying to set up your basics for survival, the environment is fighting against you. Vicious animals, raiding pirates, toxic fallout – this game has it all, and you need to be quick on your feet and plan ahead in order to survive.

Sometimes the game doesn’t seem to play fair. I had a colony with five people in it, and was raided by three pirates. Two of my people died, and just as the other three were getting ready to vanquish the pirates – the pirates kidnapped them, and thus ended my game since I had no people left. I didn’t have a choice about the kidnapping, the only ‘solution’ would have been to kill the pirates before they were able to kidnap, and unfortunately I failed at that.

Toxic fallout is another really vicious occurrence. Your colonists won’t be able to go outside without getting very sick. Toxic fallout can last from days to months. When it happened on my section of the map it lasted 12 days. 12 very long days. Crops die, and every animal outside also eventually succumbs so that when the toxic fallout is finished, you have nothing to hunt, and no crops unless you planted them indoors with hydroponics. Your colonists will be able to research new items as the days go by, things like a drug lab, or automatic doors.

The game is incredibly involved. Your people take mood hits if they’re not pleased, and they’ll slowly go berserk. Have a nudest around? You’ll want them naked asap. Night owl? They better be sleeping during the day. The variety of personality is amazing, and it adds so much depth.

I was a bit put off by the price tag of the game initially (roughly $35 Canadian) but having now played the game for many hours, I can say that it’s completely worth the price. There’s tons of replay and the story is different every time. What makes this game even more perfect for me is that I can easily pause or slow down / speed up the time based on my RL requirements, so if I need to feed the little one, or get called away for some reason it’s very easy to do so. The game also works either streamed from my PC or installed on my MacBook Pro – all extra benefits.

Honestly I just can’t say enough good about this game. It may be in beta but it’s more of a complete product than many other betas I’ve bought into. I am not sure what the company is waiting for, but it’s ready.

As if the game didn’t already come with loads to do – there are tons of mods in the workshop just waiting to be tried out. Enhancing this game is very easy, and there’s a great player base working towards that.

As always, happy gaming, no matter where you find yourself!

Planet Coaster

I love simulator games, and I’ve always been a big fan of games like sim city or cities: skylines. When Planet Coaster first came out I was a little bit cautious because while it looked really pretty I was afraid it was only a rollercoaster simulator, and I wasn’t sure how much creating a single ride would interest me.

Then I started watching others play it, and I watched items being created for it in the steam workshop and I absolutely fell in love.

You don’t just create rollercoasters, you create an entire theme park of your choosing. Sure, there are themed items and pre-set parks (space, western, etc) but how much (or how little) you decide to do with your park is completely your choosing. You can play in multiple ‘modes’ (sandbox etc) or you can follow along with a ‘story’ and complete challenges that get more difficult as you go on. There’s little bits of humour tucked into every corner of the game, from the mascots to the responses of the people who will visit your park. Trying to keep everyone happy (staff, visitors, etc) is just part of the meta that you’ll get to experience.

I’ve been watching CleaveTV on twitch as he creates different theme parks and his work is just absolutely amazing and incredibly meticulous. This attention to detail astounds me, really. Plus he’s one of those lovely streamers who don’t end up shouting and yelling sporadically into the mic, which is something I brought up yesterday on twitter.

So far I’ve just been playing through the story mode version of the game, completing bronze, silver, and gold challenges on various maps that get more difficult as you complete each round. I’ve had fun developing my own rides and creating uniform parks, and I’ve downloaded a few modded pieces from the steam workshop – there are some pieces there that just blow me away.

You’re given quite a few parts to work with, and in sandbox mode you’re pretty much only limited by your own creativity. Of course if you play on the other m0des you’ll be limited by things like money, but hey that’s what adds flavour to the game.

This game was gifted to me, but even for the price I think it’s fantastic value. I know for some of the “official” sim games (I’m looking at you, Sim City) I’ve paid far more and gotten way less play time out of it. If you’re looking for a good theme park sim, this may be one you want to check out!

As always, happy gaming no matter where you find yourself. If you haven’t added me yet on steam, what are you waiting for?! You can find me there as Stargrace.

Stonehearth

In my constant adventure to find games I can play while nursing or holding my 2.5 month old bundle of joy, I noticed quite a few people I know had picked up Stonehearth again and were playing it. I got the game back when it first entered Alpha, and I found it really difficult (at the time) with not a whole lot to do. I decided to try it out again and I’ve been pleasantly surprised.

My town is 18 days old, and I have 14 villagers. I’ve named them all after people I know on twitter / the blogging community. I started the town over a few times while I got comfortable with the controls and decided what I wanted to do. A few invasions have happened, nothing that I couldn’t handle though. I’m playing on normal mode, and I debated kicking it up a notch because it seems pretty easy. My little citizens are thriving, lots of traders come to the town, and while I don’t have every job yet (I’m hoping for a shepherd soon) there’s always lots of work to go around.

The game couldn’t be installed on my MacBook Pro which is what I use to play lately because I spend 90% of my time on the couch / near the bassinet, but I stream it from the PC without any issues. It’s easy to pause the game or just let it run while I get real life things done, and I don’t have to worry about letting others down in a situation where I need to randomly go AFK.

I foresee 2017 as the year that my steam library gets far more use than it ever has in the past. Besides Stonehearth I’ve been playing a lot of Civilization (the latest one) and I’ll have a post coming up about that before too long.

I do still have my subscription to EQ2 – and my subscription to EVE Online which I reactivated, so in between I’m still playing multiplayer games (even if I am playing them alone). I’m also on discord as Stargrace if you’re looking to chat or if you have a channel suggestion for me please don’t hesitate to let me know. These days there’s not a lot of ‘social’ I get to do, so even just watching chat scroll by helps keep my sanity.

This week has been especially difficult as far as real life goes. The car died and it’s -24C out (that’s -11F for you in the US), the doctor had some weird news about Leo that I need to take into consideration now, and the house is out of groceries, but with no car it’s difficult to get any. Not that I need to whine about my personal issues here on my blog, but I’m just saying that hanging out in discord channels, watching twitch, and trying to at least connect on some level with other gamers still helps me to keep my sanity when everything else is going down the pooper.

Here’s to 2017! Happy gaming, no matter where you find yourself.

Nomadic Gamer