How hard is it to get into?

[LeadedHydra78]

I wanna pick the game up but i refunded it once before because it got a little overwhelming. Should I give it another shot? If so any advice to not get so overwhelmed and enjoy the game.

[Bathory]

It can be overwhelming, but it doesn't have to be. I suggest playing the tutorial and just take things easy. You might want to have some Rimworld guides going on in the background while you're playing, like on your phone or something.

What genre of games do you like to play? What are some of your favourite games? Telling us about them might help figure out what you'll enjoy in this game.

[TLC Tugger]

I refunded the game after about 45 min - 1 hour before. I just picked it back up last week and have dropped 40 hours into it and bought all the DLC. If you stop, pay very close attention to the tutorial and don't mind doing a little bit of googling occasionally to figure out a mechanic a little better than it's explained in the game it can be quite fun and addicting. My wife, who is loves platforming games but nothing else asked me to buy it for her on the xbox and is just as addicted as I am.

100% give it a second try. Go into it with an open mind and don't stress about people dying or ♥♥♥♥ burning down because that's how you learn.

[Narrowmind]

Like he said. Just take it easy and don't sweat too much. It's a blast. You can even adjust difficulty midgame.

[Raymond]

Here is my early game build order for crashlanded/temperate forest start:
-Pick a good builder, a good chef and a good researcher. The researcher need to be good or decent at medic, the chef each must also be good at planting, the builder should be good at mining.
-Build a storage area for your starting loots (just build a pillar, build a roof as large as the pillar can contain, and set the storage area beneath it).
-Build 3 bedrooms (I normally go for 4x4, but 3x4 will works too) for each of your colonists before first day end. You chef need to clear as many trees as possible (focus on trees on the lands you are going build on), and your researcher need to focus on hauling all your supplies to the storage.
-Get your builder to build stonecutting table, and then work on the food freezer (an 11x11 rooms with at least 2 freezers, no need to hook the power in yet). Get your chef to start planting ~30 tiles of potatoes. Get your researcher to work on stone cutting. Should be done in day 2-3.
-Start getting a wood fueled generator to power the freezer, start building a 3x4 room right outside the freezer and fit 2 electric stove in it (you only need to use one for now, the other should be turned off until you have 8 colonists to feed and 2 chefs to work on it).
-Build a lab (a room with a research table) put a lamp in it and have your researcher stick in there for the next 3 in-game years).
-Build a dining room.
If you got to this point you are ready to play the game on your own. The rest is up to you.

[thatswhatship]

dude just play watch some beginner tutorials find out what you want to do as terms of mods and go for it

[truean1]

Honestly, you might considering watching youtube video let's plays of rimworld.

There are several good multi part tutorials and players who just run through games like Rimworld.

Take a look at what they do because it will:

a.) Show you how to deal with the things that might be difficult otherwise.
b.) Let you see more of the game and decide if you want to get into it.

Look for a good Rimworld series on youtube. See if you like it/how they do it. That might visually and practically answer your question best.

Best of luck and have fun man.

Thank you,
Truean.

[boytype]

Saying you "refunded it once because it got a little overwhelming" is not a great sign. The game has not gotten "less overwhelming".

So unless you have gotten more patient with learning games and/or less concerned with being able to have a full and complete grasp of all of their systems and mechanics within the first 2 hours of playing them, then I would just say that you should just not buy the game.

It could take you literal hundreds of hours before you fully learn all aspects of the game, and hundreds and hundreds of hours (possibly 1000+) before you ever complete the task of launching a ship. If you need instant gratification that you have learned a game within the first 2 hours, this is probably not really your thing.

[Icecold Heart]

Rimworld is a game that requires to invest some time to get into. To understand all the mechanics and all. But you're past the first struggles it can be really fun messing around with that game. That said i want to suggest a mod that may help you having a easier time starting out. Edb Prepare Carefully is a mod you can download from the Steam Workshop.
It allows you to define your start and thus can help you having a more beginner friendly environment to learn the mechanics. With that mod you can set how many Pawns you start with and even can finetune those Pawns in near every aspect. It also allows you to adjust what items you start with.
For example you could make a Pawn good at researching, socialising and doctoring (Medical), another that is good at mining, building and crafting and a third with plants, animals and cooking. As said this is just a example. But that way you had 3 Pawns that are specialized towards specific tasks. In addition you could give them a rifle and idk, maybe 60 survival meals to begin with.
That being said as a beginner you may want to keep the game as vanilla as possible until you learned the ropes and feel more comfortable with it. From there on you can easily modify the game in many aspects with mods.
I like to rush Research asap towards Microelectronics as this allows me to build a Comms Console. With that just build Orbital Trade Beacons in your storages. That way you get access to trade ships that occasionally may show up which let's you exchange excess goods for needed items.
I think understanding how Wealth affects Raids is a important thing to understand. So maybe look that up as the more wealthy your colony is, the more dangerous raids you will face.
Doubt you want over 100 Imps dropping all over your base with Drop Pods and setting everything on fire right away. :P
That all said Rimworld is a longterm game. It requires alot of time figuring out stuff, testing everything but it's so rewarding and can keep you busy for many hours of fun but also frustration. It still is a story generator that let's you develop your own little story.

[Aria]

I want to chime in since this is literally what I felt. I bought the game years ago back in 2016 (It was still early access!) and I got turned off really fast: I had never played a colony sim before and spending $30 USD (which was a lot at the time) on something that I wasn't certain about buying was hard for me.

After fumbling around for two and a half hours and being careful to stay near the refund time limit I inevitably refunded the game. I can't even remember if the game had a tutorial at the time, but if it did I unfortunately couldn't wrap my head around it. But I kept the game on my radar because I've always wanted to like it.

Fast forward to the most recent sale and I spent a while looking up more modern tutorials and play throughs that helped me understand the game and after taking the plunge I'm about 40 hours in and counting. Completely hooked and spending entirely too much time having a lot of fun since I can actually grasp what's happening and keep up with it for the most part.

I watched this person's videos on it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TH545Ftzebs and I learned more in this one video than I did in a couple hours years ago. I feel like they do a good job of explaining the early game from start to finish and it quelled virtually all of the issues I recall having years ago.

Ultimately I feel it was worth it and anything you don't pick up via tutorial or watching people play can easily be picked up and understood with a quick Google or wiki search and turning your brain on. I wish I had been able to get into it years ago but better late than never since I'm having a blast now.

[AlTurGo]

Originally posted by LeadedHydra78:

I wanna pick the game up but i refunded it once before because it got a little overwhelming. Should I give it another shot? If so any advice to not get so overwhelmed and enjoy the game.

It important to understand what you want from this game. I want create large stable colony, so my game is:
- lowered dificulty;
- custom start preset with increased resourses and pawn count;
- Character editor mod;
- other mods for better taste.
And i have alot of playtime with great pleasure.

You can setup this game for your gamestyle and playthrogh, so you should deside at first what you want and then we can sugest what you need to do from this point.

[Lee #1]

You previously refunded because the game was too hard for you ?!?

Perhaps stick to tick-tack-toe.

[Captain Keen]

Originally posted by LeadedHydra78:

I wanna pick the game up but i refunded it once before because it got a little overwhelming. Should I give it another shot? If so any advice to not get so overwhelmed and enjoy the game.

Ok - in simple terms:

The game begins before you land on the planet. Don't let the game dump garbage settlers on you, make sure they don't have crippling limitations, don't take anyone who's going to melt down all the time. Make sure you have someone who can cook, and someone who can heal. Most everything else can be learned.

Don't settle in a difficult biome, unless pain is something you enjoy. Just pick forest - but not jungle. Build a base quickly. Within a year in-game, you should be running relatively smoothly.

Don't neglect farming. Having a steady supply of corn is vital.

Oh, and use save games. Don't be afraid to rollback any major disasters =)

[Veylox]

Definitely harder than the average game, but much more accessible than stuff like Dwarf Fortress. If you're already familiar with the genre, it's on the "easy to get into" side. If you're not, you're probably going to struggle with the basics, an hour or two, maybe slightly more, but I've found if you start with the base game and just learn to build basic rooms and a fridge you're good to go, you become independent enough that you can discover the rest in-game without staying glued to tutorials

[CloudSeeker]

Not that hard. You can set the difficulty to what you want it to be. There is nothing wrong with setting a low difficulty and install mods that remove the most annoying types of attacks like breaches and sappers. It is all about having fun at the end of the day.

[BanDHMO]

It's the most configurable game. Just turn off a bunch of stuff that overwhelms you and set yourself up a simple learning experience.

Do 2-3 pawns, peaceful difficulty, pick a location with no winter, and learn the basics, then start adding more challenges to your scenarios as you get comfortable.

You don't need to jump in and git gud in 10 hours. People play this for thousands of hours, each time trying some different setups. You have a lot of time to learn.