Feedback Requested

[Joelle]

How does this compare to other survival colony sims? I've seen screenshots show a very lackluster UI. Are there mods for it to change that? Few quick points to avoid people trolling the post.

1) Looking for genuine feedback on what you like/dislike in comparison to other similar type games
2) Game reviews show many love the game, that's great. I don't need you to tell me this as that is not my question if people love it.
3) "This game sets the gold standard". Great, glad you feel that way. Tell me why you like it so much, or if you dislike some parts, what parts in particular.

Seeking genuine feedback please, but inevitably people will troll at some point. Just going to ignore you if you do.

[Astasia]

You tell us. You've owned the game for months and this is not your first thread like this here. If you want genuine feedback and reasons why people like the game reading through the meatier reviews will get that for you. Pretty sure the last time you made this thread you just used it to argue with everyone who responded to you and call them fanboys for posting things you disagree with.

[schnappkatze]

What sets it apart from other survival builders are for me mainly two things:

- huge replayability, because due to the random events there is an immense pool of possible new situations and methods to handle them. Most survival builders are "solved" rather quickly, e.g. you learn how much food you need to survive the winter. Rimworld is so complex and chaotic that you often face some unique situation.

- the detailed, The Sims - like person system. Your colonists feel more like actual individuums that are all different from each other. Especially if you care for their backstories and pay attention to the daily colony life. It is the only colony builder were I ever got actually sad about a colonist dying instead of just thinking "well, need a new crafter now."

The UI can feel too complex at first, but that is rather fitting for a game with many complex mechanics. I don't mind it, surely someone will chime in with UI mod suggestions.

Question: Why do you ask? You own the game according to steam, why not just play it?

Edit: I read your other posts. To be clearer on the UI: It is not perfect and rather a bit dry compared to new shiney games, but allows very detailed fine tuning of stuff. If you need fancy bright colors and slick menus you will not like it. But on the other hand it allows for very fine-tuned colony management where you have immense control over all the little gears turning in your colony.

[Joelle]

Originally posted by schnappkatze:

What sets it apart from other survival builders are for me mainly two things:

- huge replayability, because due to the random events there is an immense pool of possible new situations and methods to handle them. Most survival builders are "solved" rather quickly, e.g. you learn how much food you need to survive the winter. Rimworld is so complex and chaotic that you often face some unique situation.

- the detailed, The Sims - like person system. Your colonists feel more like actual individuums that are all different from each other. Especially if you care for their backstories and pay attention to the daily colony life. It is the only colony builder were I ever got actually sad about a colonist dying instead of just thinking "well, need a new crafter now."

The UI can feel too complex at first, but that is rather fitting for a game with many complex mechanics. I don't mind it, surely someone will chime in with UI mod suggestions.

Question: Why do you ask? You own the game according to steam, why not just play it?

Edit: I read your other posts. To be clearer on the UI: It is not perfect and rather a bit dry compared to new shiney games, but allows very detailed fine tuning of stuff. If you need fancy bright colors and slick menus you will not like it. But on the other hand it allows for very fine-tuned colony management where you have immense control over all the little gears turning in your colony.

Appreciate the genuine feedback—unlike the other guy who was just trolling (now blocked).

Replayability: I’ve often heard people say a game has great replay value, but in reality, most don’t actually return after a full playthrough. Are you saying you regularly go back for multiple runs after finishing? If so, that’s great to hear. Related point—how do you “win” in this game? Is there a defined end, or is it more open-ended?

Sims: I’ve only spent about 10–15 minutes playing once before, so I haven’t had a chance to really dive into the depth you mentioned. That said, I agree that making characters feel like individuals adds a lot of value to a sim colony game. That's a great selling feature.

UI: This one’s a bit of a sticking point for me. I work in software development and lead multiple teams, so I might be more critical than the average player when it comes to interface design and usability. Sounds like there may not be a mod that improves upon this. Usually avoid mods in games, but if there is one for the UI, that may be of value here.

Why I’m Asking Despite Owning the Game: I originally bought the game a while back after some friends hyped it up big time. But within minutes of playing, I was let down—especially after reading so many glowing reviews. The UI, in particular, felt underwhelming compared to the survival games I’d recently been playing. I made a post looking for insight—hoping veteran players might help me see what I was missing. Unfortunately, it was hijacked by trolls (like the guy I blocked), who couldn’t handle someone having a different perspective. A few helpful voices emerged, but the overall tone got toxic, and I ended up refunding the game.

Just recently, I was bored and thought about giving it another shot, which led to this post. I ended up re-purchasing it late last night. So yes, I now own it—but that wasn’t the case when I first posted. I only did the tutorial last night, and the experience was noticeably more positive—probably because I had more realistic expectations this time around.

[Doomdrvk]

Replayability: Yes, I do go back and play multiple runs, RimWorld is open ended where you can make multiple choices that will affect you throughout your entire playthrough. There is an ending in the game (and more if you buy Royalty, Ideology or Anomaly) but most players don't like ending colonies, many players have never even seen the endings because the fun when you've played for so long comes from the journey and not the destination. Some players will only use an ending to solidly put a colony to rest and for closure but most will simply start a new game with a new scenario, new starting location and new mods.

Ui: RimWorld ui design focuses more on functionality than design, there aren't many mods that improve this. The only ones I can think of are RimHud, Dubs Mint Menus, Colony Groups and RimThemes.

RimHud: Displays most of what you want to know about a colonist right there at the bottom left of your screen when selected. It's also highly customizable.
Dubs Mint Menus: Adds addons or extra menus for the bills menu, research menu, plant selection menu, equipment tab and health operation menu.
Colony Groups: Adds colonist bar groups and quick actions for those groups.
RimThemes: Lets you pick a theme for your ui and menus. This can pretty up the game a bit. Right click float menus are unaffected.

[Steelfleece]

Originally posted by Joelle:

How does this compare to other survival colony sims? I've seen screenshots show a very lackluster UI. Are there mods for it to change that? Few quick points to avoid people trolling the post.

'Are there mods for it' oh my sweet summer child. Name something, anything you want to change and there is almost certainly something in the workshop that will scratch that itch. Possibly the best modding community of any game I've played, and I've put quite a few hours into Skyrim.

[Game star]

Originally posted by Astasia:

You tell us. You've owned the game for months and this is not your first thread like this here. If you want genuine feedback and reasons why people like the game reading through the meatier reviews will get that for you. Pretty sure the last time you made this thread you just used it to argue with everyone who responded to you and call them fanboys for posting things you disagree with.

that's crazy.

[Joelle]

Originally posted by Doomdrvk:

Replayability: Yes, I do go back and play multiple runs, RimWorld is open ended where you can make multiple choices that will affect you throughout your entire playthrough. There is an ending in the game (and more if you buy Royalty, Ideology or Anomaly) but most players don't like ending colonies, many players have never even seen the endings because the fun when you've played for so long comes from the journey and not the destination. Some players will only use an ending to solidly put a colony to rest and for closure but most will simply start a new game with a new scenario, new starting location and new mods.

Ui: RimWorld ui design focuses more on functionality than design, there aren't many mods that improve this. The only ones I can think of are RimHud, Dubs Mint Menus, Colony Groups and RimThemes.

RimHud: Displays most of what you want to know about a colonist right there at the bottom left of your screen when selected. It's also highly customizable.
Dubs Mint Menus: Adds addons or extra menus for the bills menu, research menu, plant selection menu, equipment tab and health operation menu.
Colony Groups: Adds colonist bar groups and quick actions for those groups.
RimThemes: Lets you pick a theme for your ui and menus. This can pretty up the game a bit. Right click float menus are unaffected.

Great suggestions, thanks for the tips. I'll check into those to see if they can improve the overall experience for what I'm after. Cheers.

[Joelle]

Originally posted by Steelfleece:

Originally posted by Joelle:

How does this compare to other survival colony sims? I've seen screenshots show a very lackluster UI. Are there mods for it to change that? Few quick points to avoid people trolling the post.

'Are there mods for it' oh my sweet summer child. Name something, anything you want to change and there is almost certainly something in the workshop that will scratch that itch. Possibly the best modding community of any game I've played, and I've put quite a few hours into Skyrim.

Good to hear. I did search for something related to UI earlier and nothing came up, but admittedly, it was a very brief search before I had to leave for something else. Someone else just gave some great UI specific suggestions that I plan to look into.

[Kyle]

The base game is something that can draw me in every few years for a replay, no other game has made me connect to my colonists as well for some reason. But it's the DLCs and modding scene that really makes the game standout IMO.

There are DLCs that let you start a family, genetically edit your pawns or even grow them in vats, this adds a lot to that personal feel and is probably the most important DLC for me. (Biotech)

There's one that lets you play as a noble with titles and psychic powers, a horror-based one that's fun for a playthrough & a religion/ideology one for deeper roleplay.

After that, there are the mods, there are so many & quite a few large ones that offer entirely different experiences, I think you'll be missing out on quite a lot if you avoid mods.

Some mod mentions:
Save our Ship 2 - Build a modular spaceship you can travel around in, fight space pirates, search for treasure ETC with, has its own custom endings.

Vanilla Factions Expanded (Empire) - Reworks the royalty DLC with tons of cool new features that make it feel like a completely new experience. (Land ownership, poisonings, ETC.)

Combat Extended - Not my jam, but reworks combat entirely and uses things like ammo and callibers/whatnot, makes combat a lot more deadly and some people just can't go back to vanilla after using it.
-
There are a lot more, both large & small - these are just some that significantly expand on content or change the game up off the top of my head.

Originally posted by Game star:

oi Joelle. is the first comment correct. I wanna know.

https://steamcommunity.com/app/294100/discussions/0/591762563949160380/
You can view post histories via the drop-down arrow next to people's names, has some actually nice discussion in it, dunno if there's another other than the one I linked.

[Joelle]

Originally posted by Kyle:

The base game is something that can draw me in every few years for a replay, no other game has made me connect to my colonists as well for some reason. But it's the DLCs and modding scene that really makes the game standout IMO.

There are DLCs that let you start a family, genetically edit your pawns or even grow them in vats, this adds a lot to that personal feel and is probably the most important DLC for me. (Biotech)

There's also one that lets you play as a noble with titles and psychic powers, a horror-based one that's fun for a playthrough and a religion/ideology one for deeper roleplay.

After that, there are the mods, there are so many & quite a few large ones that offer entirely different experiences, I think you'll be missing out on quite a lot if you avoid mods.

Some mod mentions:
Save our Ship 2 - Build a modular spaceship you can travel around in, fight space pirates, search for treasure ETC with, has its own custom endings.

Vanilla Factions Expanded (Empire) - Reworks the royalty DLC with tons of cool new features that make it feel like a completely new experience. (Land ownership, poisonings, ETC.)

Combat Extended - Not my jam, but reworks combat entirely and uses things like ammo and callibers/whatnot, makes combat a lot more deadly and some people just can't go back to vanilla after using it.
-
There are a lot more, both large & small - these are just some that significantly expand on content or change the game up off the top of my head.

Originally posted by Game star:

oi Joelle. is the first comment correct. I wanna know.

https://steamcommunity.com/app/294100/discussions/0/591762563949160380/
You can view post histories via the drop-down arrow next to people's names, has some actually nice discussion in it, dunno if there's another other than the one I linked.

Appreciate the response. It’s becoming clear that replayability is a strong point for many players, which is encouraging. Personally, the only games I’ve really replayed—outside of a few colony sims—have been RTS titles like the Command & Conquer series or Starcraft, maybe a handful of others. Replayability is often promoted as a feature, but I rarely see people actually use it—so it’s a good sign that players are genuinely returning to this one after completing it, thanks to the gameplay variance.

I wasn’t aware of all the details around the DLCs. I haven’t looked into them much yet—my mindset is usually “Why extend something I haven’t fully explored in the base game?”

[Doomdrvk]

Keep on topic, lets not do this.

OP I suggest you not salt your thread next time expecting trolls because it quite literally attracts them and makes them more likely to say something.

[Joelle]

Originally posted by Doomdrvk:

RimHud: Displays most of what you want to know about a colonist right there at the bottom left of your screen when selected. It's also highly customizable.

Just tried this one, it is fantastic! More akin to some others in the same genre for displaying lots of useful information in a quick glance, without having to deep dive menus for the common items.