Messages

Good example. I always loved those newspaper articles. I always wished they did more with them. They're so fun to read.

This book is what I was brought up on, great book, Wonderful Illustrations and little storys, gotta be the most I ever read when I was just a Wee Lad!

But would highly recommended! takes from the perspective of a Historical document/Handbook for Spacecraft, featuring a Hypothetical timeline for major events as well!

I would have gone insane over this as a kid. Maybe I still would.

Hi,
I was not able to play the game yet but I wanted to know if this feature would be implemented in the future (Or if this is already the case)

The captain's log.

The thing I love in this kind of game, is the stories players share on forums.
Will you implement a log that narrate the events that happened during the game, with 2/3 short texts for each events for the player to download when the game ends (Game over or Goal achieved)
Maybe in a .txt file with some light ASCII art.

Code Select Expand

#Colony Alka-Seltzer/.Stardate 2178.11
#Weather Forecast : Sunny
Entry#1 :
Today, a bunch of pirate tried to steal our cattle but we successfully pushed them back, sadly we lost Garry during the fight.
During its patrol, Rachel found a stranded container full of medicine, looks like it fell from the sky and was almost completely buried in the sand.
Lenny looks sick, the medicine will come in handy.
Entry#1 OVER-


I think it could add a lot to the roleplaying experience and help people to share stories (And spread the word about your game).
I remember reading great stories about Dwarf Fortress and your game have the same potential for epic tales.

PS: Please forgive my awful english.

I love, love, love this idea. It fits really well into a general class of story-recording mechanics I've been thinking about.

Have you ever played Civilization and seen how at the end of the game you get to see a fast-forwarded replay of the whole world map over the whole game, showing every civilization growing and swallowing each other? I think it's great for storytelling. It just records key info about what happened and shows it to the player, kickstarting the player's own ability to invent stories from it. I wrote about this sort of thing in an article once: http://www.gamasutra.com/blogs/TynanSylvester/20130602/193462/

So yes, I think a log of events is something we want. Perhaps a graph of population and resources over time, with markers for specific events. Or some other format. But something that keeps records would be great for storymaking. I hadn't ever thought of just a straight up text log, but it's another possible way to do it. The tough thing is making the computer understand the significance of events and ignore the ones that don't matter. I wonder if we could even ask players to write their own logs as they play? Hmmm.

But seriously, what form of currency does Ludeon need? Kittens? Bags of Meth? Rare 4th edition mint MTG cards?

4th edition? Not Alpha? Pshhh, please!

Now kittens, though, that's something I could get behind. If they're either Sphinxes or Himalayans.

Just to update this, I have talked with Ryan Sumo, the artist on PA, and he's fully supportive of RimWorld. Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, after all.

Still working on getting an artist.

Yes, I want to get the game to a playable alpha state as soon as possible. I'd like to release on some kind of early access model.

It will be a few months. The game works now but it's still got a lot of bugs; I wouldn't want thousands of people playing it in its current state. When it's ready we can put out the alpha and start the back-and-forth process with the community where we watch what people are responding to and emphasize that while cutting down on what's not working. The game design process is much easier when you have feedback from people actually playing the game.

If you signed up for the email at rimworldgame.com, you'll get something as soon as something is available.

Hilariously enough, I actually read Red Mars as research for RimWorld when I read that the guys who made Alpha Centauri took inspiration from it.

I'm also totally into Alastair Reynolds' Revelation Space series.

Seems almost required to call it Dwarf Fortress-inspired, doesn't it?

Well they're on a planet. They're already growing potatoes. Why not? And none of that synthahol crap.

Bonus points if you're actually drunk while writing in this thread.

Thanks again for the extensive notes Daniel. It all contributes to the design.

-I want to stop people disabling stuff all the time to save power, its too micromanagey. Any thoughts? I thought about making something a colonist has to do that takes them time. Hmmm.

-I'll reduce muffalo damage.

-Fires murder performance - to be fixed

-Fire will be more manageable. Already working on this

-It's hard to program "killed someone", because its often hard to draw cause and effect between actions and deaths. E.g. if you shoot someone and incapacitate him and he bleeds to death a day later, did you kill him? But you're right, it would be better. I just haven't done it because it's tough and not top priority.

-I'm planning a power overlay so its clearer how power is transmitted.

-Colonists do learn and level up - slowly. Check the character page. Actually theres a bug! I think I need to put back the "progress to next level" readout, which I removed on in the char maker. That change must have also affected the main game.

-Education is desired. Teaching skills, JA2-style would be cool.

-People will avoid fire in the next build

-Prisoners will get more "interesting"

-Are you using the Overview screen? It lets you manage all colonists work at once.

Glad you're having fun!

It's just Valve's way of filtering people trying to get on steam. It gets you on steam, that's it.

[I personally would prefer if you went for a more gritty realism art style]

I personally would prefer if you went for a more gritty realism art style

I'm thinking that even something akin to Cannon Fodder, Sensible Soccer top down looks would be great.  You can definitely get in enough characterization using just hair colour, skin colour, build, hair length and clothing without needing facial features.

I agree.

It's funny, there are only actually about 12 frames of character art in the whole game. If those were swapped out, would anyone really care?

I just really need to get an artist who can develop a RimWorld style. It just hasn't happened yet, everything right now is pretty much pseudo-temp in that it looks okay but I know we can do better. Even things like beds can look better than they do, and get different versions for the front, side, and back view to add some nice perspective-like effects.

I thought I'd have more time to work out this issue... the response to that one video I kicked out in like 5 hours has been stronger than expected. The game isn't quiiiiiiite developed enough to take on this much scrutiny. But it'll mature.

You're right, I think there are other things that should come before meteor showers (which are basically just unstoppable random devastation).

And hey! These are all really great ideas, I'm taking notes as I go down the page here. Keep 'em coming!

Generally I would be keen on more light events on the start. Think of animals wandering into your area, not doing things, just giving you a general idea of a living breathing world. As time passes and if you are doing well, things escalate somewhat as vicious predators or evil people come by and try to do various things (steal food, eat people, steal valuables). Then if things are still going well, a random event that changes the conditions of your area a little bit but for a while might be better than a dramatic short change. Those dramatic short changes like meteor strikes can be more annoying than fun, since they aren't events that you can/have to adapt to, you just have to clean up the mess they made.

There's definitely going to be an escalation of the goings on. Depending on your choice of AI Storyteller, of course. I can't guarantee Randy Random won't send you a devastating meteor shower or something a few days into the game. But most of them will try to be reasonable and match your ability to absorb punishment somehow.