Messages

From my experience, stories are better told by humans that can more easily relate facts to each other. A computer-filled captain's log would look cold and factual, lacking the personal touch only human can currently fully enjoy and share by writing.

First up thank you for making this game.  It looks fantastic.  I have got a copy of PA and I just can't get into the whole theme.  There is after all only so much a prisoner is able to do!

I'm in the same spot. I pre-ordered Prison Architect because it looked like a good idea and because I loved all previous Introversion Software games, but in the end, I didn't quite enjoyed it as much as I hoped to. My main problem was that the game was throwing new inmates at you regularly, but adding/expanding building is a very risky business with so much potentially violent prisoners running around, looking for exits.

I prefer the Rimworld approach separated between action phases and quiet phases, named dark and light phases in the game.

Did you look for that ?

Now, I havnt played the game, but couldnt you make them Un-manned Trading stations that just kinda float/fly around searching for outposts/ships etc...

Or it could be land trade instead of spaceship trade. It would make more sense in a "building a new spaceship" scenario. No outside communications, just trade with other moon dwellers.

That's a good list you have there, I would add a few from the top of my head :
- Virus outbreak: incapacitates a fraction of the colonists for a limited time.
- Depression: a colonists stops all work and stays in bed for a few days.
- Mine shaft collapse : a section of unpaved dug rock collapses, potentially trapping miners whose live are in danger
- Total eclipse: for a limited time, solar panel don't produce any power.
- Solar flare: for a limited time, solar panel produce twice as much power
- Electro-magnetic storm: For a limited time, powered devices don't work (current solar flare)

I also like the player-controlled pace, like in AI:War where the enemy AI gets more poweful and aggressive when you destroy valuable targets (which makes some targets worthless, since the retaliation would be greater than the actual threat of the target). Until then, he's just sending small waves to keep the player on is toes.

Since it's currently in pre-alpha, I'm not sure there's a fixed price point yet.

There could be a fixed timed deadline, like the approach of a killer asteroid or the eruption of a volcano, or the spread of a life-consuming disease, slowly razing everything that moves from the map. The last two examples are inspired by Outpost 2.

The tension could rise during a project as the workload increase by adding a similar happiness feature to Towns : colonists eventually grow tired or angry of working non-stop, and idling replenishes their happiness gauge. Drinking malted beverages or playing virtual reality game could help relaxing also.

The tension could further rise by interest matching : if two colonists that can't stand each other have to work together for an extended period of time, trouble will arise. That feature is inspired by Zafehouse Diaries which is a wonderful story-driven zombie survival game that I recommend to anyone.

Yes, please 

It would have been a good reason if I weren't fully stocked on weapons of all sorts. I even have been able to buy a slave! 

I mean, it makes sense in a context where I would have to settle a piece of unknown land for a living, but it's less likely in a Robinson-like setting.

Currently, my threat priority is as following :
- Fire-causing dry storms, for obvious reasons I won't repeat
- Mad animals, because they can chew through your colony members at a dreadful close range without you noticing or causing friendly fire and boomrat disasters.
- Raiders, whatever the number, because their arrival is noticed, their attack is noticed and turrets and colonists automatically fire on them. It's a clear and predictable threat, there's many ways to deal with them, and fending off raiders awards weapons and/or prisoners.

Well, I should probably tell you first that Hypolite is not my real first name. I'm a French guy who got the chance to come to work in New-York thanks to her wife and I'm enjoying it right now. I've been fascinated by video game since my early childhood, and thanks to always being one game system generation late, I have that strong retro mindset where looks is less important than actual gameplay, even though I don't dislike beautiful good games.

My gaming tastes range from arcade racing to german simulation games, with RTS, platformers, tactics in the middle. You can find out more on my Steam profile. The games I like the least are games emphasizing individual skill, reflexes and/or a lot of thinking more than intuitive solutions. If I had to name my favorite studios, I'd say Bullfrog, Introversion Software and Arcen Games. I also like almost every production from Valve from the early days of Half-Life to the more recent Dota 2, but who doesn't?

I'm making game prototypes myself, 1 per year on average, always web-based since I'm a professional web developer by day. I'm also the administrator of a small french community talking about video games, books and movies, mostly sci-fi and fantasy.

I came across Rimworld thanks to JP Le Breton (also known as "vectorpoem") who works at Double Fine, another mighty fine game studio and whom I follow on Twitter. I'm looking forward helping as much as I can, being with the game or anything web-related (like this pesky encoding problem).

Yesterday I fent off a raid of 8 raiders, only the last one tried to flee but he was already injured. They were tough nuts, I guess.

And another one after the bloody battle.

[attachment deleted by admin: too old]

A screenshot of the colony before the second raid.

[attachment deleted by admin: too old]