Agent-based Sandbox Games

I've been playing a ton of the latest build of RimWorld and have been really enjoying it. It's very much along the lines of Dwarf Fortress or Gnomoria with a slightly Prison Architect art style. It doesn't have a ton of features yet, but the basic idea of building, working, and inevitably dying is well established. I think there are 5 or 6 of the AI storytellers available and they essentially work like a difficulty setting. That is, the more sadistic the AI, the harder your game will be. I think one of them is named Random Randy. Etalyx on the GamersDissent YouTube channel has some good videos up of it and he is hella entertaining.

If you have any more specific questions, I'd be happy to answer.

Here a link to Etalyx's latest video. Looks like he's starting a new world.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4yHVR...

Holy crap, RimWorld looks a LOT like Prison Architect, not a little.

That whole "AI storyteller" thing is not something I find very interesting. Maybe it'll be great, but I haven't liked 'managed' experiences in this kind of game. That was one of my big turnoffs with the new XCom.

I just don't think computers tell stories well. That's something people do.

Malor wrote:

That whole "AI storyteller" thing is not something I find very interesting. Maybe it'll be great, but I haven't liked 'managed' experiences in this kind of game. That was one of my big turnoffs with the new XCom.

I just don't think computers tell stories well. That's something people do.

Are you talking about the fps xcom? I didn't play that one, but I did play the normal new xcom and don't see how that was a "managed" story.

UMOarsman wrote:
polq37 wrote:

Iubes was profiled on RPS yesterday. It's kind of a mixture of an agent-based base building game with an RTS. Different bits of it remind me of Darwinia, Supreme Commander, Minecraft, and Majesty. The meat of the game is on-line battling against another human opponent, but the free download offers a very generous skirmish mode for those of us who totally aren't into that kind of thing.

Played a few hours of this today - really, REALLY enjoy the gameplay. I haven't pitched in the $15 for the online vs. mode, but am almost there. Anyone else given this one a shot?

I played it for a couple hours over the weekend and liked it. It did have some annoyances though:
The population limit of 200 seems very constricting. In a game with so little unit management you can have a lot of units without confusing the player, so you should.
Inability to destroy/upgrade buildings: Having iubes stuck working your initial vegetable plot around a granary, instead of being able to upgrade or destroy those so all of your farmers are working the ""Extra Vegetable" plots around Mills is annoying. It wouldn't be nearly as bad without a hard unit cap though.
Not enough content: The 200 unit cap means that soon your town(s) are full, so now all you need to do is maximize your fighting effectiveness! Which you seem to do simply by building a forge and an armoury... if the cap was removed/raised then you could just keep building more and/or bigger towns but since you can't do that the fact that there is no real tech tree becomes immediately apparent.

Still fun though.

Malor wrote:

That whole "AI storyteller" thing is not something I find very interesting. Maybe it'll be great, but I haven't liked 'managed' experiences in this kind of game. That was one of my big turnoffs with the new XCom.

I just don't think computers tell stories well. That's something people do.

Agreed. However, in RimWorld it doesn't really feel very managed. It basically just seems to dictate the severity of the events that pop up. For example, the bandit invasions on the "Classic" difficulty level, which is the default I guess, are much better armed and more bandits attack than in the "Chill" mode. Also, the severity of the attacks ramps up more quickly. Frankly, I'm not really sure what this whole AI storyteller thing is about. I mean, it's nothing like Bastion where there is a narrator. Perhaps it will develop but for now it comes across as simply giving the difficulty settings human names. The player will still come up with their own stories as they play.

Yonder wrote:
UMOarsman wrote:
polq37 wrote:

Iubes was profiled on RPS yesterday. It's kind of a mixture of an agent-based base building game with an RTS. Different bits of it remind me of Darwinia, Supreme Commander, Minecraft, and Majesty. The meat of the game is on-line battling against another human opponent, but the free download offers a very generous skirmish mode for those of us who totally aren't into that kind of thing.

Played a few hours of this today - really, REALLY enjoy the gameplay. I haven't pitched in the $15 for the online vs. mode, but am almost there. Anyone else given this one a shot?

I played it for a couple hours over the weekend and liked it. It did have some annoyances though:
The population limit of 200 seems very constricting. In a game with so little unit management you can have a lot of units without confusing the player, so you should.
Inability to destroy/upgrade buildings: Having iubes stuck working your initial vegetable plot around a granary, instead of being able to upgrade or destroy those so all of your farmers are working the ""Extra Vegetable" plots around Mills is annoying. It wouldn't be nearly as bad without a hard unit cap though.
Not enough content: The 200 unit cap means that soon your town(s) are full, so now all you need to do is maximize your fighting effectiveness! Which you seem to do simply by building a forge and an armoury... if the cap was removed/raised then you could just keep building more and/or bigger towns but since you can't do that the fact that there is no real tech tree becomes immediately apparent.

Still fun though.

Good feedback - thanks! I hadn't come across the population cap yet, but will give it another go today and see what happens. Still hoping that this is developed further and irons out some of the rough edges.

So I caved and picked up RimWorld and subsequently lost quite a few hours to it. It's very simple at the moment since not a lot of the features are in, but that's what's makes it fun for me -- it's not as overwhelming as other games in the genre. I like the Prison Architect aesthetic and that you play only on one level. It has also been rock solid -- not a crash in sight (knock on wood). I'm definitely interested in seeing where the dev takes it.

Edit: On day 84, a band of raiders wiped out my colonists. The game doesn't just end, though; you can keep watching. After that, more raiders came to lay waste to the rest of the base. One went mad and shot the other and then died alone in a field. A couple more raiders came after that and set what was left of the base ablaze. A traveller came by the ruins. I can only imagine what he thought of the wreckage and bodies. When the sun comes out, four of the remaining rooms still light up, powered by the last of the solar panels.

RIP Cleo, Bashkire, Wheatles, Sadako, and Tynan.

I'll pick it up eventually, but want to wait until it is a bit more fleshed out, and I've also got over Banished/bit more pile progress. Hopefully by that time there will be more to Rim World, and others I have sitting in 'waiting' (but purchased) like Spacebase DF-9 and Stonehearth.

Keen for more impressions though. I watched the two newer videos by Etalyx/GamersDissent and he seems to enjoy it, but then, he seems to enjoy all of these games. One thing I do like about him, and it's something I should learn to do more often myself, is how hilarious he finds things when it goes wrong. Entertaining 'Lets Play' creator, unlike most I have watched.

I can't stop playing RimWorld. Just a couple more comments:

- In my last colony, I had two remaining colonists when yet another band of raiders came calling. Instead of using turrets as a line of defence, I used a hallway full of doors. It took a while, but the raiders eventually gave up and decided to leave. Unfortunately, just after they left, my pacifist survivor went berserk and killed her comrade. Then she wandered out into the wilderness and died of starvation, ending the game.

- I really like how the enemy AI handles combat. They always go for cover and they use their weapon ranges very effectively. They'll even occasionally break into smaller groups and flank you.

- If raiders can't get to the people inside the base, they'll try to burn them out and then go after high value resources on the outside (such as solar panels or geothermal power).

- I love and hate that there is friendly fire in the game.

- Storytellers aren't literal storytellers -- they're essentially just general difficulty levels: Easy, gradually increasing difficulty, steadily increasing difficulty, random events, etc.

Overall, I think I've seen most of what can be seen in this version of the alpha and I've probably put 10-15(!) hrs in. The game hasn't crashed yet and I don't think I've seen any obvious bugs. As long as the dev doesn't burn out (I'm looking at you Towns and Timber and Stone), I think this could end up being a pretty awesome entry into the genre.

ebarstad wrote:

I can't stop playing RimWorld. Just a couple more comments:

I'm just trying to hold out for Banished and here you are, not helping...

clever id wrote:
ebarstad wrote:

I can't stop playing RimWorld. Just a couple more comments:

I'm just trying to hold out for Banished and here you are, not helping...

I'm going to grab Banished, too, I think, but what I prefer about games like RimWorld/DF/Gnomoria is that you get attached to the characters because they have personalities and (in the case of RW and Gnomoria) look somewhat distinctive from one another. Banished looks more focused on the city building whereas RW is about the colonists as much as the colony. This is why I'm looking forward to Clockwork Empires -- it looks like the Sims meets DF meets Cthulhu, where the characters themselves (their personalities and behaviours) are the catalysts for the story events.

We all kinda owe Toady One a big thanks for coming up with this overall game type, or at least making it a coherent, separate thing. Even though most of us will never play Dwarf Fortress, these games are drawing a great deal of inspiration from it.

I hope at least one of the 'clones' makes it to the level of detail (or as close as possible) that DF affords. I wish I could get into DF, but I just can't deal with that UI, I don't have the time to dedicate to learning it. Long may the genre continue, though, and hopefully it can remain innovative and bring things to the table that haven't been seen so far.

ebarstad wrote:

I'm going to grab Banished, too, I think, but what I prefer about games like RimWorld/DF/Gnomoria is that you get attached to the characters because they have personalities and (in the case of RW and Gnomoria) look somewhat distinctive from one another. Banished looks more focused on the city building whereas RW is about the colonists as much as the colony. This is why I'm looking forward to Clockwork Empires -- it looks like the Sims meets DF meets Cthulhu, where the characters themselves (their personalities and behaviours) are the catalysts for the story events.

Yeah, Clockwork is my other "buy on sight" game for the year. Holding off for Banished is more of a February budget issue than a comment on RimWorld. I couldn't agree with you more about the agent personalities and how that leads into the great emergent stories that you read about from so many games of the type. That's even the draw of Crusaders Kings II and to a lesser extent EU4 for me, as opposed to the take over the world mindset.

Alpha 2 of RimWorld is out:

Gnnnngnh. Sorely tempted to pick that up once I burn out on Banished.... but... no more alpha, I tell myself...

And.... A double post for good measure.

12 minutes of Clockwork Empires gameplay from PC Gamer:

Edit: And a pretty great write-up on RPS.

And the Clockwork Empires development blog: http://www.gaslampgames.com/category...

Laughed at a tag on their blog:

you're not indie if your hotel room comes with slippers.

The Clockwork Empires blog is something I look forward to each week. Interesting insight into game dev with self-deprecating humor and a sense of the absurd. Really well done.

Damn. Damn damn damn. Clockwork Empires looks like the game I've been wanting to make for years, except it's Steampunk instead of Post-Apocalyptic.

Well, considering what they're talking about with the Cthulhu-type monsters, it might be more accurate to call it Pre-Apocalyptic.

Cross-post from the indie games thread, this may be of interest here. I haven't played it to ascertain how much it fits into our Agent-Based Sandbox games list, but here it is anyway:

Indie Game Stand has the previously mentioned Gold-rush inspired town-builder 1849 on a Pay-what-you-want minimum $1 deal currently - for those who were on the fence about it when we raised it previously.

New version of RimWorld is out:

Not sure if anyone's listed it here, but at Minecon last year I saw Maia in the Minecon Indies area. It looked pretty cool and I think it fits here.

EDIT: I now see it in the OP (when I went to add this to my favorites) but still maybe not everyone reads it.

Yeah I'm looking forward to it. I'm just trying to avoid any more Early Access games... it's quite difficult these days..

GOG is having a sale on some classic city-builders:

Caesar 3 - $1.49

Pharaoh + Cleopatra - $2.49

Zeus + Poseidon (Acropolis) - $2.49

as well as some Emprie-earth games and whatnot.

omni wrote:

Cross-post from the indie games thread, this may be of interest here. I haven't played it to ascertain how much it fits into our Agent-Based Sandbox games list, but here it is anyway:

Indie Game Stand has the previously mentioned Gold-rush inspired town-builder 1849 on a Pay-what-you-want minimum $1 deal currently - for those who were on the fence about it when we raised it previously.

I have played a lot of this (by my standards) since the sale. It doesn't seem terribly deep, but I'm still enjoying myself.