Okay. Straight away, this isn’t exactly my jam. But I feel we need to talk about the elephant leafy mammoth thing Mammorest in the room.
So…this here:
…just sold over 2.000.000 units in about 24 hours. The mind boggles. The mind boggles even more when you see the pictures and try to make sense of it.
At it’s core, it’s a survival game. Biff a tree, harvest resources, build a hut, hunt for food, build a bigger beatstick, you know the drill.
The closest thing on the market so far is probably Ark: Survival Evolved (because the devs programming skills sure as hell haven’t), but instead of prehistoric monstrosities, you have off-brand Pokemon.
According to some coworkers who are dedicated to buying shitty games about children’s cockfighting tournaments the Pokemon franchise, the designs are a one and a half recolours, a wig and a name change away from copyright infringement.
So, since said adorable creatures also serve as food source, source of slave prison labour and source of raw materials, the routine is that you beat the critters into submission, capture them into a totally-not-a-pokeball called a palsphere and then either use them for food or to man the means of production in your base.
You’re required to feed them and keep them healthy, and I’m not sure at this point whether they can die of old age.
They have various handy abilities - you can also ride them, use them as improvised weapon, attack dog (and arm them for shit and giggles) or just kill them for parts - yep, we’re using all parts of the Pal on this island, buddy.
On an unrelated side note, there’s also some human NPCs. Who, incidentally, can also be put into a palsphere and then either sold for hefty profit or used as food source. No, I’m not joking. Rimworld sends its regards and would like to request a few dozen livers while you’re here.
Exploration isn’t all that great, mostly due to lack of interesting loot or POIs, you usually find mostly ammo and palspheres. The “missions” at this stage boil down to “capture 10 of this sort” for experience bonuses.
Visually, the game has tonal clashes similar to Craftworld. The weapons look remarkably realistic. The Pals look remarkably like you-know-what. The humans look remarkably like anime protagonists from a different franchise, and the environment definitely came from a another asset pack as well.
I’m unsure if this is simply the greatest fad game to grace the PC in the last 5 years, or if there is indeed an untapped potential in the overlap of pokemon fans and people who build organ harvesting farms in Rimworld.
And with this, I shall be off to pursue some more wholesome entertainment, like making the elders of my cult duel to the death, then sacrifice the winner to the eldritch gods for good measure.
