Games have always fascinated me, but the ones that hook me are the ones that tell a complex and evolving storyline. Any game can be fun to play, but my favorite games are those that are fun to share and tell stories about.
My Manasaloka Base
Staples of that kind of genre are megalithic games like Minecraft, which cast a long shadow filled with new stories daily (YouTube can attest this fact). Rogue like games such as FTL and Dwarf Fortress offer truly nail-biting moments where you feel invested in the outcome. Big sandbox games like Mount and Blade: Warbands, Elder Scrolls & Fallout let players tell their own unique story by the order and manner they tackle the various obstacles.
Rimworld is another such experience. My recent game was an ode to the triple goddesses of Hinduism: Sarasvati, Lakshmi and Parvati. I deliberately chose three women to be my initial colonists and named them Saras, Laksh and Parva and set out to build them a spaceship to "send them back to the stars."
My first wanderer to join the colony named Hamsa, a noble. Worthless in cleaning hauling and manual labor (so often needed toward the beginning of a colony) I set him to work on being my primary researcher.
Later, a wanderer named Raven joined the colony and I was so glad to find her more useful. She was immensely helpful until I discovered her setting fire to the main resource stockpile. It was only then that I checked her personality chart and discovered that she was a pyromaniac.
Such people are rarely (according to the internet) invited to join colonies and I soon learned why. Even though she had brand new clothes on her back, a spacious room of her own and plenty of food in her belly she still found it perfectly necessary to set fires everywhere she went.
Hamsa had a heart attack and died (maybe due to all pyromania under the mountain) but I buried him in a sarcophagi and discovered that "art" depicting his life was carved into the side of it. This little detail impressed me greatly. After he was buried the other colonists would periodically pay him their respects.
Raven soon had a sarcophagi of her own, and though she had been in the colony for a short time, Parva and Saras had both developed friendships with her and were glad to see her honored and remembered. These little touches help mold a richer story told through the game characters that I rarely see in games.
Parva got injured in a raid or something and was in critical condition with a major infection when I got the first crytosleep pods constructed so I decided that rather than lose one of my starting goddesses it would be best to just put her to sleep to wait for the ride off-world.
I did finish building that space ship and the three goddesses are waiting (what could take forever) for the random event that brings the AI persona onto the field to send them back to the stars. I saved the file to return to later (maybe messing with the storyteller AI to help increase the chances of the AI drop) but I consider the save a success because it lent me a good story to tell about one of my first games of Rimworld.
Thanks for reading. Have a great day!
