Knuckles

Oh there's no time limit on re-rolling characters....you could spend the whole day doing it if you wanted. But there is no such thing as a perfect character. There are 12 skills..some are super important like Medicine. If you have a poor doctor, you're in for a very rough start and probably short time staying alive. Some are less important like Artistic...oh it's nice to have but if all your colonists are bad at it, you won't miss it and you won't use it at all in the first year or two anyways. Then once you get a character good in skills you like, you have to look at their traits...some can outright make the character you just spent time re-rolling completely useless. I can usually overlook or deal with one bad trait but having 2 or 3 typically makes them unplayable..especially if they are negative mood modifiers. So now you have skills you like and traits you like....just one more thing....Health. And they can also be character stopping. Dementia, Frail, Drug Addiction and Bad Back are just some that will really make you think about re-rolling an otherwise good character. And all 3, Skills/Traits/Health are rolled together so you can't pick and choose what you like and re-roll just some of it. It's all or nothing. There are some mods where you can manually edit every aspect of character creation but it's not for me. I want good characters, not perfect ones. And having flawed characters is soo much closer to reality and honestly makes the game so much more engaging and fun. Your characters actually, umm, have character. You'll find yourself having favorites and rolling you eyes when your not so great ones do something stupid. Like Tobbe...I rescued Tobe from some pirates. But Tobbe really couldn't do anything well. So Tobbe was my designated hauler/cleaner. While in the midst of a raid approaching, he decided he needed to go and get some steel that I was mining quite a ways from my base. He literally just walked right by the raiders coming from the other direction. The raiders literally stopped for a moment not believing he would walk right by them. They stood for a moment and then gave chase. Did I mention Tobbe had the 'Slowpoke' trait? Didn't take long for them to catch up and fill him wih a bunch of holes. I now have an opening for a new janitor....room and board, meals and an assault rifle included

My daughter is even getting into it....she'll watch for an hour or 2 just about every day...she really loves the interactions of the colonists and of course, the dogs. She's talked me into playing on the hardest difficulty this weekend, and picking which biome the base will be in. Playing perma-death, so no resorting to an earlier save if things go sideways. She also wants me to play with the 3 game generated colonists. I can spend up to an hour re-rolling colonists til I get the right traits/stats. I usually try get ones that are not incapable of any task. But if I just use the 3 the game generates, it might mean I have no fire fighters or a terrible doctor or no crop growers etc. If I do it, chances are the first year will be incredibly difficult if not impossible. So I'll probably try it lol

Well I thought I was becoming a pretty good player.....and have been slowly ramping up difficulty the last few weeks. There are 6 difficulties. Peaceful Base Builder Some Challenge Rough Intense Extreme Been playing on Rough mostly but decided to skip Intense and go right to Extreme. And not only that but try the 'Extreme Sea Ice Challenge' and 'Extreme Desert Challenge'. And I mean 'try'. It is very humbling to die on your first day (over and over and over). You have to do things in a certain order and pray your colonist doesn't fail any task that first day or you will die...from hypothermia on Sea Ice or heat stroke in Desert. Also pray that the random events aren't catastrophic. Losing power to your air conditioners or heaters can be a death sentence. So I backed off and just playing Intense in a more forgiving biome rigt now and doing ok. Survived a Volcanic Winter, Toxic Fallout and Blight all at same time. Wasn't pretty but didn't lose anyone. Learned that defenses and micro-managing your colonists during battle are vital to surviving. I would love to do a 'Let's Play' of me playing the game but I don't have a very good voice for playthroughs and typically I'm quiet anyways until something bad happens and, well, bad things may be said....frequently lol But if you want to see what can go wrong, check out this Let's Play from Blitz on Youtube. He's playing on an Ice Sheet on Extreme difficulty(not to be confused with Sea Ice which is much harder) and it's from Alpha 11. Game is up to Alpha 16 now so many things have changed but the basic gameplay is pretty close to the same. Each episode is about 30 minutes and there are at least 20 of them. Watched these when I first started playing and learned a lot. He was rather ambitious with his base building and it ends up hurting him quite a bit until he finally finsihes most of it. Learned you start small, stay small and only gradually increase your base as you acquie more colonists/wealth. Not having enough workers makes every job take forever if you have several things going on at once. It's better to concentrate on 1 or 2 things early on. In the first video...skip to the 6:15 mark if you want to bypass all the game setup and just want to see gameplay.

Kelly Clarkson -> Mr Know it all Guns 'n' Roses > Mr Brownstone

Actually half the fun is failing (something I thought I would never say). In a lot of ways the game is very casual, especially if you play on lower difficulties and without 'perma-death'. If some catastrophic event happens you can simply load one of the auto saves and go back a day. Some of the fun is managing your colonists. Like Hughes. Hughes is an awesome miner...I mean he mines at god speed. But he is also 'Nervous' and 'Jealous' so he is always on the verge of a mental breakdown. So he has the nicest bedroom...by far and also gets 2 more hours of 'joy' than any other person (there's a nice mood modifer called 'Tons o Joy' and it is a requirement to get him thru the day). He also doesn't like mining in the dark so I have to have one of my 'dumber' colonists conitinually place torches down. This guys job is literally just to haul what Hughes mines and place torches. And discovering stuff can be pretty bad. Had my first 'Toxic Fallout' event occur. Not sure how long it would have lasted because my base failed after about 3 weeks. All the wild animals were dead after a few days. And while I kept my colonists inside at first, my foodstock dwindled fast. I had them mining quite a bit to keep them busy but eventually food ran out and they were getting cabin fever so I let them out to get the crops. Was crossing fingers that the food wasn't too poisonous to safely eat. While I was concentrating on that, a major bug infestation occurred inside one of the many tunnels Hughes had dug. First time for that too and I didn't appreciate how dangerous they can be. Especially in small, cramped areas. I nonchalantly waltzed in thinking this will only take a minute and the bugs utterly destroyed any colonist I sent in. And well I sent them all since most weren't doing anything. I could have loaded an auto-save, and possibly the toxic fallout and infestation never occur but just feels like cheating to me...I probably should just turn on Hardcore mode (perma-death) If you set it on the lower 2 difficulties...it really is an easy game...it turns into a simple base builder. Oh you still get events but they are much less dangerous. Like raids, you might get 1 or 2 attackers instead of 10-12. You also start off with a positive permanent mood modifier for every colonist (the 2 higher difficulties get negative ones). It's one of those games where you could play an hour here and an hour there. There is a learning curve but it isn't too bad plus there's tons of guides/wiki for help) @ gogo...yes I can assign the dogs to follow, defend or attack hostiles....especially if I tell them to follow their master into battle. But they don't like bullets too much and they're much better at hauling anyways. Now if I had some Muffaloes or Megasloths then that's a whole different story. Also insect meat will give colonists a negative mood modifier. Easy to exclude it from any meal and the dogs seem to like it. I think the worst/best/funniest thing are the wounds/ailments my colonists accrue after time. Some get bad backs after hitting 50 or 60. Had one older gent get dementia. Most battles end with someone's toe or finger getting blown off. Lost a few legs and arms too . Also people can have stuff like asthma, cirrhosis or drug addictions. I have one guy that has lost 5-6 fingers or toes, his left leg (woohoo for peg legs) and just had his jaw shot off. He's still able to eat...no idea how but he can. Of course he's much slower now too. Not much hope he will live much longer or be productive but I guess I can replace his jaw?!. You can replace just about anything on hiim including organs with bionics or 'donated', ok harvested body parts from raiders. Just make sure you have a sterile brightly lit medical area and a highly talented doctor or stuff goes sideways really quick. Sometimes traders will sell the stuff too. I've killed a colonist (or 2) trying to attach a peg leg and getting a 'ridiculous failure'. Only two things I can't replace are the head and torso. Oh another thing I found out (man I keep rambling about this game). Is that the wealthier you get the more often raids happen. Raiders typically try to do 3 things. Raze, steal or kidnap. Raze: if they can't get into your base and your good items are inside, they will smash and burn Steal: If wealth is available and they start taking losses they will try to grab anything and run Kidnap: Happens a lot if you meet them before they get inside your base perimeter. If one of your colonists becomes incapacitated and they take heavy losses they will try to kidnap that colonist and flee. Had that happen once and thought person was gone for good. But got a ransom note a week later. Since the colonist was one of my worst I refused. Hope she is happy in her new home. Also wealth is measured in how many colonists you have. So if you accept/save everyone, including recruiting enemies you've captured, you'll quickly increase the size of your colony. Found out on the wiki that ideal colony size is 4 to 10 people. Less and game will send recruits (either thru falling escape pods or someone fleeing captors). I like the escape pods better since I can see their stats before saying yes or no. But typically they are badly injured in the crash and sometimes I haven't gotten them in time. The ones fleeing will bring a raid with them. So if I say yes that person immediately becomes part of my colony and I can see their stats. If I don't like them, I stop them from running to my base and have them wait for the raiders. And 1 of 2 things happen. The raiders incapacitate my newest member and kidnap and flee map. And I ignore the eventual ransom note (sometimes they send multiple ones...the price going down each time lol) Or they kill the person and continue on to my base and raid me. And then I also have to bury all of them as they get negative moods walking by dead people. Not sure on having more than 10 people as the most I've had is nine (I think) I could go on and on about the minutia in this game. It is really well thought out. And technically it's still in Alpha stage. It's like a cross between a base builder and The Sims. It is so refreshing to see 'married' people actually interact with each other while building your colony. People have deep talks, try to have affairs, insult each other and even have fist fights.....and it's awesome lol

I started that game with 1 husky....after a short while a trader came by with 1 for sale so I bought it. Didn't pay any mind to whether it was male or female. So after a few days I get a notice my female is pregnant. Think that's cool and a few months later she gives birth to twins. Then the twins grew up and my alpha female was pregnant again and then one of the twins and it kind of snowballed from there. They're running around all over the place. I have only one real animal trainer so they all bonded with him and won't sleep in anyone's room but his. I've had to expand his room twice. They are eating me out of house and home. Cooking is a 24/7 a day job trying to keep them all fed. One really cool thing is that I can train them to haul stuff. And that is a huge bonus. Edit: I went to get a screenshot of it and somehow I overwrote the save file so I lost that game. My daughter is going to be sooooo mad lol. But hey, I didn't sell them And yes you can eat ANY animal in the game...the only one you get a penalty for is human meat, unless your colonists have the 'cannibalism' trait

Have several saves going... One I have 18 huskies....and They. Keep. Breeding. Like Rabbits....daughter won't let me sell any Another is on toughest diffuculty on sea ice....yes it sounds hard and it is...if you don't do everything exactly in order without any fails, you WILL die the 1st day.. But the one I want to talk about is this one... Got a pretty good feel for the game so ramped up the difficulty...about a year in and everything is going great....tons of resources, food. Research is going quickly...raiders can't even make it to my door...all my turrets wipe them out long before they are close... So what could possibly go wrong? Most natural disasters I can handle easily.....but this I wasn't prepared for...and if you get confused by it all, you're not alone...I am perplexed by it all and have no idea what is going to happen. And now for 'Days of Our Lives', Rimworld style....let's meet the colonists and see what they're up to. This all happened WITHIN days M= male F= female Trevor and Julie became lovers, but not before Trevor rebuffed Nipz's advances twice. Which led to Nipz(F) going on an eating binge. Then Chris (M) showed up and wants to sleep with Julie. Julie wants to sleep with Chris but is with Trevor right now. Nipz has rebuffed Chris twice...so Chris becomes lovers with Erika. And that lasts all of 3 days before Chris breaks up with her. But Erika kept the bedroom and now is in a mental daze and won't come out or eat....she is on the verge of starvation and nothing I can do. Meanwhile Trevor wants to sleep with Nipz but is with Julie. Nipz wants to sleep with Trevor but can't and is also jealous of Trevor's and Julie's bedroom which sets off another eating binge. Julie and Nipz now are rivals and fight every time they can. As soon as they heal up and are cleared from Medical, they go at it and injure each other and are re-admitted right back into Medical...it's a viscious cycle. Luckily Erika emerges from her daze and tends to them...Erika is my only real doctor. Lastly is Bluebird (female) and my newest colonist. I haven't been able to build her her own bedroom yet as I'm trying to keep the peace with all the others. So she's sleeping in the common room and her sleep keeps getting disturbed by Julie and Nipz fighting. Got so bad she went into a mental daze. But instead of wandering around in the safety of the camp, she wandered outside and was mauled by a bear. I sent Chris out to save her as he is the quickest and she is very badly hurt...she will die in under 5 hours without medical care. But I only have two medical beds, which are currently occupied with my 2 full-time pugilists, Julie and Nipz. So I kick Julie out of her bed and Chris puts Bluebird in. Erika rushes in and tends to her. And then Chris hits on Bluebird. I mean c'mon man...she's barely alive....this can wait...Bluebird was conscious enough to rebuff him...so guess who's walking around in a daze now? Yup there goes Chris.....So while I'm trying to keep an eye on him, I hear sounds of fighting (again). No lie...I have a 3-way fight going on between Bluebird, Nipz and Julie...with Julie emerging victorious in the royal rumble. Bluebird and Nipz are back in bed and got Trevor to come in and make another medical bed for Julie. And.....Julie just broke up with him......So now Trevor is wandering around in a daze. This is just crazy....never had all these love triangles and affairs in any other playthrough...might be part of going up in difficulty.... so right now I have 3 being treated for injuries and 2 walking around in a stupor. I have exactly zero sane and healthy colonists at my disposal. Would be a really really bad time for a forest fire or raid to happen right now lol.

t.A.T.u -> Robot Styx > Mr Roboto

Yup I remember Harenthal talking about the game...got me interested enough to at least try it. I do remember it taking forever to generate the map, but I never did much with the game as it had a steep learning curve and I just didn't have the time to invest in learning how it worked. Work isn't as crazy now and not really playing anything else (little burnt on Grim Dawn..won't play again til expansion), so Rimworld has been taking up much of my free time. I guess there is a huge modding interest in it too. I've posted a couple times on their forums and the responses will invariably recommend a mod or 2. But I want to play thru the game once on vanilla settings. There may be solutions to my issues that I haven't found yet and installing a mod to fix it seems a little cheesy to me. I'm sure I'll add 1 or 2 that enhance gameplay for me down the road but I need to understand the game better before I do. Didn't play yesterday I was feeling very poorly but better now and I got all Saturday to figure out my pet issue. They were eating everything in my freezer before I figured out how to restrict them. Sure they will go after my crops now. One of the mods recommended to me, forces the animals to eat only cetain things...but I want to see if I can do that within the vanilla game first. Plus I can always just slaughter them Not sure if I get a mood penalty for that...only one way to find out lol. No way I'm keeping 10 cats for too long.

Alright this is getting crazy.... I have been doing ok for a bit since Fabio decided to become a medical McGyver...but I have been getting an influx of new members...These members have fur though. Pet #1: My Warg Yoshiko...had him from the start Pets 2 and 3 arrived just a week ago, though on different days..a buck and a doe (both deer) Pets 4,5 and 6 are all alpacas that tamed themselves and joined a couple days ago. Pets 7 thru 16 just now arrived....a pack of cats Not sure what I did (if anything) to suddenly start having every animal join me lol....gonna need a lot more kibble

Christina Aguilera -> Army of Me White Stripes > Seven Nation Army

Well that didn't take long. My base was rocked by an explosion and I got a dire warning of a fire. I had a small building that housed 4 batteries used to store all the solar panel energy. Had 4 batteries inside and one or two of them exploded. The explosion seriously wounded Nate who was nearby and also burned Theo and Skye while they were trying to put out fire. Only Fabio (hey I didn't name him) got through the incident unscathed. So now 3 to medical (includiing my two skilled at medical though they still should be able to heal everyone), 4 batteries kaput and the building burnt down. Lost all power to base. Guess I need to make a bigger building to give them room to vent/breathe....and not make building out of wood. Temps outside are moderate so not sure what caused battery explosion. Only had the freezer's air coniditioner and a couple lights on, so lt shouldn't have loaded them down. Sigh.......knew something would happen Edit 1: man oh man has the situation deteriotated quickly Skye was burned pretty bad (burns to her face, torso, both legs and right arm) and now has an infection on her right hand. Nate who was hurt in the explosion is critically wounded with extreme blood loss from a head wound and burns to his face, torso and right leg. Did I mention Skye and Nate are my 2 doctors Edit 2: 3 of my 4 colonists are in medical.....All have been treated and are recovering but still confined to their beds. I had Skye take care of Nate before I had her rest since Nate was worse off. (I should of immediately had Nate heal Skye in return...something I regret now...continue reading to see why lol) I still need to contruct all the new batteries and a new building and repair some electrical wiring...need to get power restored or my food is going to spoil soon. So what does Fabio do? Feed the sick? nope...Start building or repairing? nope....even anything productive?....NOPE...Fabio has a much better idea... Fabio decided we needed to have a party so he's throwing one and invited everyone...only everyone else is injured and in my medical ward....so how many people do you think are at the party? Yup just Fabio...way to go Fabio....glad you got priorities Edit 3: Well Skye took a turn for the worst and her infection got so bad I had no other option but to amputate her right hand to save her life....so much for shooting a rifle now. Time for a new job after this. So I schedule an operation and wait for Nate to arrive. But who sneaks in and cuts her hand off.....My amazing Fabio. He of ZERO medical skill decides to do the operation. Thanks Fabio. Using all the skill and dexterity he never learned, he actually manages to cut off her hand and in doing so inflicts several stab wounds to the rest of her right arm. He sneaks out the back door just as Nate arrives from wherever he was. Nate, hopefully has healed the newest wounds she has and made sure the amputation is ok. Not like I have antibiotics or anything. I wonder what Fabio did with the hand...no...I don't want to know (going back in game to make sure he doesn't have the 'cannibal' trait). Good job Fabio....you are such a great addition to my little community...here's a gold star sticker just for you Edit 5: I was kidding about checking Fabio for the 'cannibal' trait....I knew he didn't have it but I guess the game must have heard me. No lie....5-10 minutes after writing Edit#4, this happened Got a distress call from someone named Anna. She was being chased by a pirate (least this one had clothes on - looks like the pirates are upgrading) and was asking for sanctuary. I can't see any of her stats before I say yes or no but she's only 28, so I shouldn't have any health issues like 'Frail' 'Bad Back' or 'Cataracts'. I need healthy people right now so I gamble and accept her request and kill the pirate. So now I'm able look at what Anna is like and immediately notice a couple things..... She's a..... Pyromaniac (awesome just awesome....like I don't have enough probs with fire) And.. And.... And...... yup......she's a Cannibal....c'mon Rimworld cut me a break here...I was only making a joke...you didn't have to make it a reality

I've seen it compared to Dwarf Fortress - the light version. People say it has the same feel but not as complex. Never played Dwarf Fortress so I'm not sure. Picking up the nuances hasn't been too too bad. Sure there is a lot that I am missing....but it hasn't been a complete mystery...plus most things have a tooltip associated with them. There is deifnitely a learning curve to it but if you're familiar with base building games I think you'll be ale to pick up most it failry easily. Poor ole Engie died so I've begun another colony, 'Stoogeville'. I spent over 45 minutes creating characters with good skills and traits. Though I did mess up with one. My 2nd best shooter, skill-wise, has the trait 'Brawler'. I didn't catch it when creating him. A brawler will get a negative mood modifier if he is equipped with a ranged weapon Luckily he is also very good at melee so not a total waste. Just means I don't have 2 skilled shooters to start game. Hopefully I'll get a new recruit early on with that skill at a high level. Also got warg as a pet. Hope that wolf is still around...I want to see these two battle. I want revenge for my tabby lol. About a week in so far and everything is going well. I'm in a mountainous region and my base is in a valley with only a narrow opening. So it's very defensible. So far the only attack was by a lone pirate, naked and equipped with a shoddy mace. He was killed by my 'expert' shooter long before he got close to my base. The only setback so far, was caused by me (again). I was digging into the mountain and didn't give any thought to the roof/rocks overhead. I dug out too much and the mountain was too thin at that spot to support itself. It came crashing down badly injuring 2 of my colonists. Luckily neither is my doctor (I have 2 colonists with very good medical skills..never again will I have just one good at it) and they were treated and healthy within 2 days. Learned a lot more about the minutia of the game. I didn't realize I could assign work/sleep hours and 'joy' hours. Setting aside a couple hours for 'joy' or recreation time really seems to boost morale. A happy worker is a hard worker. Hopefully when something stressful happens to them, this will mitigate the worst of it. Also being able to manually assign who does what job and also assign priorities to which order the jobs are done is AWESOME. Before I was clicking on individuals and prioitizing single jobs that way. Real PITA if you want the person to do multiple instances of the same task. Like hauling 10 piiles of wood or build 10 sections of wall or mine 10 sections of ore. Also just simply smoothing out a rock floor (from digging into mountains) greatly improves the rooms' appeal. Fairly important when making bedrooms and you don't have the materials yet to lay down nice floor tiles or carpeting. You get negative mood modifiers for bedrooms that are drity, ugly, cramped and/or shared with others (spouses or lover excluded..then you get a negative modifier if they are sleeping separately) Cool thing about digging into mountains is that there are 'hidden' areas. Sometimes the opening/clearing is very small, sometimes quite large and ocassionally you'll find precious metals/gems. I found a seam of jade and gold so I'm flush with some cold hard currency when a trader shows up. Last game I had one show up with some type of laser/energy weapon, but I couldn't afford it.....and I WANT it lol. Next trader better have it. So far so good but again not much bad has happened so far. No natural disasters, mad animals or serious raids yet. All my colonists are happy or content. Did get a new recruit. Didn't have any say on it though. She just showed up and said she was joiining. Only negative is she's a nudist and my other colonists don't care for that. But I was able to clothe her fairly quickly and she doesn't seem too upset about it. That and she actually is useful. She has several skills she's at least proficient at. But it's early and so much can go wrong and I haven't really gotten a colony out of the early stages yet. So holding my breath and crossing fingers that Stoogeville will be much more prosperous than Knuckleton.

Chrome Metal Tigers feat. The Evil Twins - Oh Sauerland Thompson Twins > Hold Me Now

Gloria Gaynor -> I will survive Hank Williams Jr > Country Boys Can Survive

Well Knuckleton is no more......though the last death was same as first...so somewhat appropriate to the life and death of my little base. The Hunter, Engie was my only functioning colonist. While she tried her best at first aid, it wasn't enough and my only other surviving member has succumbed to his wounds. So Engie is all alone now. I'm low on just about everything, especially wood and food. Two things Engie does very poorly. My freezer is back up and working so I had food for several days. So I had her do the one thing she is good at...hunt. She managed to take down several rabbits and a deer, She even butchered them and I at least have raw meat now. But not only is she a bad grower, she is incapable of cooking. I mean she won't even try. What crops I have are not ready for harvest and can't find any berries to eat. No other people have come by, so no help with cooking/growing there. Really need some help soon as my supplies are dwindling fast. Fast forward about a week and Engie is still all alone. Food ran out and she is now eating raw meat. She doesn't like raw meat and is getting closer to a mental health break every day. And I have no idea where Yulo the tame rabbit is. During all the chaos, she went missing. I haven't seen her corpse laying around so I'm thinking she might still be alive. I actually don't know if the rabbit is a he or she Somehow I gave it a gender without realizing it. Engie now has food poisoning and is vomiting all over. Her mood is very very bad. So I thought we'd take a little trip as I found some bushes ripe with berries for the picking. After getting some and eating most, she was headed back to the base. It's nighttime and usually all my colonists would be in bed, but she still has a fairly long walk before she can go to sleep. She was almost home when we stumbled across a big wolf. Figured I would just walk around it as I have never had a wolf attack a person yet. I thought I was safe. But oh no, I think the wolf senses Engie is not 100% and attacks. Engie is a great shooter but is terrible at melee. An epic battle ensues..somehow they both strike killing blows at the same time. Both fall to the ground. Neither the wolf or Engie can move. Both are bleeding heavily. And there will be no help coming. As I am staring at my pc trying to make sense of it all, I suddenly wonder if this is the same wolf that ate my pet cat. Is this wolf responsible for the first and last death my humble colony sustained?

The reviews for the game are what convinced me. It wasn't the typical 'best game I've played in years' or the 'game is a steal at this price'. It was the reviews that simply told a story of what happened in the first few weeks or months. Some of them were pretty crazy and almost all were hilarious. Typically in a game I'll play hardcore, or a version I call soft-hardcore. If my character dies, usually I won't play them anymore...I just lose interest in that build, but at least I get to keep all his gear. Usually when I 'fail' I will start another character and revise it so I won't be as weak in whatever stat caused me to die on the previous one. But this game is different. Failure is actually pretty entertaining. It can be frustrating too lol...like when everything happens at once...like getting an eclipse, heat wave and mad elephant all at once. Really thought I was doomed. But I managed to get through it. The alpaca actually caused the most probs. Once the elephant collapsed from blood loss, I sent just my best hunter out a side door and she finished off the elephant. I thought I only unbarred this one door and I could see it on the screen the entire time I was taking care of elephant. No one else ever came out, but I start hearing sounds of combat. I start looking around and see other colonists have decided to leave the base through another door even though its still barred. I guess Extreme Mental Risk will cause them to ignore orders and do their own thing. Only problem was the alpaca was out there and the first couple through the door had zero fighting ability. The alpaca killed two..the useless pessimist (no big loss there) but the other was my only doctor. But the other 3 surviving colonists are in dire need of medical and the only healthy person (my elephant hunter who was on other side of map and could have dealt with alpaca much better) has zero aptitude for healing. She tried, but so far 1 has died and not much hope for the other. So I have a hunter that can't grow/harvest or cook. Thinking this might be the end of Knuckleton. Next go, I will pay much much more attention to personality traits....they actually matter. Even small things like old scars/wounds can have a major effect. I didn't realize they have a permanent negative pain modifier for that character. Add in a negative trait (or 2) like Pessimist, Depressive or Jealous and they are a mental health risk everytime something goes wrong. This game makes you think, I mean really think about not only their skills, but all their traits, both positive and negative. Some I can get away with like Abrasive. Not a good trait to have, but if they are also a 'Night Owl' I can just have them work the night shift so they don't interact with the other colonists. Just found out an other thing.....skills can regress....I tried to have colonists good at several tasks so I always had a capable back-up if my main colonist couldn't do the work. Say I had one that had a skill level of 11 in Growing and the other had 7. I set the one with 11 as my primary gardener, and the other only to help out if other tasks were done/primary needed help. But if he doesn't do any Growing for awhile, his skill will decrease. I haven't played long enough to see it. But just another thing to consider when making characters and assigning work priorities. I see myself playing for a loooong time. Hopefully I'll post a few more stories of my adventures

Barenaked Ladies -> big bang theory song Bang Camaro > Push Push (Lady Lightning)

I've been looking for a decent base building game for awhile. Rimworld isn't exactly new as it was released in 2016. But I hesitated buying it mostly due to simplistic graphics. Wish I had bought this long ago as while the graphics are basic, it works. While it is a base building game...it is soo much more..it is more like a crazy story evolving before your eyes. I could describe the game but I would not do it justice...I think the essence of the game is more suited by telling the story of my first year. 3 survivors crash land on a foreign and hostile planet. within seconds...and I do mean seconds..I didn't even get to issue one command...Engie and Nicole got into a fistfight because Nicole took offense to something Engie said. So 15 seconds into game and I already need medical . Jung just stares and does nothing (mostly because I have no clue how to give him commands yet) After that dustup, the 3 originals seem to get along fairly well. Well until a wolf ate Engie's pet cat. Totally my fault as I had a bed for the cat but somehow a rabbit 'self'tamed' itself and also bonded to Engie. The rabbit was first in for the night and took the bed, so the cat was forced to sleep outside, And a hungry wolf found her sleeping and well umm that was it for my first pet. Engie took it pretty hard and wandered aimlessly in grief, not eating or talking to anyone. Didn't mind her not eating as I had very little food at that time. Over a couple days Engie slowly recovers and becomes a productive member of my small group. She even named the rabbit Yulo after it cuddled with her....awww, now ain't that just the sweetest thing? During first week I managed to figure out how to build a shelter, grow crops, and get some basic utilities going. Feeling more confident each day.......But then we get a distress call....a refugee begging for help from pirates.....I can't not help right? Well I found out the hard way that poor quality weapons take forever to kill anyone. While it was only 1 pirate, all 3 sustained fairly significant injuries. Looks like few days of no production coming up. Found it really really is beneficial to have the most qualified and only the most qualified person craft stuff like weapons. Nothing much (bad) happened for a few weeks and I was able to expand my base and get air conditioning and upgrade many amenities. Got a few more colonists including the girl I saved from the pirate. Unfortunately she can do nothing well. So she justs cleans and hauls stuff and mutters constantly under her breath. 2 of her traits are slothful and pessimistic...sigh...should have let the pirate have her. And then all hell broke loose. Simultaneously got a heat wave and solar eclipse...and the eclipses last for DAYS....So I lost all ability to keep all my food cool...all of it is starting to spoil and everyone is getting food poisoning...more trips to medical......Was using solar panels but once the eclipse started my batteries ran dry in about 10 hours. Outside is about 135°F and inside base is over 100. Everyone is complaining....all 3 at minor break risk now. So I thought I would build a generator that uses wood as a fuel to get my base temperatures down...but as I was gathering material for generator I got a warning a mad elephant was descending on my camp The tooltip said if I hid inside my base and barred the doors I would be safe. So I did that and boy I am glad I did. Some traders from a nearby village just happened to arrive hours after elephant did and the 2 inevitably met. It did not go well for the traders. 4 of the 5 dead or incapacitated, all their pack animals are dead. One was able to flee but 2 are badly wounded and will die soon without help. But after I saw what that elephant did to them, no way I'm going out there. I'll make them some nice graves as a consolation. The elephant is stampeding and bleeding out all over the place....maybe it'll die (fingers crossed). So the traderrs got a few good swings in before they got trampled. Since I'm stuck in the base and now temps are over 110°F, I built the generator inside my base and I'm tearing up anything made of wood to fuel it....So I now have no tables, chairs or beds.....the walls will be next if I can't get out of here.....I hope this game hasn't thought about carbon monoxide posioning...having this generator inside cannot be good...at least it's getting cooler. The elephant just collapsed due to blood loss and is unconcious...I wonder how much meat/leather an elephant has? Yup those are the type of questions this game has you asking....the eclipse ended and batteries are coming back online so hopefully I can shut of the generator soon. All my colonists are either at major or extreme mental health break risk...I got to get outside soon and get some materials...maybe even see if that elephant is really down for the count......But just got a notice that a mad alpaca is on it's way..... I can handle a single mad alpaca right?

I used to love watching Jim Cantore (from the Weather Channel) report on weather. He is just sooo animated. Just check out this vid. It's from 2 years ago in Plymouth Ma. (about 15 miles from me) But now I think of him more like the Grim Reaper of weather. Very bad weather follows wherever he goes. And he just landed yesterday in Boston I'm in for a bad bad day today lol

Adam Lambert -> If I had you Barenaked Ladies > If I had a Million Dollars

Evanescence -> broken Miranda Lambert > Mama's Broken Heart

James Morrison -> broken strings Green Day > Boulevard of Broken Dreams

Yup back to Winter here....forecast for 6-10 inches of snow today....and there's a possibility of a huuuuge storm on Tuesday/Wednesday. And Saturday's temp might break the all-time low temp for the day. Guess Winter isn't quite ready to pass the torch to Spring quite yet.

Blue -> you make me wanna James Morrison > You Make it Real