When you’ve finally had enough of the colony survival on an alien planet you can download the Star Wars total conversion mod, or even the Lord of the Rings mod I’ve recently become aware of that limits the technology to swords and sorcery and introduces dwarves and elves as playable races. The creator has gone to great lengths to open up his game to modders as much as is feasible for a commercial product, and the result is 100’s of hours of replayability. Modding is another huge point in the game’s favor. But in this genre where so much of the world is being simulated in real time, with the constant needs of your colonists and the many dangers they face on a daily basis, the player needs to be able to tell at a glance what exactly is happening at any given moment and while the art style may not be very impressive, it accomplishes this task exceptionally well. There are very few moving or animated parts here, humans and animals are essentially one uniform shape that glides around the world as they move and most buildings and walls are also static objects.

Visually the game has a very simplistic art style that I think works perfectly with this genre.

This has the noted effect of making the game much easier to manage as well as ratcheting up the drama when one of your colonists gets injured, barely clinging to life in a hospital bed, or when they inevitably die. While similar to Dwarf Fortress in its focus on managing your colony well in order to survive a hostile world, Rimworld tries to focus more on the individual quirks and needs of your colonists than creating an expansive underground kingdom.

Rimworld is a top-down strategy game in the vein of Dwarf Fortress, but infinitely more accessible.

Top down colony survival game