In RimWorld, you follow one or more people who are trying to survive on a planet. We will have to manage this colony so that it survives hunger, temperatures, seasons, diseases, pirates, local fauna, etc ...
To the adventure !
Here are our 3 explorers coming out of their rescue capsules accompanied by a pet, some rations, medicines and materials. The first moments of the game will occupy us in making our 3 colonists survive. To survive, they will have to eat, take shelter and keep warm. That's good, the interface allows us to prioritize the work of each settler, cut out schedules, or even restrict them to certain areas.
Once basic survival is over (a field to cultivate, a room each and a heater), there are needs to be analyzed. Yes, your colonists must be happy, or at least they must not be unhappy at the risk of their going out of business and starting to kill everyone or shut themselves up for hours in their rooms.
The management of your colony will not be done with the toes of a fan, several events will disrupt the life of your colonists, starting with the looters. They will attack your colony on a regular basis and you will discover the hard way that the health of your colonists can seriously degrade in combat. If things go wrong, it's because your defense system is not working out, so it's up to you to do what is necessary.
As if all that were not enough, Mother Nature also goes about it by being capricious. Heatwave, solar wind, acid rain, psychic module and so on. Many more events that will disrupt your colony and that will force you to improvise.
To help you face this cruel world, we have a whole system of technology that we unlock through research. This monopolizes a settler for a long time but makes it easier to cope with all events. Automatic turrets for defense, hydroponics for crops, air conditioners to cope with temperatures ... we start from the Stone Age and we end up in the future (possibility of building a ship).
Conclusion
It's a great management game with a lot of diversity. Redoing a game will not look like the previous one. On the other hand, you have to accept losing a game because of a succession of unfortunate events, everything is done to make life hard for your colonists.
At the end of my test, on day 37, 4 looters knocked out 5 of my 7 settlers before being routed. My 2 remaining colonists had to improvise emergency doctors, the bad treatment of the wounds triggered infections in all the wounded and a wave of malaria fell shortly after. The dog was killed on the previous attack, and 2 of my colonists including the doctor had to have a wooden leg put down ...
Will you do better than me? You will have to test to find out:
