A Marvelous Mismatch
When two supposedly different games seem eerily similar.
I’ve been reflecting on my two big “comfort” games, recently. They’re both deeply engaging, self-directed and satisfy my inner micromanager. Really, when I need to disappear into a whorl of escapist perfectionism, I could go to one or the other. The interesting thing is that one allows for near infinite achievement, while the other tests, and inevitably breaks, my carefully constructed world.
Of course, I’m talking about The Sims 4 and RimWorld. No, don’t turn the page, let me explain. They’re totally the same game, as I see it, with only two significant differences; RimWorld is inherently dangerous and its colonists have mandatory, autonomous qualities. Otherwise, the formula is the same; make aesthetic and logistic choices in support of your characters’ needs and your projected goals. Everything from skill development to emergent drama is comparable, and the two experiences certainly scratch the same itches. (For me, anyway.)
When I was in San Francisco previewing The Sims 4, a designer told me they wanted to make failure less relevant, so that players would prioritise positive goals. You can give your character the vegetarian trait, for example, then cook them nothing but meat, but why? The Sick and Sad debuff moodlets just make everything pointlessly difficult. RimWorld may not currently allow for an optimal plant-based diet, but it does provide debuffs for eating human meat, unless characters are psychopaths or cannibals. See? The same.
In fact, keeping everyone feeling great, rather than bad, is the only sensible way to play these games. If your character in The Sims 4 isn’t either Very Happy or Very Inspired,
my Sims all reach the tops of their careers; my colonists die horribly
learning the violin takes forever and their cooking sucks. If your character in RimWorld is Stressed, there’s an excellent chance they’ll start shooting everyone. Characters in either game can have inherently evil traits, but this simply influences whether they become Happy or Stressed by actions like pranking or wearing clothing made from a human corpse.
You can certainly allow for autonomous actions in The Sims 4, and expect lots of chess playing, not much achievement. Rarely doing this myself, I did a quick bit of research and found the following statement, “I think the autonomous woohoo was toned down in a patch.” Good to know. In RimWorld, you can’t even control who your character makes advances towards, including whether they’re straight, gay, bisexual or already taken. I had one guy rebuffed so many times, he suffered a mental breakdown.
Of course, using firearms or pointy weapons against an enemy, or friend, can lead to realistic injury and, sometimes, lasting impairment. In RimWorld, this is hard to avoid on modes where you’re subject to raids, animal attacks and other harsh negative factors, like psychic drones. As an example, blind colonists will still be able to attempt some tasks, but at a much slower rate. Despite The Sims 4 having lots of options for gender and sexual orientation, disability isn’t something that’s ever been realistically portrayed, minor mods aside.
Perhaps RimWorld doesn’t have children, as yet, because it would be impossible to protect them from violence. It’s bad enough when a puppy gets eaten by a fox. In The Sims 4, as soon as you stop feeding your children, possibly because you’re just trying to finish their damn potty training, they get whisked away to a happier home. As the player, this is actually an extremely harsh punishment, because you’ve invested so much time into making them stack blocks. In both The Sims 4 and RimWorld, veteran characters are extremely valuable.
What’s my point? I don’t know. I got so busy comparing my two comfort games that I forgot. Having just written up the indies from PAX, considering how dark themes are treated in games like Duped and Think of the Children, I’m wondering why I don’t strongly prefer one or the other of the long term game states in The Sims 4 and Rimworld. My Sims all reach the tops of their careers and have lovely, relaxing hobbies into their retirement. My RimWorld colonists are missing most of their digits and die horribly.
Here is a quote from RimWorld developer, Tynan Sylvester: “RimWorld’s depiction of humanity is not meant to represent an ideal society, or characters who should act as role models. It’s not a Star Trek utopia. It’s a depiction of a messy group of humans (not heroes) in a broken, backward society, in desperate circumstances.” The Sims’ aim is exactly opposite. Somehow, although the destinations of these two great peoples, Sims and space colonists, are so radically different, their journeys feel incredibly similar. Perhaps games are all about mechanics, and not story, after all.