Dwarf Fortress

Not really. "University Edition" is a bit of a slur against RimWorld, both are incredible examples of what the medium of computer gaming can be. DF is older and has more flavour, you also have a lot more colonists so they work together in a bigger way, but it also means you feel less personal with them.

RimWorld is probably actually the harder game once you know what you're doing in both tbh.

I saw someone call DF "RimWorld's great grandpa" once in that is still has a lot of "back in my day" shenanigans and weird stuff you'd expect from a 20 year old game, that aren't necessarily better or worse, just different.


They play different though in that DF has more of a sandbox feel to it and feels like you have less control over individual colonists than RimWorld. Most of DF's bigger "complexities" compared to RimWorld are just in flavour text and not really in gameplay mechanics or anything and in fact you actually tend to "play" and control less in DF than you do in RimWorld and there's a bit more watching how things play out in DF.

So they're different enough that you can play them side by side and enjoy them for different reasons. Both incredible games in any case.

Amazing response, you might've sold me the game honestly.
So DF is like a "watch your colony build" vs Rimworld's "help your colony build"?

To an extent. Sieges and weather disasters etc. are way less common on DF, you kind of have to go looking for it a bit, in that sense DF is way more lenient in letting you actually build a working colony. And I find it’s much more about queuing up jobs, whereas RimWorld is more about managing colonists moods.

Like I said though, both are 2 of the most artistically ambitious games of all-time. No reason they really need to be compared in quality. But the medium would be much better if the likes of DF and RimWorld were held up as the pinnacle of the medium instead of the latest action-adventure open works game for me at least

Funnily enough the only reason they ever made it paid because one of them got cancer and it’s America so there’s no state healthcare and they had to fund his cancer treatment.

Of all the people in the gaming industry who genuinely deserve the financial windfall, Tarn and Zach deserve it most, when you think of all the massive games DF has heavily influenced and they barely made much from it previously