Info about Grim Realms:

Official game description:
**_A grim world will be generated..._**
**_Explore everything from bare deserts..._**
_**... to snow covered mountains.**_
_**Recruit blacksmiths, brutal pirates, noble intellectuals and everything in between.**_
_**They will all struggle to survive in a world overrun by the undead...**_
_**... and you will be their guide!**_
**A game inspired by Rimworld, Dwarf Fortress and Terraria:**
*   All humans have unique portraits, different backgrounds and come from distinct cultures. They will develop and age as the seasons change and the years pass.
*   They all have different skills and abilities; some will become expert miners, great counsellors, and others master blacksmiths.
*   Manage their needs, set their priorities and equip them for war or work. They will eat, sleep, socialize, create art, fight and abandon your faction if pushed too hard. They might return later, but as a friendly visitor or leading an attack?
*   Defend your settlement from hordes of undead, bandits, large raiding parties and necromancers.
*   Mine for riches deep below the surface, discover ancient shrines and powerful magic.
*   Start practicing necromancy, raise the dead and have them work for you - see if you can defend your faction from paladins instead! Or maybe harness the powers of light and try to banish the undead for good!
*   Craft a huge variety of weapons, armor and clothes from all kinds of materials.
*   Plant crops and later harvest to create food and medicine.
*   Hunt animals, or tame them to produce milk and fur.
*   Grow your knowledge by plenty of research options. All the way from longbows to muskets and grenades.
*   Trade with visiting merchants, convince them to join your settlement or plunder them if you wish!
*   Create caravans, travel the world by land or sea; discover new locations and establish new settlements.
PS: This game is in the same franchise as Grim Nights. However, _this game will focus less on tower defense and much more on your villagers and the management of your growing settlement_.
(Also: This game was previously called 'Grim Nights 2'. Long story short: the name was changed because it is too different to easily be considered a sequel.)

Release date: 16 Mar, 2024

Categories: Colony Simulation, Base Building, Resource Management, Character Management, Strategic Combat, Exploration, Crafting, Survival


- Hardware Profile: No data
Feature extractions:
- Community Price: No data
- Playtime Metrics: No data
- Time-to-fun: No data
- Player Archetypes: No data


Below are summaries of things people say about the game per category.
Each point is assigned a weight that represents how often it is mentioned across all reviews.
What players like:
- Unique colony sim experience (weight 0.91): The game blends elements from colony sims like RimWorld and Terraria, offering a unique experience with base building, resource management, and combat. Reviewers appreciate the depth and customization options for their settlements and settlers. The game is considered a solid colony sim with unique mechanics.
- Pleasant and polished pixel art (weight 0.64): The game features a pleasant pixel art style and nice graphics. The art style evokes a sense of nostalgia for some players. The game is also considered fairly well polished.
- Active and responsive developer (weight 0.21): The developer is highly active, responsive, and dedicated to improving the game. They quickly address bugs, provide frequent updates, and communicate effectively with the community. This level of support enhances the overall player experience.
- Dark atmosphere, challenging consequences (weight 0.2): The game features a darker atmosphere with frightening enemies and consequences for player actions. Elements like managing corpses and dealing with natural deaths add depth and realism. The zombie/undead invasions provide a unique and engaging challenge.
- Emergent stories, fun discovery (weight 0.1): Players enjoy discovering new things and figuring out the game's mechanics. The game also offers emergent stories and unique experiences each night due to random elements. This encourages players to keep playing and experimenting.
- Enjoyable music and sound (weight 0.07): The game's music and sound design are well-made and enjoyable. The BGM transitions dynamically, enhancing the atmosphere. Some players have received positive attention from others due to the music.
- Interesting trading, food storage (weight 0.07): The game features interesting trading mechanics with natives, which can create moral dilemmas. Crops do not rot if unharvested, allowing for long-term food storage. These mechanics add depth to the gameplay.

Common complaints:
- Poor tutorial and explanations (weight 0.75): The game lacks adequate tutorials, tooltips, and clear explanations of its mechanics, leading to a steep learning curve and player frustration. Many reviewers found themselves relying on trial and error or external resources to understand basic gameplay elements. Inventory management is also unintuitive.
- Game plagued by bugs/crashes (weight 0.66): The game suffers from numerous bugs, crashes, and broken mechanics that significantly detract from the player experience. Characters get stuck, items disappear, and essential actions become impossible, often requiring reloads or workarounds. Many reviewers mention that the game feels unfinished and unpolished.
- Lacks content and depth (weight 0.58): The game lacks sufficient content and depth, leading to boredom and a lack of long-term engagement. Players quickly run out of things to do, even in high-activity areas, and the game feels more like a minigame than a fully developed title. Some reviewers feel the game runs out of steam quickly.
- Villager AI is flawed (weight 0.34): Villager AI is frequently criticized for illogical behavior, pathfinding issues, and failure to perform essential tasks. Villagers get stuck, ignore commands, and prioritize the wrong actions, requiring constant micromanagement from the player. This makes colony management tedious and frustrating.
- Unbalanced difficulty and RNG (weight 0.13): The game's difficulty is unbalanced, with frequent and overwhelming attacks from bandits and zombies, especially early on. The RNG feels unfair, with a disproportionate number of negative events. This makes defense challenging and disrupts gameplay.
- Poor task prioritization (weight 0.11): Units often prioritize low-priority tasks over high-priority ones, even when work is prioritized. They also interrupt tasks to rest/eat/sleep, even when far from facilities. This behavior reduces efficiency and requires constant micromanagement.
- Caravans are unrewarding/buggy (weight 0.07): Caravans are somewhat useless as locations visited offer nothing worthwhile, only bandits, necromancers, or paladins. Focusing on caravan supplies instead of character armor and weapons can lead to significant losses in undead attacks. The game becomes repetitive, even with caravans and new settlements.
- Poor base defense balance (weight 0.07): The game's balance needs improvement, as it's exceedingly difficult to build a large, defensible village or castle. The defending aspect is diminished compared to the first game, with limited options to improve defenses. The game feels like it requires high-intensity micromanagement.
- Poor font and art readability (weight 0.06): The game's pixel fonts and art style make text difficult to read and distinguish between units and items. This causes eye strain and makes it harder to identify important objects on the screen. This is a common complaint among reviewers.
- Limited settlement/faction options (weight 0.06): Choosing a settlement location with frequent events (every 1.5 days) can make the game difficult for new players. The game's story and goals generally discourage playing a Dark Alignment settlement. The lack of prominent settlements/factions (besides player-made ones) requires significant effort to set up settlements and get news from random strangers.
- Selection/interaction is cumbersome (weight 0.06): Interacting with items and characters that occupy the same space is difficult due to selection issues. The inability to rotate through interactable objects is a significant oversight. This makes looting and body manipulation cumbersome.
- Inefficient animal feeding (weight 0.06): There is no way to automate animal feeding, requiring manual selection and placement of food. Stables lack a silo for auto-feeding, leading to animals dying or running away. This makes animal husbandry tedious and inefficient.
- Limited storage capacity (weight 0.06): Storage capacity is very limited; large storage units cannot be built indoors, and small storage units fill up quickly. The inability to construct walls, either for defense or interior division, is a notable limitation. Hauling objects to storage is inefficient.
- Undead AI/behavior is flawed (weight 0.05): Undead hordes can destroy brick walls easily. During enemy invasions, undead units may destroy land unnecessarily, even if it's not obstructing their path. Undeads can be easily exploited by hiding underground and then ambushing them with a hunter, as they do not retaliate.
- Unclear crafting/item usage (weight 0.05): The reviewer was unable to figure out how to craft bandanas. The reviewer experienced an issue with boats, being unable to use them, and couldn't determine if it was a bug or user error. The reviewer got bored before finding something to do beyond the initial town-building phase.

Gameplay feedback:
- Core colony survival management (weight 0.33): The core gameplay loop revolves around colony management, resource gathering (mining, farming, hunting, crafting), base building, and defending against various threats. The game blends elements of survival, tower defense, and base-building, tasking players with establishing and growing their settlements.
- Character-driven job assignment (weight 0.1): Players manage characters with unique skills, personalities, and traits, assigning them specific jobs like building, mining, farming, or researching. This character management system adds depth to the gameplay, requiring players to strategically allocate tasks to optimize their colony's efficiency.
- Dynamic environment, high replayability (weight 0.09): The game features dynamic environmental conditions, including seasonal changes and day/night cycles, which impact gameplay. Random maps and characters further enhance replayability, ensuring each playthrough presents unique challenges and opportunities.
- Underground exploration and dangers (weight 0.09): Underground exploration reveals resources, dangers, and secrets, with mining becoming more dangerous at deeper levels. Deciphering stone tablets can provide clues, while digging can unearth both valuable items and undead threats, adding risk and reward to exploration.
- Villager AI requires micromanagement (weight 0.08): Villagers exhibit questionable AI, sometimes lacking self-preservation instincts or wandering far distances for basic needs. This necessitates player intervention to ensure their survival and efficient task completion.
- Exploration and world interaction (weight 0.08): Players can explore the world through caravans, encountering various factions and locations, including peaceful villages, traders, and hostile groups. This exploration mechanic adds depth to the game, allowing players to interact with the world and establish trade routes.
- Magic system and tech progression (weight 0.08): The game features a magic system and a tech tree that adds strategic depth and progression. Research progresses quickly, unlocking new technologies and abilities for the player to utilize.
- Reduced player control (weight 0.06): Some reviewers feel a weaker sense of control compared to similar games or previous titles in the series. The game mechanics are similar to RimWorld.
- Inefficient character task prioritization (weight 0.05): The reviewer notes issues with the character priority system for item pickup and task completion. Characters may not efficiently utilize storage or may stop working without clear indication of the cause, hindering smooth gameplay.
- Vertical base building defense (weight 0.04): The game allows for creative base design, including building high pillar houses and watchtowers for defensive advantages. Utilizing height provides strategic advantages in combat, allowing players to effectively defend against enemies.
- Hunting and animal taming (weight 0.04): Players can hunt and tame animals for resources, adding another layer to the resource management aspect of the game. Taming animals provides a sustainable source of resources and can contribute to the colony's overall prosperity.
- Limited settler terrain traversal (weight 0.02): Settlers have limitations in traversing terrain, requiring ladders or climbable objects to ascend even small hills. This can impact base design and pathfinding, requiring players to consider terrain limitations when planning their settlements.
- Simple economy system (weight 0.02): The game features a simple economy system based on food and money, allowing players to sell almost any item. This system provides a straightforward way to manage resources and generate income for the colony.
- Upgradable food storage (weight 0.02): Storage barrels can be upgraded to hold more food, making them an efficient storage solution. Optimizing storage is crucial for managing resources and ensuring the colony's survival.

Performance notes:
- Limited display options (weight 0.14): Players have noted the lack of certain display options, specifically the absence of borderless window mode and limited resolution choices. These limitations restrict the player's ability to customize the game's display settings to their preferences.
- Performance drops with specific actions (weight 0.08): Several in-game actions, such as mining, building, or the arrival of autumn, can cause frame rate drops and reduce colonist responsiveness. This suggests performance optimization issues related to specific game mechanics and environmental factors.

Recommendations:
- Buggy, unpolished, needs improvement (weight 0.82): The game is plagued with bugs, performance issues, and a lack of polish, leading many reviewers to suggest waiting for further development before purchasing. Some even feel the game was released prematurely. Despite these issues, many see potential and are hopeful for future improvements.
- High potential, promising concept (weight 0.7): Many reviewers express optimism about the game's potential, citing its interesting concepts and the developer's vision. They anticipate future updates and content additions will elevate the game to its full potential, possibly becoming a genre-defining title.
- Value proposition is questionable (weight 0.61): Reviewers are divided on the game's value proposition. Some believe it's worth the full price due to its potential or current enjoyment, while others recommend waiting for a sale or feel it's overpriced in its current state. This suggests a perceived disconnect between the game's price and its current quality or content.
- Appeals to colony sim fans (weight 0.42): The game appeals to fans of colony building, resource management, and RTSvE genres. Some reviewers draw comparisons to games like Rimworld, Banished, and the Kingdom series, suggesting a specific niche audience that may appreciate the game's mechanics and style.
- Check out previous game (weight 0.05): Reviewers suggest checking out the developer's previous game, "Grim Nights", while waiting for improvements to the current title. This indicates that the developer has a positive reputation and that their previous work is well-regarded.
- Casual, repetitive gameplay (weight 0.03): The game is described as a small-scale tower defense and base-building title suitable for casual play. However, its repetitive nature may only make it enjoyable as a side activity while doing something else.
- Improve character recruitment (weight 0.02): The character recruitment mechanic needs improvement.
- Add UI scaling (weight 0.02): The reviewer will change their recommendation if UI scaling is added.

Other player notes:
- Audio is adequate/consistent (weight 0.05): The music and sound effects are adequate and consistent with previous installments. This suggests a functional but not particularly noteworthy audio experience.
- Concerns about project abandonment (weight 0.05): Some reviewers express disappointment that the developer abruptly ended the game or seemingly abandoned the project. This creates concerns about the long-term support and development of the game.
- Begging lowers tribe loyalty (weight 0.03): Repeatedly begging others to join the player's tribe can offend potential recruits, leading to a loss of loyalty. This behavior may be tied to the game's alignment system.
- Colony sim with defensive focus (weight 0.02): The game centers around colony management with a strong emphasis on defensive strategies. This core concept defines the gameplay experience.
- Fine, polished UI menus (weight 0.02): The interface menus are considered fine and well-polished, especially considering the game is an indie title in early access. This suggests a positive user experience with the game's UI.
- Full release: uncertain outcome (weight 0.02): The game has just been fully released, and it is too early to tell if this is a positive or negative development. This expresses uncertainty about the quality and future of the game.

Emotions:
No emotions}