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[nenjin]

I guess to answer the OPs question directly since I skimmed and missed his italicized bit...

What PA does or has that DF ultimately doesn't is a grading system. There are metrics to be met or failed and if you're not just playing a fuck off cheating sandbox kind of thing, it matters because your prison might be shut down or you might sell it for enough cash to build the next prison 3x as big. By metrics I mean Prisoners gotta be kept healthy, sorta happy, they're gonna do sneaky stuff and you gotta catch them and how you design has a big impact on that. DF may include those moments whether that's building funnels for for siegers to enter and die or routing water to your well or pumps or creating death traps for your own dwarves. But in PA there's an active force you have to build against, which is the prisoners and their routines and optimizing all that. DF sort of hits those notes with transportation and traffic but only in very large numbers. In PA it's pretty much the core of the game, is how do I build this thing efficiently but also air tight. And that can be fun depending on how you approach such problems. I generally cheat for infinite money so I can just get with building a super prison. But the regular campaign or sandbox play, just keeping things running smoothly as you try to build up the prison is a game in and of itself.

Or you can just build a nightmare gulag where no one has a toilet, they sleep 1 hour a day, there are snipers posted in the cateen and attack dogs are sicked on anyone that complains.

Argh, is there a PA 40k mod that is worth a damn yet?

[MrWiggles]

Do not recommend Banished, mostly because of the weird micromanagement you have to handle.  My biggest problem is that when an adult male and female are in the same house, they produce children.  Great, right?  Except they only move into empty houses, and if one spouse dies then no one moves.  Eventually you end up with your whole city as elderly singles, or single children, who could EASILY pair off, but don't.  You have TOO MUCH housing, and have to manually go through and close houses to force them together - which is to order a deconstruct and then suspend it.  Because of this, your population WILDLY fluctuates, with a 'healthy' city doubling in population on each upswing.

There's also quirks like, eating more food types increases health/happy, but you can't organize how food is stored, so all of your dockworkers end up eating only fish because the apple orchard never moves apples beyond the closest food silo.

Huh. I never ran into either of these problems. From my play through the markets did their job to bring diverse food, firewood. The only thing I didnt like with markets is they are /far/ too man power hungry for something so passive.

[Urist McScoopbeard]

- Gnormia

no--df lite.

- Banished

no--pretty boring.

- Towns

no--just... no.

- Craft the World

nope.

- KeeperRL

Maybe! Except... the map is tiny as fuck. Seriously, it ruins the game hardcore. Impossible to build a big, cool-looking dungeon.

- Rimwold

Maybe! Pretty fun, think more Prison Architect meets DF.

- Stardew Valley

I mean... nothing really happens in comparison to DF. I think you might find it a little slow.

- Prison Architect

Heck ya! Really fun! You have to challenge yourself, though. Build prisons, get more money, increase size and efficiency, create the cruelest prison imaginable. My favorite one was where the prisoners were beaten daily, and a legendary prisoner was literally tortured fucking hourly. It's a glorious game.

[Retropunch]

I've played most of the ones previously mentioned other than stardew valley (of which I have no interest in) but I honestly only enjoyed Rimworld. I'd 100% recommend that to anyone, regardless of how much they enjoy DF.

My only issue is that it can feel a bit...flat from a simulation perspective. With DF you feel like you're dealing with actual creatures, in Rimworld it feels a bit more like they're walking boxes of stats. That's not a big criticism of the game, it's just how it is.

If you haven't played it yet and want hardcore simulation, I'd suggest Aurora - when the C# version comes out it'll be mind bendingly amazing but you might enjoy messing around as is. I'd stay away from Banished and the like though, just such a waste of time.

[Neonivek]

Stardew Valley is a good... first attempt... I definitely look forward to a sequel (that likely won't come) but this game never rises above what a passionate fangame could deliver.

Though honestly every time I have to put my finger on what it wrong with the game other than variety and in some cases quality... It seems to boil down to Stardew Valley feels like a Harvest Moon game made by people who HATE Harvest Moon.

I mean I make it no mystery that I think the spriting in the game is REALLY subpar... Well for the character sprites.

Which is kind of a shame given the series it is based off of is in significant stagnation and has been for years (Its latest game is just a rehash of an earlier title). So it isn't like there wasn't a lot for the development team to improve or invent. Yet their big thing was the road to not playing the game O_o.

Though I wouldn't care so much if I wasn't so invested in the game... and played it before I kind of felt rather done with it early on.

Anyhow... this isn't a "Neonivek's thoughts on the deficiency of Stardew Valley".

But I'll give my opinion on the rest
-No
-No
-No
-No

-No  (Ehh try it anyway)
-Yes
-Maybe
-Maybe (If you find out that the game cheats, it might destroy you)

[ZebioLizard2]

Stardew Valley is a good... first attempt... I definitely look forward to a sequel (that likely won't come) but this game never rises above what a passionate fangame could deliver.

It... Is a passionate fangame, who did you think made this?

It seems to boil down to Stardew Valley feels like a Harvest Moon game made by people who HATE Harvest Moon.

The maker actually met the original creator of Harvest Moon and made it because he missed the original harvest moon games, so I'm honestly having a hard time figuring out what you are thinking..

[Neonivek]

Almost as if there is a dichotomy between what I think and feel about the game.

Though people HATE dichotomies...

[Starver]

Though people HATE dichotomies...

Sometimes I hate them, at other times I absolutely love them...

[Trapezohedron]

i must agree with neo on this one tho

execution's great all things considered. but the relaxation factor is minimized. Compared to RF4's progression, that was take all the time you need before you do something plot critical. here, you're gated by seasons, the community center which provides the central core gameplay progression by giving you goals to achieve, but have VERY long points where you can miss it entirely, and a pet system that really just irks me to no end due to the amount of maintenance you need to do, not to mention that pet happiness loops back to zero due to a glitch if you constantly coddle them.

It's a good tribute to harvest moon, but it doesn't excel far and beyond that.

characters are great, but they loop their conversations a bit too soon, and their events a tad bit too disjointed for a lot of them.

[Gabeux]

Ey, Harvest Moon was one of the first games I've ever played in my life, and I loved Stardew Valley too..but I agree with it's limitations.
What upsets me a bit is that many games, as I've said on my last reply on this thread, are 'limited by existant conventions' of their genres.

I see very little innovation on the AAA/mainstream circuit (except for graphical and technical stuff, which will always change), and some of that seem to be leaking to the indie side of things. It's annoying that even though there are clear niches out there, people don't fill it. "Stardew Valley sold more than Call of Duty on Steam", yet the 'social farming simulators' that try to emulate it manage to be worse or even more limited. Or even worse..they base themselves completely on a game that was released 20 years ago.

The reason I love games like Prison Architect, Rimworld and Startopia (that's an old one), is because they executed concepts beautifully on the right place, right time. Even though DF existed, Rimworld still manages to make itself unique.
These types of games bring me that feeling from the 90's and early 2000's where almost every game you'd install would be its own thing (would at least try to stand out). Even being influenced by this or that, it would still bring surprises.

In my mind, every game that makes you feel that way is worth the time of a DF player, no matter the genre or similarity to DF.
I don't think what's wrong with Stardew Valley is the art or the dialogues..it just feels like a 90's game in a post-Minecraft wrapping.
I'm not saying this is bad, though, SV was developed by a single dude and I think it's a great achievement.

I should've warned about this post being a random rant in the first line. I also could be wrong, since I've been feeling way too pessimistic about videogames, which is my own fault. 

[Neonivek]

You are fine Gabeux.

It is clear you are coming from a place of passion and are not trying to throw games under the bus but trying to explain how it has often failed to meet your expectations. Which is something most gamers can relate to.

Plus not everyone needs to imbed compliments with every criticism... You aren't trying to give a full length analysis of the entire videogame spectrum.

Mind you... I understand that Gabeux. But you got a 50/50 chance of being tackled for not mentioning how amazing popular games are and listing every single innovative game to come out in the last 10 years.... As well you complained, which means according to forum policy... you hate all videogames