Odd Realm 1.0 it out today! Pixel graphic colony sim.
store.steampowered.com
Dive into Odd Realm, a mystical colony sim set in a land of fantasy! Lead your settlers to construct a thriving haven, navigating unpredictable seasons, elusive bandits, unseen horrors, and fabled gods. Every choice etches your colony's destiny, igniting a saga of adventure, peril, and triumph.
I have many of these colony sims sitting on my Steam wishlist, some from many years ago, but ever since Dwarf Fortress got that graphical rework and launched on Steam they mostly lost their purpose for me. They always felt like "Dwarf Fortress at home" with the advantage being that they had better graphics and were easier to get into than DF, now that's not case anymore, at least for me, and I really struggle with reasons to ever play some of these instead of DF.
Must suck being one of these devs that wanted to make their own more accessible version of Dwarf Fortress, then a few years later Tarn and Zach announce the update, and now you not only have to contend for attention with RimWorld but also Dwarf Fortress on Steam.
Imo Odd Realm and Songs of Syx can very much stand on their own. DF is cool and has lots of depth, but the UI & UX still is quite lacking and "meh" at best. You also have only that one race to play as, which I guess is the name of the game but not that interesting if you don't really care much for dwarves. I'd also argue that the graphics in Odd Realm & Songs of Syx are much nicer.
That's fair, but what I really like about Dwarf Fortress is the complexity, especially the industry chains you can create, some forts can become almost factory like, not to mention the world simulation is unmatched.
I also created some very quick and dirty tutorials for Odd Realm if anyone just wants to take a quick look at it:
Odd Realm 1.0 BASIC Tutorial - Just to help folks get started - 2024-08-16 - https://video.thepolarbear.co.uk/w/6crH1bx8t7USve3p4XfXU7
Odd Realm 1.0 BASIC Production Tutorial - Basics of Production - 2024-08-16 - https://video.thepolarbear.co.uk/w/5FGjgEN1wb6G9zWLdVbUMu
I'm very excited to dive in. Feels similar to Songs of Syx. I'm 2k+ in rimworld, so really, all it took was your suggestion to goad me into checking this game out. Sincere thanks for that, and I'm looking forward to picking your brain on strategy if that would be alright. Great share!
Absolutely! I bounced off Songs of Syx personally, but I've played DF, Rimworld, Oni, etc. I love the look of Odd Realm personally and I had quite a few hours in it, but then the entire UI was reworked, and it seems a bit daunting to get into. There isn't a tutorial atm, but the dev and myself have put up some video tutorials to get started. I think it's unique in the colony sim genre due to the graphics, music, but also the flexibility of the UI. It's not DF deep, but the UI allows you to REALLY dig in deep to automating things if you want, or just manually queue up stuff. I think it still has some rough edges, but for $15 at the moment it's got a lot to offer.
I'm planning on streaming some more Odd Realm 1.0 to my Owncast as well if you're interested. :-)
Have fun and best of luck!
I know it may not be possible to have a good flow for this type of game but I would love to have controller support for my steam deck.
I'm not the developer, but I can pass it on if you'd like. :-D The dev reads the Steam Forums and has a Discord as well. I think it should work with Steamdeck and the touch pads, but I'm guessing the menus are going to be SUPER small and probably quite difficult to see, though I haven't tested on my Steamdeck.
That would be awesome. I do remote play with a Logitech g cloud so I don’t have the touch pads, but if something is made for the steam deck the menus and ui generally will work well for the Logitech. :)