Odd Realm

Gentle Dwarf Fortress clone. Has a lot of potential and considering it's a one man team it's quite impressive. Looking forward to many more added features in the months ahead

I wonder if there will be an option to choose font size. A larger font size will be really helpful for my eyes.

Definitely one of the better builder's I've played. Especially for a game still in development.

The UI and building takes a little to get to use to, but it's worth struggling through to get the freedom of building and expanding. Once you understand the layering, setting up your automated queue, and providing the basics for your people (All of which the game has tutorial pop-ups to help you out with,) you're totally free to play the game however you see fit, and build your settlement as you like

Combat and AI tasking is rather simplistic, as it's all pretty much automated according the skills and equipment of your people, but I would argue that actually benefits the more casual nature of the game (for now at least. For those interested in a true challenge, I'm sure the Devs will have something for you eventually.)

Out of all the Early Access Games I've played, this one is one of the few were I felt is worth it's price. It's core style makes it unique, (even if it's not the most intuitive UI) but it builds off good principles of past colony builders, and allows for total freedom to build up from. So, while the game maybe a tad shallow for now in terms of features, I would still recommend it to anyone who interested in a new colony builder because you can build freely for hours on end.

I can't wait to see what's in store in the future.

A prettier less crazy dwarf fortress with multiple races with their own quirks. Definitely a thumbs up for the price.

It has surprising depth for a colony sim and the developer is constantly adding new features. Its definitely worth it if you enjoy the genre. Honestly props to you dev, I've never seen such consistent major updates to an indie game.

Odd Realm is a fun little colony sim by a single caring dev.
Edit: I should have mentioned, that I was playing the beta. Some issues might not be present in the live version.

The good:
- great soundtrack
- charming low-res graphics
- search-function for items/props
- relaxing gameplay with the mentality "play it, how you want it to play"
- multiple races (and more to come) with random generated worlds
- good indie dev, please support

Gloriously detailed gameplay, with a vibrant world and tonnes of care from the creator. Room for development, but totally give this a look if you're a fan of the colony sim genre and enjoy a thoughtful take on the mechanics.

This is gonna be an awesome little game. I love the look of it. And the dev is really dedicated. I highly recommend it.

Great game that keeps improving over time. If you like Dwarf Fortress, Rim World or just Colony management Sims this game provides a relaxing experience with a couple of race choices and simple to manage understand UI.

I hope the dev decides to add workshop support in the future.

I really would like to suggest this game, when it is more worked out. As it stands right now, it is a fun game, only a couple things hold it back for me to give it a recommendation. The pop cap is annoying and can lead to your entire village dying out if you get to a point where all 50 age up within a few years of each other and they become elders at the same time. Another thing is the ATROCIOUS pathing.... When it takes 2 months to mine out a floor plan that could have taken a day if they had just gone row by row instead of hitting a block, skipping 5 to hit another, scurrying up an invisible wall to climb over just to hit it from the other side.... needless to say the pathing needs alot of work. That combination of rimworld meets dwarf fortress is really nice as I play both still and miss some of the features each brings in the other, like levels to build on in DF and the individuality you can play with on rimworld... This would be top 10 games I play in the genre if not for the tiny little details that hold it back but are oh so important in these titles. I'll continue to play the game and change my stance if this guy continues to plug along on the game or not if it goes the way of all the other disappointments that will never be.

UPDATE: So, I downloaded the Beta version of this on steam, and I must say it is almost a completely different game. Most things have changed, and I can't say if it is for the better or worse... it's just different. I would however like to change my stance on the game and say while not all the issues I had with the game have been fixed, a decent amount have as far as the beta, although there are a few problems with it atm, such as my guys getting trapped in holes and the game barely briefly flashing a warning for like .5 seconds then going away, resulting in said villager dieing... kinda annoying. However, I feel this developer is actively working on issues and if you are going to purchase this title, use the beta version... you'll be glad you did.

There really isnt that much content in the game at all. You basically can craft some armor and a few weapons and food, grow plants and tame animals but thats it as far as I can tell. If you want to play this sort of game that also was never finished, go play gnomoria. That game has a lot more content even though the devs abandoned it.

I absolutely love this game. As someone who's watched my dad play copious amounts of Dwarf Fortress, I find such comfort in this game. First, I love the choice of music and the art style is lovely. Neither are too bold and in your face, though I may be biased because pixel graphics are my absolute favourite. I highly recommend this game to those who like Dwarf Fortress or to those who like playing god.

A surprisingly complex little survival game where you build from nothing.

Cant wait for them to finish this game!

Spawned in, tamed 15 rats, I am the rat master.

(Initial thoughts - 10 Minutes in): Seems promising, and the dev also appears to be very active. I'll update this review with what I think as I play through.

Super good Dwarf Fortress-a-like, without all the crazy menus. I like the crazy menu's of DF but it's also nice to play a game that doesn't have that going on, and the gfx are killer.

The art style is amazing. It takes a minute to understand but never feel very punishing.

Love it, it seems like those games of dwarves (forgot the original one name), but its easier to play, tho its less complex (its earlie release)

This majestic and adorable settlement builder hits the sweet spot between Rimworld and Dwarf Fortress. Great music, lovely atmospheres, and the thrill of discovering what's around the next metaphorical corner make this game endlessly replayable.

This great game with frequent updates, obviously loved by the developer and great community.
What's not to like?

as of 1-22-2022, I love this game! Been playing it on and off for over a year now. The most recent stream of updates seems to have caused a major lag issue though. I used to be able to play with 50+ villagers, sometimes even 99 villagers... Right now a bug fix is badly needed as once I hit 15 villagers the game slowly laggs more and more until it becomes unplayable, and it doesn't seem to matter if I get more villagers or not. It's just like after X amount of time it's going to start lagging so bad it might as well have crashed.

Fixing lag issue will put this game straight back into the "awesome" category for me.

This is kinda like Dwarf Fortress but with settlers instead. It does play a lot like Dwarf Fortress. The Tutorial need more work though...

The tutorial is worth not even a cent, i tried this game several times, i have no clue what to do. Edit:
He fixed it, dont feel like trying it out yet, illl let it age like a good wine, but here take my upvote for fixing the reason for my downvote! GL

It's... Messy

(This is a neutral recommendation)

As I did not play Dwarf Fortress, to me, Odd Realm feels a lot like Rimworld. But it's nowhere near as good, at least at the moment.

The main problem with the game is the art style. I'm okay with pixel graphics, dated ones and pretty much anything else; it's something that rarely bothers me. In fact, I think this is the first time it truly does because, in Odd Realm, you simply can't tell what is what.

Everything in the game is visually defined by something like 10 pixels. Is that a chair? A cabinet? A cauldron? A sheep? A warrior? You can hardly ever tell just by looking at it, and that is really, really annoying. Actually, it's infuriating.

Adding insult to injury, the UI is somewhat user-unfriendly and there are no tooltips, so everything is pretty confusing at first. I had to restart my game thrice before I finally figured out how to make a proper room and put a roof on it.

Regarding the UI, to turn some object around, for instance, you need to click on "Utilities" on the tool bar, select the rotation tool, then click on the object. It's hard to tell some professions apart just by the 5-or-so pixel drawings that represent them. It took me quite a while to find my characters' perks screen after the tutorial told me how to do so and I forgot. Locating what you want to build, in the "Build" toolbar, can sometimes be annoying. Although you have sub-tabs to make that process easier, some items are not found in any of them (troughs come to mind), and too many in a single one ("props"). Searching for an item by name, holding Shift while you type it, is a little weird but it actually works fine.

As the game currently stands, you do not have much to do.

Building your base is fun for a little while, but it doesn't take long until you have everything you'll ever need (other than extra bedrooms) in place. And, since the graphics suck, you can't extract much joy from staring at what you have built because you can barely tell a kitchen, a foundry and a smithy apart. Also, you have to guess what size of room you need to fit an "N" number of people or animals in there, and what about it somehow influences your settlers' moods -- or if it does -- is a mystery.

After everything is in place, you set out to mine. That's the coolest thing in the game, since you don't know what you may find as you delve into the [fairly large] depths of your small corner of the world. But, currently and as far as I went, you won't find anything very exciting. You'll find a few new minerals, craft better items, bump into a few enemies, and... that's it. I lost interest before finding anything else, because I don't think I would if I kept going.

Odd Realm is also extremely unbalanced. I have to keep deleting "rotten food" by the hundreds, because the few farms I have are enough to feed 10 times more people than those who inhabit my lands. I have some steel and better gear, but a single one of my dudes, wearing bronze stuff, is probably enough to kill anything the game has thrown at me, so far, after surviving for almost 3 seasons. I got rich just by selling extra, useless stuff that was littering my map to merchants, but there was never anything worthwhile to buy from them. I started by planting all sorts of crops, but then I realized all I actually needed was some wheat and potatoes. Some food recipes that require 3 different ingredients give the same bonuses to settlers as an omelette, which requires a single egg (including a recipe that requires an egg plus two other things).

I could go on, mentioning things like how you can't tell what the ground is made of (important when mining something relevant) if there's anything laying on top of it (usually, stone chunks); how I have no idea if using stone walls is, in any way, better than using wood ones; how events are few, simple and scarce; how combat can be annoying, because finding the characters you want to send into it and getting them where they need to go is messy; how the only way I found to fill my animals' troughs with water was to increase the maximum production of the latter, as to leave my settlers with no option other than to stash it in said troughs; etc.

But getting into details about everything would take too long.

The short of it is: in time, Odd Realm's developer might be able to fix most of these things, implement some QoL changes and add enough content to make the game a lot more interesting. But I don't think improving the graphics -- which is a major issue -- is on the table.

I have marked this as a "positive" review because I appreciate all the work the guy has put into this game, I don't want to discourage him, and Odd Realm managed to keep me entertained for a while without costing me too much. But there's a long, winding road ahead before it reaches a point where I could call this game "a pleasant and exciting experience." It's kind of a mess, right now.

I have made several attempts to familiarize myself with this game. The first attempts were unsuccessful and I felt very frustrated, I tried again and again until I understood the concept of vertical layers and other aspects of the game (I personally recommend the guide by MontSchmibbles for Odd Realms on the Steam Community).

Once you've mastered the basics, the game becomes very enjoyable. Each time you play, a new story unfolds. In my last gameplay, one of the children of my colony was kidnapped. The kidnapper left a note that he worked for a secret organization that is fighting for a better world, and that the kidnapped child will be fine and will be trained as a warrior. Indeed, years later the child returns as a great warrior and rejoins my colony. Unfortunately, he was not able to reunite with his family, as his parents had died earlier in battle defending the colony. Such a sad story!

An outstanding top down pixel settlement sim. If you've ever wanted to jump in and try dwarf fortress but the complexity and installation time dissuaded you, this is the game for you. And while considerably less complex than dwarf fortress its by no means simple.

As of writing this review the game is still in early access and new content comes out regularly on the beta version of the game with a fun and lively community on discord.

popped back in after a long time. To see what's changed, there's some new frustrations.

The new snow mechanics being a big one. I got about 5 days of snow, the snow/ice walls became pretty unmanageable. I had an outdoor storage which was being destroyed. I noticed even if I dug out my boxes they would loss their zone assignments. fences became pretty useless, it was even consuming outdoor stairs. The snowballs littering every inch of space was kind of annoying. The first winter tends to coincide with a "death wave" from old age. so
I only had one miner running around trying the clear snow walls. Also, my graves where destroyed.

I've also noticed training dummies get destroyed in training now? That makes sense, but 100hp doesn't last long, or provide much to the trainees.

very neat game really enjoyed it so far.

question for developer: are you going to add in attacking other factions or expanding base to other areas in future rather than migrating and starting fresh? would be nice to see the other domain or npcs expand and declare war on other opposition.

A labour of love title; a must-have for any colony-sim fan.

Brimming with charm, unique experiences, and quality of life details.

Developer is responsive to constructive feedback, has long-term ambitions without sacrificing the iterative stages, and continuously proves their commitment to Odd Realm and its community.

Don't wait for it to be on sale. Even at full price, this is a steal.

Nice little game, but would like the maps to be bigger, maybe like an option to map stitch the zones some together as you explore.

I would not recommend this game, just lost two games in a row due to bad event.

My warehouse got hit by lightening and poof all my resources gone, restart.
Next game day 5 i am attacked by a random npc in untammed area that kills my farmer, no food no way to survive restart again..

This game looks interesting but its to hard to get started.

Update, sigh i keep trying but now i am attacked by bandits on day 5 and later even if i settle on peaceful land. So i dont see what you are supposed to do here, just let people die and hope the important ones dont get killed first?

Update, I got the hang of the basic of survival and seems like the fire event i had my first game really was just pure bad luck as it has not hit any critical location again since then. Then to day 11.03.2022 my saves are gone. Seems a update that makes the game 100% harder just came out, i got mixed feeling about that now that i need to learn how to play again.

After playing for a couple hours i think i get the basics again, a bit overwhelming at first but you get used to it.

Getting started at the moment is different from the last version of the game, it feels harder but that is simply because now you need to unlock things to be able to use them with tech you gain from professions as villagers level up. So you can no longer start with everything you want,seeds etc is more limited now and even villagers cost gold now. You wont be able to start with much seeds but luckly finding plants to harvest for seeds seem to be pretty easy once they start spawning as time moves forward.

Enemies is not such a big issue now that your villagers has more health, its allot harder for them to die due to attacks. I would say right now compared to before its worth checking out.

A fun game in the genre of "Dwarf Fortress Inspired".

This feels, in many ways, like a "Dwarf Fortress Lite", for much more casual playing.
I have bought this game on GOG before, got it again on Steam specifically for beta.

+ Quite easy on the eyes (differs how much for release and beta)
+ Humor built in :)
+ Much easier to play than DF
+ Constant improvements in beta, active dev
* Early Access = some features WILL feel raw, because they are not fine-tuned yet.
- Can't be used as a story generator not anymore, apparently :)
- Minor annoyances on a regular basis (see above, it's all Early Access)

I prefer playing beta, for the features.

The game is severely unbalanced to the point of being unplayable (and I like early access games). The dev(s) seem to waffle back and forth on updates leaving the game heaving to and fro between direction, and woe be unto you if you offer your feedback in the forums because, well, the king ain't having none of that despite it being THE ENTIRE POINT OF EARLY ACCESS. It's a shame, really, the game has potential. I wouldn't bet on it at this point, however. Stick to dwarf fortress for now. Definitely save your money.

Like dwarf fortress for people who don't like eye strain and leave the house occasionally.

Seriously though, there's not a lot of background simulation and world building going on like you find in dwarf fortress, but definitely scratches the same itch in terms of the core gameplay loop.

Over other titles in the DF-lite genre I think Odd Realm's strength lies in building the game around z-levels. I mean, that's what really makes DF a standout game for me personally. And the world-building, obviously.

Absolutely worth the money, especially with mod support planned.

If you like 8bit artstyle and DwarfFortress-like colony managers then I would say go for it.

Offers little to no challenge at this point.
Its literally once you're set up you're done and its just a decorate your area sim

The enemies thrown at you are trivial once you have a sword

The only thing you're doing in this game is the most tedious and Boring aspect that is automised in Every other game
-click the plant
-micromanage your horrendously organised colony because they're too stupid to pick up tasks that are dropped
-stock up resources

Congrats, you already won
Now go wall yourself in so you win even harder
And can just leave the game on x4 and play something else.

------
Couple months later i came back to the game and i just cringe at the controls and way you are supposed to play this game, Hasn't gotten any better.

a dwarf-fortress-like with simple, intuitive UI. Solid and getting better with every update, with lots more update planned. If you're going to like it you already know you're going to like it.

If you are interested in Dwarf Fortress, Rimworld or Songs of Syx, I would highly recommend giving this one a try. The developer is very active about reading comments about the game, continues to put good updates out. Absolute must have if you like any of the games I listed, and at this price? I wouldn't even wait for a sale, great deal on a great game.

I really love this game. It's a colony management style of game, that's a lot more straightforward than others like it, and the developer is active and updating regularly. The recent major update helped make things feel more intuitive, and made the game even more enjoyable. There's a lot still in the works, but I find it more fun to play a game as it is reworked, expanded and updated. It has its bugs, but the developer is working hard to fix them and make more content!

Cozzy game that has a lot of great potential!
Still stome quirks to iron out, but, overall, i really enjoyed this.

The developer works non-stop to bring us new updates on a nearly weekly basis. This, along with fantastic communication - both on Steam and on their Discord server - deserves to be rewarded.

If you're at all into Dwarf Fortress or Rimworld, you should give this game a shot.

Yes, it's really good.

As much as I liked the idea of the game (and I tried to understand and play it) it just feels bad.
Building is probably the worst aspect for me. It's a 2D game, with zoom changing what layer you're looking at and working on. If all the villagers are on ground level 30, and you're looking at 31, it won't look different. But the game will let you try building on layer 31, and not make the building ever.

And it took several restarts for the tutortial to tell me that to make a room, I have to make the walls, floor, furniture, roof, and designate it as that room. There's no visual que if you build a room wrong. It just doesn't work.

I love the starting races being humans and then immortal undead. That's a new concept to the usual beginner three being human, elf, orc to other games.

I mainly wish the game had more feedback and visual indication. Just felt too confusing.

A delightful fantasy colony builder. I love playing as the ancients and having a horde a magic servants strip mining the earth to build my crypt and tower.

This game is great - and headed somewhere even greater!

The passion behind its development is clearly visible throughout the experience so everything is designed and thought with great care. If you like Colony Sim, Base Building and have a soft spot for Exploration, Odd Realm will certainly provide you with a great experience.

It is indeed an Early Access title but development has been consistent. I've played 40 hours around 2 years ago and 40 more hours after the recent update - found myself excited again to explore things anew! Several progression elements were added and new interfaces allow you to customize many aspects of the game (uniforms, rooms, diets) in a very flexible way.

The current version is definitely enjoyable and well worth the price tag. And best thing is, it'll only get better!

Game is bugged in the most annoying ways, and shows an impressive lack of progress for how long its been out.
More than one colony has failed due to a bug where people assigned to cook cannot despite having all prequisites in the work station. Given it's scale, this game is still outshined by games like rimworld, simply for the fact that they work as intended and this game does not.

Needs a significantly better UI, it shouldn't take 3 hours to learn how to operate a farm room.

Looks enjoyable but needs a more helpful tutorial to learn how the game works, not as friendly to new players as it could be

Once you figure out the zoom and layering system its a pretty cool game. Excellent dev work and solid management options. Excited to see how development progresses.

Nice and cute colony sim.

Still in development, so it has flaws or inconveniences.
But, overall, enjoyable and fun.
It has descent learning curve, though when you get it, things become easy (mostly).

This is a tentative "recommend" under the qualifier that it's only EA. It's also tentative because I *think* I really like it, but the pixel graphics, while cute, really work against the game that has SO MUCH stuff lying around on the floor. It gets really busy, really fast.

But that's really my only real gripe about the game. Building is fun, way more fun than I had in the OG Dwarf Fortress or something like Rimworld. I think this has to do with the planes of the game you can scroll through with your mousewheel.

Which brings me to a crucial point - check out some excellent YouTube videos of people explaining how this game works. The first time I played I had no idea what was going on since the tutorial is abysmal. Like, it's really basic and barely touches on a third of the things you need to know just to get off the ground as a basic settlement.

But once you know how to do this sort of stuff, this game really takes off. There's a lot for your little townsfolk to do (again, watch YouTube tutorials about setting up jobs, priorities, who should have what gear, etc.). I only have 7 hours in the game, but have watched probably triple that amount of time in tutorials. Game changers! If I hadn't thought to do that, I would have refunded this game after the first hour, thinking this was just some chaotic tech demo for a building sim. I was wrong.

The game is enjoyable, but also being EA lacks polish in quite a few areas. I'm really hoping that the graphics gets a little bit better with regards to floor trash (even with containers set up in the various rooms, the floor trash is still out of control) and being able to see what's going on, the audio is pretty functional bordering on excellent in some areas (like mines or rain), and the gameplay cycle is sustainable enough right now... but I'm also forgiving because of said EA status. I'm hoping there's a little bit meat on this for the final product.

If it does? I can see it being looked at with the fondness many have for Dwarf Fortress or Rimworld (as far as settlement builders go). But for the love of the gods, WATCH TUTORIALS ON YOUTUBE (hell, I'd say watch them before buying, cuz you might be like me and mistakenly go into this expecting more RImworld than said Dwarf Fortress).

A solid DF-like. Dunno what else to say about it lol. I love colony sims so I love this game! Could use a UI overhaul maybe.

Odd Realm is pretty fun so far. Its systems are different from other colony sims I've played (I've never played Dwarf Fortress but I hear it's comparable). It's definitely different from RimWorld, a game I have over 2,000 hours in. That doesn't mean the way Odd Realm operates is entirely foreign, there's just a slight learning curve. The building, z levels, and job priorities mostly function well.

As of May 9, 2022 these are my gripes:
- There's no real control in combat so you just sit back and watch after ordering colonists to attack invaders.
- My chefs have never created a cooking tome.
- Even with fishing rods, my fishing specialists have never caught any of the very few fish I've found.
- My biggest gripe is the clutter. I have 2 dedicated haulers and 6 children who can only haul, as far as I'm aware. With 3 large stockpiles set up for different items, the map is still full of items laying out in the open and they're everywhere.

For an early access game with a bunch of things not implemented yet, Odd Realm is worth the asking price for fans of colony simulators. Looking at how well many of the systems in the game work and the interactions between the developer and the players, it's obvious how much they care about this game.

love the graphics and i can play this game for hours. i also like getting dev updates its exciting to see what they come up with next

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it may be in early access. however its more like a full game that gets free updates.

right now you have two different races. with more races to be added in future updates.
so far, the two we have are completely different from one another causing you to play in a different style.
(a little like adding mods to Rimworld)

the game is easy to play once you get used to the layers. its the closest game to Dwarf Fortress I've managed to find.

strongly recommend this game to anyone who enjoys colony builders, with world law/stories to discover

The art style and overall character of the game just totally jives with me. I'm a huge Dwarf Fortress fan and totally welcome a new DF-lite type game. The user interface is super intuitive and I was able to be proficient within an hour or so.

yeee yeee. yeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee yee yeeee yeeeee yeee yeee. yeee yeee yeeeeee yeeee yeeee yeee yeaaaaaaaaaaaaa boooooooooiiiiiiiiii

such a fun, cute little game
really enjoy the way it feels and the whole vibe of it, it's relaxing for me to play

Very good sandbox sim, the theme and music are very relaxing.

This game is like playing dwarf fortress without having to set up and learn all of the mods that make the game playable. On top of that it has charming animations and characters. I'm looking forward to seeing where this game goes. I hope the developer adds more options for difficulty, because right now it seems a little too easy.

Nice, cute, rimworld-ish kind of game. It's not on the same LEVEL as rimworld, but it has it's place in that conversation.

The interface certainly has a learning curve - the tutorials help a bit.

Cute graphics though, and the sound effect design is pretty good, my wife thought the bird sounds were from youtube or from outside our window or something.

BTW I bought this on the recommendation of the youtuber "Blind", who is famous for dwarf fortress let's plays etc.

Odd Realm is a fresh take on the Dwarf Fortress-lite colony builder genre. Unlike Rimworld it has a true 3-dimensional voxel map, which unlocks a lot of possibilities for creative building on the part of the player. The very low-res pixel art graphics are an acquired taste, but the visual style is consistent and enjoyable so it works for me aesthetically. It is still in early access so it currently doesn't have much in the way of balancing, late game content or general polish, and the characters are not as developed or differentiated as DF dwarfs & Rimworld colonists, so you won't see the kind of Sims-like emergent soap-opera story generation you might be expecting - it can feel more like running an ant farm than a society of sentient beings.
Despite my nitpicking, this is a great game with massive potential, and also very reasonably priced, so if you have any interest in this style of game at all, you should 100% buy it if only to support the developer, who is still hard at work making it better.

Its simple (looking), but very complex... I'm a casual gamer & this will be one of the games I load on to my steam deck. I have enjoyed building multiple colonies and watching them collapse all because I have not learned all the features of the interface. Going back and scanning ALL the menu's looking for the spot that buggered the last build and finding a new trick's for the next settlement is like a journey of discovery. The developer is always reworking these interfaces in an effort to make them more intuitive while adding new features. I have managed to make it

I have come back to this game a few times over the period I've owned it, but never being fully engrossed by it. The game is Rimworld lite, it is not as in-depth or as polished. It has its own charms and it uses Z levels like DF, but at this point I am only mildly curious about this world. The Dev is one of the most active I have seen, weekly updates and lots of communication. I cant dislike this game but I cant say buy it either.

oh god..... the menus....
everything is 10 clicks away
the pacing on the reseach is also a little wierd, its kinda on way too fast right now
also, there is almost 0 guides updated with the latest stuff

despite all that, the game still fckng rocks, need QoT and a UI overhaul bad.

I have played all the colony builders and really love this genre. This game just isn't ready to be reliably played without learning the unexplained/random nature of the AI. I really tried hard to like this game. I tried for 3 days at different times to play, but each time ending in a fairly similar issue.

Let's list a few of those game breaking silly things:
-Builders like to get stuck building things in a stupid order (built roof before floor and my whole colony died on the roof)
-Some definite weird AI regarding food/water - plenty of food, plenty of water, walk unit to food and water and they just say 'Nah, I'll just die.'
-In general the building/priority order is awko taco with vague at best descriptions of who is responsible for what task. TBH I STILL HAVE NO IDEA WHO IS RESPONSIBLE FOR BUILDING.
-Very awkward/tedious to set priorities for classes that needs to be done manually. (Why is my farmer's initial priority the same as my warrior the same as a dog? Who knows.)

Is it playable? Sure!
Is it enjoyable? It can be.
Is it tedious in the bad way? Often.

I get it a DF baby, but no reason it has to be some esoteric guessing game of frustration.

cute colony sim! i love building little houses and watching my people scurry around. my only issue is that there could be a better tutorial, but i don't have any ideas for how that would work, i just brute forced my way into understanding some mechanics.

eagerly waiting for new content like more races!!

I've never written a review before but this game is worth it. Support This game, it and the dev/s deserve it. This game is great as is now and is only getting better. Feels underrated for what it is and definitely for what it could be. There's not much else to say, cause if your here reading reviews then your probably a fan of these types of games, so you already know how they work. you've got nothing to lose.....except a few bucks.

Dwarf Fortress can wait. i got my fix.

Odd Realm is a wonderfully unique colony builder with beautifully minimal graphics. The game is getting steady updates and already has enough content to be worth 3x the price. You're looking at this game because you like this genre so I can pretty confidently say that if you should just buy the game.

A fun village management and construction game with lots of updates recently, including a new playable race! Cool terrain maps and random visitors, caravans, and wanderers keep things interesting.

One of the best Colony Sims in my opinion. It has its own unique flavor that i love.
Development is slow but steady and there's always something new to try out, i really have high hopes for this game

And the Developer really cares about the game and its community.

After a 100 hours ingame, I would recommend this one.

Odd Realm is a fun colony building game that has a dedicated developer who is actively working to make it better, interesting and more than it is.

With various planned features like inter colony trade, maybe even multi colony management a-la Nation building?

You'll have to ask Sleipnir, the developer, and he'd probably would answer.

Charm isn't just a feature in the game, it leaks to this gem in general!

If you're enjoying Stonehearth, do yourself a favor and get this one - Odd Realm manages to give the same feel while remaining true to it's own charming nature.

A well done job so far, looking forward to see the next regular updates! :)

Anyone who knows me, knows how I feel about Early Access games. To put it lightly, I don't buy them. That should tell you something about how unusual and genuine my enthusiasm is for this game.

I picked Odd Realm up on Itch in mid-2020 (hence my low time played on steam), and I have been thoroughly charmed by it ever since. Odd Realm offers a level of intricacy and thoughtful complexity that I haven't seen since Banished. I greatly appreciate the continuing work of the developer, who is churning out impressive, high quality updates regularly. I can only hope that this project continues to see development and eventual release, rather than going the way of so many early access games before it.

This game is super cute and fun. It's really a nice take on the dwarf fortress colony sim genre that's relatively smooth! With the newest update I would say this Early Access game is absolutely worth buying, which isn't something I often say.

For the ancients, I wish something had told me Imps needed food and water without suddenly finding out they were starving to death because I didn't have kitchen stuff set up, Ancients don't need them.

I didn't realize Humans would come offer settling into the community, which was super fun because now I had two different groups hanging out! I'm incredibly excited to see what comes next. My Human settlement got a bit dry after a couple hours of playing, but the Ancients get attacked a lot so it kept me busy making a better settlement.

Has potential, but is unfortunately not in a playable state yet. This tries to be a cross between rimworld and DF, but too many systems are missing or buggy.
1. If you disable the skill for foraging colonists will die rather than to eat or drink even when food and drink is available, you can force them to walk right up next to the water and food, but they will often prefer to die rather than touch it.
2. Equipment is not really functional, no documentation of what improves what. The equipment is in naming task specific, this makes it impossible to equip anything that makes sense for all the different tasks a colonist may do especially early game, and they do not pick up task specific equipment before doing a task, and besides that, as far as I have observed colonists never pick up even manually assigned equipment ever anyway.
3. Agriculture is weird, it not obvious how to make self-repeating, though you can find it by adding an extra task to fields. Sometimes there can be odd food leaks, where you cant have enough, but usual you have too much.
4. Haven't managed to figure out fishing or hunting even after several hours of play. Found some fish, can order fish on the area, but it doesn't appear to do anything.
5. Capturing animals is random, you can't tame a specific wild animal, instead you have to put up traps and wait for the animal to randomly step on the trap, and then you get a chance to tame the animal, or it will attack.
6. Very few threatsl comes by, so far I have had little to no use for military, and without battle groups you can activate, with specific uniforms for them to get into, I am not sure how you would even deal with any significant hostiles in this game.

This is Dwarf Fortress with easier UI. Absolutely worth the try and more to come in future updates.

Settlement Building games have always been something that I wanted to try since I found out about Dwarf Fortress some 10 years ago. This game is fun, easy to understand and teaches the basics of the genre taking into account whatever the player is doing. Would gladly recommend the game to anyone who wants to try being a benevolent god watching after their ant farm.

Most of the content online (videos and tutorials) is for an older version of the game so it is fun trying to figure out how to do some stuff. I restarted the game three times before I understood the basics well enough. It has an option to speed up time so you can spend time designing and then looking at your settlers run around doing stuff. If I start a new game I would use it more often since now I feel comfortable letting my tiny humans do their stuff.

The graphics are great! The music is a bit repetitive but tolerable, it has an option to deactivate it for most of the time. The UI is well designed and covers almost everything that you can think of. It has a little of a learning curve at the beginning but it is easy to follow what's going on almost all the time. It would greatly improve the accessibility experience if it had a colorblind option or an option to paint the mini map indicators however you like.

Since it is kind of an open ended game, it lacks an objective for those (like me) that are getting into this kind of games other than building and expanding your settlement. There are a couple of events that happen but the conditions to unlock them are not clear. At least not for me.

It would be nice to have some events that give you hints of the story, unlocking new races or other things like that. I understand that Odd Realm is still under development so I guess some of these things will be addressed later. It is possible that I have not been so bold with my settlement and I've missed some story and content on my almost 15 hrs of play with my current village.

TL;DR: It is fun, has a good tutorial for newbies like me, lacks a bit of pointers for the story, world building, and unlocking other races. Would gladly recommend if you want to get into this genre!! :D

I will be the first to admit I'm not a huge fan of colony sims. However, I have found this one quite accessible for someone new to this genre and I have really enjoyed my time with it!
The systems are deep and complex, and well tied together. There may be a learning curve for new players (like me) but once you get yourself sorted, you will have a BLAST managing all your little dudes (as I like to call them) and building up your base.
The pixel art is gorgeous and there are so many fun little details - like how atmosphere fills in the map the higher you go, the cute animations and portraits of your colonists, and I gotta say I *love* the colour palette of the taiga biome!
The fact that this is made by ONE PERSON is an enormous feat in and of itself. The game is frequently updated and it constantly blows my mind seeing how much content, bug fixes, features and options get added in on a regular basis.
I highly recommend this game!!

Good game. Build a little settlement and fill it with little people.

It's what I imagine Dorf Fortriss would be like

This is a "dwarffortreslike" with its own way of doing things. A Dwarf Fortress player might soon find themselves confused because despite appearances, this game has its own well thought-out mechanics and UI paradigms. Dwarf Fortress is merely an inspiration.

At the moment there is a good amount of content. More than enough to justify a buy. What is there is quite polished. The graphical style is consistent and in my opinion very nice. The music is also a good fit. The developer is active and responsive, and it shows that they know what they're doing.

If you like colony management sims, this one is a great and addictive alternative to scratch that itch. One of the best, in fact.

I enjoyed a lot playing this game. keep up the good and keep bringing more content! :)

Settler AI is horrible. UI is horrible. Pathfinding is horrible.
You'll frequently get "XXX can't get to YYY" messages if you have a lot going on.
Pretty much everything is clunky and inconvenient to use.
Still manages to be fun despite this.
Not sure how that works, but it does...

Already a great game, with more content it can even be better than Dwarf Fortress!

Such a great colony sim with a great developer that continues to grow and get better.

Great game. If you've always been too intimidated by the complexity of Dwarf fortress, or you just like colony sims, this is the game for you. Much deeper than your average colony sim, and not nearly as dense as dwarf fortress, it's a great balance if you ask me. It still in early access so there is the occasional bug, but the developer is very responsive to that sort of thing, and I've seen patches come out pretty soon after bugs were brought to his attention. My only complain so far is that the individual villagers don't have that much personality, coming from Dwarf fortress that quite noticeable. But I'm sure that will come eventually.

So over all its a great game that feels quite playable as it is now, and I am genuinely exited about what the future of the game holds.

Neat little management game where each race has a diffrent style to survive. The dev is very active on this one and fixes issues when they are brought up to them either via bug reports or on discord.

There was a little man standing by the river dying of thirst.

I wanted to like this game. Take note of one thing from the trailer here on Steam. See how the screen never moves? That the trailer never uses wasd or the mouse to move the screen from left, right, up, down? Its because as soon as you zoom into a playable view and start to move, it stutters. Its microstutter so it doesnt register as a frame loss. But its not smooth. At all. Its a very poor experience. I should have watched some youtube vidoes first. Upon watching some people play on youtube I verified its happening to everyone else playing too. It's early access I know. But optimization is important to me. As it stands now, I am considering a refund. Which is a bummer. The dev seems like a decent enough person from their posts on Steam. But, if the game isnt optimized now, when will it be?

great little game, looking forward to where it goes

Edit: Bug was fixed same day by the developer. Most impressive. Love the soundtrack! Beta fixes some issues i was having.

Imagine Worldbox mixed with the "aw man I'll get it right next time" attitude from Oxygen Not Included. This game is clever, builds upon new and old styles alike, and has multiple features for those of you who want to micromanage every aspect of your villager's tiny, virtual lives. better still. this game is looking at even more updates. Still, you can play as two perfectly good races. The humans (boring, weak, mortal.), or the Ancients (New! exciting! undying! Cool! patient. one with darkness itself. prepared to reclaim the world that is rightfully theirs. hide your family. spare them the bloodshed. no one wishes to see us desimate your warriors. Send your strongest. Your guns, your bombs, your giant metal toys you wave around and play with like overgrown children. we will smite your strongest weapons and men, plunging your ranks into the darkest, most secluded corners of the earth. we will win, for we need not sleep, nor food, nor water. We outnumber you by the thousands. we may not strike in days, nor weeks, nor months. But we will strike. And when we do, your cities shall crumble, and we shall lay waste to your world. Prepare for bloodshed. Prepare for death. Prepare to attempt to kill the undying, the decayed bodies you bury underneath the earth who have risen once more to take your very soul. Prepare to die a horrible death, destroyed by our magic and blades that overpower your giant metal playthings. Prepare to watch your cities crumble, and your feeble technology be crushed within a matter of days.
Prepare for the skeleton war.). so yeah! this game is amazing, and very addictive!
50/10 I cannot stop playing this
(This post was {DEFINITELY NOT} made by the {AMAZING MILITARY POWER OF THE} U.S.A{UNITED SKELETON ARMY})

This game is made by a solo Dev "Sleipnir" who by all rights is a mad genius. Innovative gameplay and ever expanding content. Very friendly and quite responsive. 10/10.

excellent little game very fun to watch like a little ant farm