With the flurry of support and fraud combat tasks abating, I took a little while to watch Zeebos’ stream. A discussion was had and it quickly became apparent that a lot of the events in the game weren’t really firing – ever. No heat waves, no crazy animals, no crashed ship parts.

Doing some local testing, I realized how bad it was. Most of the events in the game would never fire.

Holy crap!

I’ve fixed the issue and uploaded a patch. Your save games will be compatible. This will change balance somewhat - I'll be watching to see if it needs adjusting.

Look at it this way – it’s like releasing a juicy content patch three days after release!

Patch notes:

Fix: Events never fire (except in some exceptional circumstances):
• Infestation
  
• Manhunter pack
  
• Psychic ship part crash
  
• Poison ship part crash
  
• Animal insanity (single)
  
• Eclipse
  
• Solar flare
  
• Psychic drone
  
• Toxic fallout
  
• Volcanic winter
  
• Heatwave
  
• Cold snap
  
• Flashstorm
  
• Short circuit
  
• Crop blight
  
• Alphabeavers
  
• Psychic soothe
  
• Refugee chased
  
• Thrumbo passes
• Fix: Storyteller incorrectly adjusts trader frequency in relation to ally count.
  
• Fix: Threat cycle event maker sometimes queues events without enough points to actually fire them.

With the flurry of support and fraud combat tasks abating, I took a little while to watch Zeebos’ stream. A discussion was had and it quickly became apparent that a lot of the events in the game weren’t really firing – ever. No heat waves, no crazy animals, no crashed ship parts.

Doing some local testing, I realized how bad it was. Most of the events in the game would never fire.

Holy crap!

I’ve fixed the issue and uploaded a patch. Your save games will be compatible. This will change balance somewhat - I'll be watching to see if it needs adjusting.

Look at it this way – it’s like releasing a juicy content patch three days after release!

Patch notes:

Fix: Events never fire (except in some exceptional circumstances):
• Infestation
  
• Manhunter pack
  
• Psychic ship part crash
  
• Poison ship part crash
  
• Animal insanity (single)
  
• Eclipse
  
• Solar flare
  
• Psychic drone
  
• Toxic fallout
  
• Volcanic winter
  
• Heatwave
  
• Cold snap
  
• Flashstorm
  
• Short circuit
  
• Crop blight
  
• Alphabeavers
  
• Psychic soothe
  
• Refugee chased
  
• Thrumbo passes
• Fix: Storyteller incorrectly adjusts trader frequency in relation to ally count.
  
• Fix: Threat cycle event maker sometimes queues events without enough points to actually fire them.

The day is finally here. RimWorld is now available on Steam! You can buy it at the RimWorld Steam Store page. It’s got full support for Steam Workshop and Cloud saves.

Also, Alpha 14 – Scenario System is out! For full information Alpha 14, including the change list, look at the Alpha 14 preview thread.

More good news – everyone who owns the game can move it to Steam. Hooray! You get a Steam key! And you get a Steam key! To get your Steam key, go to the automated link and key sender.

(EDIT: The following no longer applies; we've been forced to cut off Steam keys from our site due to fraudster attacks.) A business note – If you want, buying it from our site is better for us. This way, we get significantly more of the money, since Steam isn’t taking their cut. You can still immediately grab your Steam key and put the game on your Steam account. Obviously we’ll still be very happy if you buy it either way!

Here’s the Alpha 14 features rundown video! It explains the scenario system and other new features:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QiFRqCvG6Q4

The day is finally here. RimWorld is now available on Steam! You can buy it at the RimWorld Steam Store page. It’s got full support for Steam Workshop and Cloud saves.

Also, Alpha 14 – Scenario System is out! For full information Alpha 14, including the change list, look at the Alpha 14 preview thread.

More good news – everyone who owns the game can move it to Steam. Hooray! You get a Steam key! And you get a Steam key! To get your Steam key, go to the automated link and key sender.

(EDIT: The following no longer applies; we've been forced to cut off Steam keys from our site due to fraudster attacks.) A business note – If you want, buying it from our site is better for us. This way, we get significantly more of the money, since Steam isn’t taking their cut. You can still immediately grab your Steam key and put the game on your Steam account. Obviously we’ll still be very happy if you buy it either way!

Here’s the Alpha 14 features rundown video! It explains the scenario system and other new features:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QiFRqCvG6Q4

Alpha 14 will be released with the Steam release, on July 15, at 1pm EST. For now, though here’s a preview! Below the video, you can find a summary of all the changes we’ve made for Alpha 14. Steam up the hype train!

Here's a video preview:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QiFRqCvG6Q4
Change summary:

• New scenario system allows you to choose, randomize, and customize special situations to play in. Determine starting situation, your type of community (tribe, colony), permanent map conditions, starting items, animals, health conditions, and traits, and change special rules.
• Several built-in scenarios, including one matching the classic RimWorld experience, are included.
• You can randomize new scenarios.
• You can customize scenarios with a special interface that allows creation of any scenario you like.
• Scenarios can be uploaded to or grabbed from Steam Workshop with a single click.
• ScenPart: Permanent version of all map conditions (eclipse, solar flare, etc).
• ScenPart: Planetkiller scenario part: World is destroyed on X date.
• ScenPart: Climate cycle which makes the world get warmer and cooler over a period of years. Winter is coming.
• ScenPart: Disable building a given type of building.
• ScenPart: Pawns start with health condition.
• ScenPart: Start with items.
• ScenPart: Map is scattered with items.
• ScenPart: Configure arrival method (pods or standing)
• ScenPart: Starting pawns are all between ages X and Y
• ScenPart: Pawns explode on death (configurable type and radius)
• ScenPart: All pawns from source (game start/all) have trait X
• ScenPart: Starting animal(s)
• ScenPart: Disallow mining
• ScenPart: Disallow hunting
• ScenPart: Disallow taming
• ScenPart: Disallow growing
• ScenPart: Disable incident
• ScenPart: Multiplier for any stat on the game (move speed, mining speed, etc)
• ScenPart: Disallow building

• Pawns can no longer overlap during melee combat (unless they're really small). No more animal deathstacks! This also creates new tactics around blocking, surrounding, or back-line shooters. We had to write a bunch of AI and blocking code to make this function.

• Raiders can now enter "steal" mode if they see enough value. They'll grab your stuff and carry it off.
• Kidnapping raiders now work together much better to kidnap. Instead of everyone fleeing at once, some will kidnap while others cover them.
• AI dressing algorithm is now better at making outfits to withstand cold temperatures. If there is no way to make a survivable outfit, pawns won't arrive at all. No more raids arriving and keeling over in -60C weather.
• Predators no longer hunt boomrats and boomalopes.
• Pawns will be smarter about avoiding traps in various situations.

• Full Steam Workshop support for mods.
• You can now play as a tribe in some scenarios.
• Added torch lamp
• Added pemmican for low-tech food preservation.
• Research difficulty is now related to your faction's tech level. Researching techs above your level is harder. So if you're a tribe, researching spaceflight will be difficult.
• Added research (needed for tribes only): complex clothing, electricity
• Added research (needed for non-tribes only): pemmican
• Added research: air conditioning, autodoors, gun turrets
• Added 'ransom demand' incident. Can fire after one of your people is kidnapped.
• Added "killed my X" social thoughts so people dislike their loved ones' killers
• Added new class of "minor" mental breaks, which can happen at mood under 40%.
• Added minor mental break: food binge.
• Ground fertility is now reported on mouseover.
• Added moisture pump, which slowly converts wet terrain to dry terrain. Requires power.
• Hives now pop out glow pods - bug light sources that glow for 20 days (as long as they’re installed) and can be reinstalled or sold.
• Added traits: creepy breathing, annoying voice. These are socially repellent.
• Added trait: pyromaniac. Will go on firestarting sprees when stressed, and never puts out fire.
• Added panther for jungle biome. Because I discovered panthers aren't real and I need to cope with this somehow.
• There is now an orange glow to help you identify very hot areas.
• Added/replaced animals created by the excellent Kay Fedewa:
  
  • Caribou
  • Cassowary
  • Deer
  • Emu
  • Arctic fox
  • Fennec fox
  • Red fox
  • Gazelle
  • Husky
  • Ibex
  • Lynx
  • Megatherium (prehistoric giant ground sloth)
  • Ostrich
  • Raccoon
  • Rat
  • Turkey
  • Arctic wolf
  • Timber wolf

• Added a row of colonist icons along the top of the screen, with various status info. They can be clicked to select, double-clicked to jump to, or box-selected to multi-select. These icons can be turned off.
• Trading interface now lets you type in the number you want to trade instead of dragging to the number.
• Animals tab now has gender and life stage informational columns
• Animals tab now has a "slaughter" checkbox column to allow easy slaughtering of many animals
• Animals tab now has checkbox columns for each trainable, to allow easy training of many animals
• Reworked the right-click menu to be prettier, more readable, more solid, and better handle large lists of options.

• Traders, visitors, raiders, kidnappers, animals, etc will now escape if surrounded by walls with no way out.
• Manhunters and insects will attack doors if colonists try to hop in and out of them while getting shots off.
• Hives must now be tended by insects, so if insects are all instantly killed by a turret wall, the hives will die out.
• You can no longer avoid the 'executed prisoner' mood impact by just shooting or starving the prisoner; pawns will get a "prisoner died innocent" thought. A similar solution applies to the deaths of colonists.
• Solved various powerleveling exploits. Once colonists have learned a certain (high) amount in a day, they'll learn at a much-reduced rate until the next day.
• Flowers are no longer good animal feed (reduced nutrition).
• Fixed exploit where players would give prisoner to raiders for kidnapping, to make raiders go away without a fight. Solution: Raiders only kidnap colonists.

• Updated to Unity 5.
• World generation is now part of the new game process, instead of being separate.
• Roofs must now be manually built and torn down by colonists; they do not appear and disappear instantly any more.
• Reworked AI food selection algorithm to take into account personal mood impacts, rottenness, and other new factors. e.g. Now cannibals will actually seek out cannibal food because they get a mood bonus, while non-cannibals will avoid it.
• Flow for opening worlds and savegames from old version is now improved; the "warning, old version" dialog comes before you open them instead of after.
• Deworked mods config menu to have a much nicer selection and ordering interface.
• Humans can now eat unbutchered corpses (though they really don't like it).
• Infestations are easier and grow less exponentially.
• Infestations only appear deeper underground now.
• AI now runs away from grenades thrown by their own faction.
• Tortoises aren't so deadly any more.
• Animals no longer do incest.
• Humans now do incest.
• Seeds for world gen are now generated from actual words instead of random letter strings.
• You can now set both minimum and maximum skill on a bill.
• Beauty trait now has four stages: Staggeringly ugly, ugly, pretty, beautiful.
• Some backstories now force pawns to have a given trait (e.g. Model->Beautiful)
• Trade caravans can bring pack dromedaries.
• Projectiles fired by hunting colonists no longer intercept random targets.
• Some traders buy and sell furniture now.
• Gut worms and muscle parasites vanish sooner.
• Reworked ancient tomb loot generation. Plasteel is sometimes found on pod people. So are components.
• Nuzzling is now a visualized, recorded social interaction.
• Various refactorings to make modding easier and code easier to maintain and more flexible. Much more functionality is now implemented as composable ThingComps.
• Many, many, many other balance changes, gameplay and interface refinements, and bugfixes.

Alpha 14 will be released with the Steam release, on July 15, at 1pm EST. For now, though here’s a preview! Below the video, you can find a summary of all the changes we’ve made for Alpha 14. Steam up the hype train!

Here's a video preview:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QiFRqCvG6Q4
Change summary:

• New scenario system allows you to choose, randomize, and customize special situations to play in. Determine starting situation, your type of community (tribe, colony), permanent map conditions, starting items, animals, health conditions, and traits, and change special rules.
• Several built-in scenarios, including one matching the classic RimWorld experience, are included.
• You can randomize new scenarios.
• You can customize scenarios with a special interface that allows creation of any scenario you like.
• Scenarios can be uploaded to or grabbed from Steam Workshop with a single click.
• ScenPart: Permanent version of all map conditions (eclipse, solar flare, etc).
• ScenPart: Planetkiller scenario part: World is destroyed on X date.
• ScenPart: Climate cycle which makes the world get warmer and cooler over a period of years. Winter is coming.
• ScenPart: Disable building a given type of building.
• ScenPart: Pawns start with health condition.
• ScenPart: Start with items.
• ScenPart: Map is scattered with items.
• ScenPart: Configure arrival method (pods or standing)
• ScenPart: Starting pawns are all between ages X and Y
• ScenPart: Pawns explode on death (configurable type and radius)
• ScenPart: All pawns from source (game start/all) have trait X
• ScenPart: Starting animal(s)
• ScenPart: Disallow mining
• ScenPart: Disallow hunting
• ScenPart: Disallow taming
• ScenPart: Disallow growing
• ScenPart: Disable incident
• ScenPart: Multiplier for any stat on the game (move speed, mining speed, etc)
• ScenPart: Disallow building

• Pawns can no longer overlap during melee combat (unless they're really small). No more animal deathstacks! This also creates new tactics around blocking, surrounding, or back-line shooters. We had to write a bunch of AI and blocking code to make this function.

• Raiders can now enter "steal" mode if they see enough value. They'll grab your stuff and carry it off.
• Kidnapping raiders now work together much better to kidnap. Instead of everyone fleeing at once, some will kidnap while others cover them.
• AI dressing algorithm is now better at making outfits to withstand cold temperatures. If there is no way to make a survivable outfit, pawns won't arrive at all. No more raids arriving and keeling over in -60C weather.
• Predators no longer hunt boomrats and boomalopes.
• Pawns will be smarter about avoiding traps in various situations.

• Full Steam Workshop support for mods.
• You can now play as a tribe in some scenarios.
• Added torch lamp
• Added pemmican for low-tech food preservation.
• Research difficulty is now related to your faction's tech level. Researching techs above your level is harder. So if you're a tribe, researching spaceflight will be difficult.
• Added research (needed for tribes only): complex clothing, electricity
• Added research (needed for non-tribes only): pemmican
• Added research: air conditioning, autodoors, gun turrets
• Added 'ransom demand' incident. Can fire after one of your people is kidnapped.
• Added "killed my X" social thoughts so people dislike their loved ones' killers
• Added new class of "minor" mental breaks, which can happen at mood under 40%.
• Added minor mental break: food binge.
• Ground fertility is now reported on mouseover.
• Added moisture pump, which slowly converts wet terrain to dry terrain. Requires power.
• Hives now pop out glow pods - bug light sources that glow for 20 days (as long as they’re installed) and can be reinstalled or sold.
• Added traits: creepy breathing, annoying voice. These are socially repellent.
• Added trait: pyromaniac. Will go on firestarting sprees when stressed, and never puts out fire.
• Added panther for jungle biome. Because I discovered panthers aren't real and I need to cope with this somehow.
• There is now an orange glow to help you identify very hot areas.
• Added/replaced animals created by the excellent Kay Fedewa:
  
  • Caribou
  • Cassowary
  • Deer
  • Emu
  • Arctic fox
  • Fennec fox
  • Red fox
  • Gazelle
  • Husky
  • Ibex
  • Lynx
  • Megatherium (prehistoric giant ground sloth)
  • Ostrich
  • Raccoon
  • Rat
  • Turkey
  • Arctic wolf
  • Timber wolf

• Added a row of colonist icons along the top of the screen, with various status info. They can be clicked to select, double-clicked to jump to, or box-selected to multi-select. These icons can be turned off.
• Trading interface now lets you type in the number you want to trade instead of dragging to the number.
• Animals tab now has gender and life stage informational columns
• Animals tab now has a "slaughter" checkbox column to allow easy slaughtering of many animals
• Animals tab now has checkbox columns for each trainable, to allow easy training of many animals
• Reworked the right-click menu to be prettier, more readable, more solid, and better handle large lists of options.

• Traders, visitors, raiders, kidnappers, animals, etc will now escape if surrounded by walls with no way out.
• Manhunters and insects will attack doors if colonists try to hop in and out of them while getting shots off.
• Hives must now be tended by insects, so if insects are all instantly killed by a turret wall, the hives will die out.
• You can no longer avoid the 'executed prisoner' mood impact by just shooting or starving the prisoner; pawns will get a "prisoner died innocent" thought. A similar solution applies to the deaths of colonists.
• Solved various powerleveling exploits. Once colonists have learned a certain (high) amount in a day, they'll learn at a much-reduced rate until the next day.
• Flowers are no longer good animal feed (reduced nutrition).
• Fixed exploit where players would give prisoner to raiders for kidnapping, to make raiders go away without a fight. Solution: Raiders only kidnap colonists.

• Updated to Unity 5.
• World generation is now part of the new game process, instead of being separate.
• Roofs must now be manually built and torn down by colonists; they do not appear and disappear instantly any more.
• Reworked AI food selection algorithm to take into account personal mood impacts, rottenness, and other new factors. e.g. Now cannibals will actually seek out cannibal food because they get a mood bonus, while non-cannibals will avoid it.
• Flow for opening worlds and savegames from old version is now improved; the "warning, old version" dialog comes before you open them instead of after.
• Deworked mods config menu to have a much nicer selection and ordering interface.
• Humans can now eat unbutchered corpses (though they really don't like it).
• Infestations are easier and grow less exponentially.
• Infestations only appear deeper underground now.
• AI now runs away from grenades thrown by their own faction.
• Tortoises aren't so deadly any more.
• Animals no longer do incest.
• Humans now do incest.
• Seeds for world gen are now generated from actual words instead of random letter strings.
• You can now set both minimum and maximum skill on a bill.
• Beauty trait now has four stages: Staggeringly ugly, ugly, pretty, beautiful.
• Some backstories now force pawns to have a given trait (e.g. Model->Beautiful)
• Trade caravans can bring pack dromedaries.
• Projectiles fired by hunting colonists no longer intercept random targets.
• Some traders buy and sell furniture now.
• Gut worms and muscle parasites vanish sooner.
• Reworked ancient tomb loot generation. Plasteel is sometimes found on pod people. So are components.
• Nuzzling is now a visualized, recorded social interaction.
• Various refactorings to make modding easier and code easier to maintain and more flexible. Much more functionality is now implemented as composable ThingComps.
• Many, many, many other balance changes, gameplay and interface refinements, and bugfixes.

I'm stoked to announce that the next version of RimWorld, Alpha 14, will be released on Steam Early Access on July 15, 2016. You can add it to your Steam wish list on the RimWorld Steam page. On Steam, the game will have full Workshop support, for sharing mods and scenarios. It will also support Steam Cloud.

Non-Steam users will, of course, still be able to access your DRM-free downloads as you always have. They'll update just as before.

Alpha 14 is a large update, since it's been several months since Alpha 13 and we've had 2-3 developers working continuously. So, it's got about 5-6 developer-months of effort in it (the original pre-Alpha for the 2013 Kickstarter had about nine developer-months). However, it is also a refinement-oriented update. I could've packed more mega-features in addition to the scenario system, but instead chose to focus on fixing a lot of old issues. Veteran players will notice a huge number of subtle improvements at every level, which newcomers should have an even more polished experience.

I've also been reworking the code to try to support modding better. Making it easier to mod the game makes it more fun to mod, which modders like, so they make more and better mods, which players like. I think it's a powerful and often under-emphasized way of turbocharging a game community. I'm still soliciting requests in this thread: What would make the game easier to mod?

Being Early Access, we'll continue to release new alpha versions of RimWorld with new features into the foreseeable future. We've already started some new mega-additions for Alpha 15. We can't squeeze them into Alpha 14 because it's too late and they'd introduce bugs. But momentum is good and we're poised to leap forward in the months ahead.

I'm also going to be doing something unusual, which is trying to actively market the game. I much prefer game development work to marketing work, and so have usually followed the Field of Dreams marketing strategy ("If you build it, they will come.") But, for something as important as the Steam release, I think it's worth making some effort to get the word out. Wish me luck! And, if anyone has any ideas for ways to spread the word, I'd be happy to hear them in the comments here, or on the forums.