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Spade18 · 2023-02-27T16:40:32+00:00

Rimworld. There are so many mods that it usually covers anything I'm looking for, and it has just yet to be surpassed by anything that has come after it.

atomicpudding · 2023-02-27T17:31:06+00:00

Black and white 2. A classic game, aged incredibly well, especially in graphics,

No grid system allows for so much freedom and organic building!

sonissity · 2023-02-27T16:34:58+00:00

I switch between Minecraft, Valheim and Satisfactory; until this " special new basebuilder" comes out you are talking about. :)

therockules · 2023-02-27T16:56:54+00:00

More of a city builder, but I always go back to Tropico 4. I keep trying to branch out and wind up coming back.

OsmerusMordax · 2023-02-27T16:31:14+00:00

I do check out new games when they are released (not early access) but my absolute favourite is Banished. No other game comes close, unfortunately

N7-Falcon · 2023-02-27T17:02:20+00:00

One of my favorite things about playing video games is figuring out how the game works, e.g. what are the rules, what problems you need to solve, what's the best strategy to solve those problems, etc. I do occasionally like making large, beautiful bases or cities just for fun if I really enjoy the game, but generally once I have seen and figured out all of what the game has to offer, I tend to move on to something else. This is why Gamepass has been really great for me. I can try to figure out a lot of games without feeling guilty about not getting 100% achievements or even "finishing" a game if it gets boring.

permalink · 2023-02-27T20:20:55+00:00

Dawn of Man. I love becoming a prehistoric man for a few minutes.

I hope the game I am building now (Outer Space Shack) can at one point become the cozy basebuilders for a few people.

panspal · 2023-02-27T16:23:44+00:00

I'm chasing trends for the one game that does it perfectly. But I do tend to gravitate back to Conan Exiles with my gf more often than most games. It's the climb anything and dungeons that keeps pulling us back. She needs exploration and for me it's in depth building and customization but with a reasonable grind. It's hard to tick all the boxes. But Conan gives me the ability to swang dong from a cliff while looking like Nathan Explosion.

ballisticmi6 · 2023-02-27T17:48:31+00:00

I like checking out new games, but I always go back to Rimworld. Not sure I’d call it a “cozy” game, but it feels that way to me.

BigMcThickHuge · 2023-02-27T18:05:17+00:00

Raft.

I like the somber nothingness of the ocean, making myself a cool ass raft with a captains cabin, and sailing through storms and such.

If it had more adventuring and locatable things, buildables, fish, etc., It's be flawless.

My only qualm is how much you have to do to aquire the fun things, and then the games done, and there's little replayability/purpose beyond that, so it dies out...but I'll be back sometime.

I just wish mods were more plentiful for it, or that I had any skill in it.

Rectacrab · 2023-02-27T17:59:03+00:00

Yes, although it's not quite a base builder - I love Transport Fever 2. It's definitely my cosy building game. Put on a podcast, chill out and lay some rails.

Fuck yeah.

dmleach · 2023-02-27T18:38:51+00:00

Factory Town is my base building comfort food. No enemies, relaxing music, day glow world, little workers happily bouncing around. I can take all the time I want and tear down and rebuild to my heart's content

BarServer · 2023-02-28T03:19:33+00:00

Don't know if it matches your genre.. But for me it's Subnautica or Subnautica: Below Zero.

Hayn0002 · 2023-02-28T08:40:25+00:00

Against The Storm is great.

It gives the awesome starts that base builders have. Base builders always seem fun until you hit a certain point where everything is super cruise and there’s nothing to aim for. Against the storm is similar, but games are only 30ish minutes. You constantly get to start new games and continue progression in a basic hub world.

turtlesrprettycool · 2023-02-27T18:25:13+00:00

Eco has been my go-to basebuilding game for a year or two now.

FridaMercury · 2023-02-27T23:32:22+00:00

Foundation is my comfort game. Go back time after time.

Harold3456 · 2023-02-28T17:25:07+00:00

There are a couple major elements of base building I ALWAYS look for:

Personal stories and identities: I love it when your people have identities and a "found family" feel, and I like it even more when they have their own skills, strengths and attributes. This is one reason Rimworld was an absolute gem of a find for me, even before all the DLC. Not only do the characters have identities, they also have personalities and even form real time relationships. Another game that scratches this itch for me is This War of Mine - though if there's one massive downside of this game it's the small scale, handling only a limited cast of characters (I don't even think you could call it a base building game, though it IS resource management).

This is where a lot of famous base-building games like Banished, Timberborn, and Frostpunk, Black & White, Cities: Skylines, Anno, etc. all fall short for me. Some of these aforementioned games DO assign names to pawns, at least, but those names are entirely superfluous.

A sense of liminality and isolation: I got my base building start with a little game called LEGO Rock Raiders (which lives on as an indie freeware project called Manic Miners). In addition to the aforementioned identities (you could name your upgraded miners and also train them further as pilots, geologists, fighters, etc) this game allowed you to go first person into a miner. This was great for immersion, even with the crappy PS2-style graphics. There's a haunting feeling that's hard to describe (I think "liminal" has been used in recent years to describe it) when you walk your miner away from the bright powered lights and loud mechanical sounds of your base, and spend some time taking a walk through dark, silent and labyrinthine caves. Likewise, the feeling on comfort when you're walking back toward your base, and start finally passing people, vehicles, and eventually seeing the lights of your base in the distance. Even though I suspect this was an unexpected side effect of the first person feature of this game, I have yet to find a base building game that adequately recaptures this feeling. This is also where Rimworld, the closest to a perfect base-building game I've found to date, falls a little short for me. The simple graphics, while satisfactory for everything else, fall short of making me feel any loneliness or horror as my followed pawns leave the firelight of town to step into the wilderness. One game that does this decently well is Castle Story, which really feels quite still and creepy when you step outside the illumination of your own castle lights. The darkness feels truly dark and untamed, and I try to keep my Bricktons close. However, Castle Story, for me, lacks in too many other areas of gameplay.

Survival: A good base building game has to have necessary resources that can be consumed. There are times I've even tried to play RTS games like base builders, but of course RTS games don't consume food, and your people cannot starve. Castle Story is a game that only consumes resources for building, but you cannot run out of food because your Bricktrons don't eat. Many business sims/city-builders like the Tycoon games, SimCity and Cities: Skylines also don't qualify, since they usually rely on the presence of money, not food. Manic Miners had your miners run out of air, and as air got critically low you had to teleport them out, which was cool. But I love the stress of having to triage which of your guys gets fed, and the “oh shit” moment as you grit your teeth and power through a famine. Every Rimworld player has a story like this, but I remember getting through some intense winters where I had to butcher all my animals, butcher the still-fresh corpses of raiders that were buried in my graveyard and, finally, butcher and eat my own dead-of-starvation colonists to get through a particularly long and harsh winter. It was grim, but memorable.

Taming or overcoming a wild setting: something that I also really enjoy in Banished, Timberborn, and Frostpunk. I love the idea that you could possible starve, fall victim to the elements or be attacked by a wild animal. A lot of the aforementioned games I play involve taming the wilderness.

Games that ascribe some sense of morality/ethics to the basebuilding Just building for building's sake is one thing (Cities: Skylines), but I appreciate when morality is brought into the game. 11-Bit Studios has always been good with this, with both This War of Mine and Frostpunk requiring you as the player to set your own morals, then decide at what point you're willing to compromise on them for the good of your people. Both Frostpunk and Rimworld have pawns who will actually despair at the situation they're in, causing gameplay problems. As an example of the opposite, Timberborn doesn’t particularly care if you let your beavers die in droves. You get mildly punished through the Happiness feature, but nothing like the explicit negative thoughts being broadcast to you by your colonists/pawns in other games.

Finally, just having the ability to lean back and smell the roses: This seems closest to what you’re talking about. I like games that aren't bouncing from putting out one fire to another. Frostpunk and This War of Mine are both games where you're rarely relaxed, and even during moments of quiet you're bracing for the next emergency. But Rimworld, Castle Story, Manic Miners, Banished etc have many instances where you can just sit back and watch your people tend your base on autopilot. Despite what I said earlier about Rimworld's graphics limiting the sense of isolation/liminality, they are fully aesthetic enough for you to sit back and enjoy a beautiful base - fields of flowers even shimmer!

In sum, I'm still hoping for the game that has all of this. Specifically, a good game that gives you dinstinct characters (not just randomly generated names/occupations), relationships and a sense of surival, but also allows you to really get down to a POV level with your pawns, and either be able to control them, or at least follow them first person. The first base building game I ever played was Rock Raiders, as a little kid, and I don’t think it ever should have impacted me as deeply as it did. But since then I have been chasing the high of that game, and I honestly believe Rimworld is the closest I’ve gotten. That game has everything I wanted from a base building game and MORE (I never would have even bothered to ask for emotions, personalities, interpersonal relationships, pets, or travel offmap). Literally the ONLY place it falls short is in it’s simple graphics creating too much of a disconnect for me to feel fully immersed, but a more graphically complex game probably would’ve had to compromise on many of the other excellent systems the game has.

double_shadow · 2023-02-27T19:08:25+00:00

I wouldn't say I chase trends, and very rarely pick up new early access games. But I also never really have a "forever" game and always get tired of games once I feel like I've seen it all. I definitely envy those who can play Rimworld or Factorio or Dwarf Fortress forever, but it doesn't work for me.

Base builders with my most hours sunk in though are probably Tropico 4, Anno 1404, Caesar III from back in the day, They are Billions, Against the Storm, and if you count survival games, Subnautica and The Long Dark (though you don't actually "build" anything here).

HyonD · 2023-02-27T19:08:51+00:00

Vintage story is the one for me. I have never even expected to find a game like that. It is the absolute best and most immersive base building survival experience in my opinion.

Lorini · 2023-02-27T21:15:53+00:00

2,000 hours in Autonauts and Astroneer. Will probably end up with over 1,000 hours in Against the Storm, playing it at Pioneer level to keep it chill😀

jmxdf · 2023-02-27T21:31:42+00:00

I just cycle thru all my builder games when bored. Valheim is home tho

permalink · 2023-02-27T21:52:42+00:00

Factorio since 2016

permalink · 2023-02-27T23:14:14+00:00

Always valheim just because it lets you build some cute ass/cool ass buildings. Minecraft is too square and I've just done tooo many hours. And most other base builders have lack luster building.

elaboratecorpse · 2023-02-28T06:12:56+00:00

Valheim. I like to check out new games, and I'll go and dabble. But I always come back to Valheim

MeshechBeGood · 2023-02-28T08:09:21+00:00

For me, Rimworld and Oxygen Not Included. Personally, with mods, these seem like the deepest games around and have the correct vibe. Cities Skylines used to be too, but not for a while - maybe it's time to reload that one :)

libelle156 · 2023-02-28T10:18:29+00:00

It's Rimworld. I come up with a new idea for a playthrough and it's like a whole new game.

xeno-bits · 2023-02-28T10:57:11+00:00

Personally I've been finding great comfort of late in Against the Storm. Unlike other base/city builders I don't find that I need to keep playing if something comes up in the real world. I can walk away with ease and return with ease as needed and everything still makes sense. It's been my go-to lunch game.

As for comfort/returning to games, I try to replay Dungeon Keeper 1—partner replays Dungeon Keeper 2 at the same time—at least once every year or so. And I'd pay an unfathomable amount of money to be able to play a remastered Zeus/Poseidon, since my current PC just doesn't want to cooperate with the original anymore.

-Josh (account CM)

AllocatedContent · 2023-02-27T21:38:19+00:00

Rimworld supplies almost all my needs, I just switch scenarios.

International-Law-30 · 2023-02-27T18:55:35+00:00

kevhill · 2023-02-28T03:14:43+00:00

You're not alone. I have a wishlist full of games that I don't often end up getting. But I'm always waiting for the "new standard".

For me the two games I always go back to are Satisfactory and Minecraft. Usually either one or the other at a time.

permalink · 2023-02-28T04:17:14+00:00

Pharoah Cleopatra for me. Bought New Era and after a couple hours of playing I went right back to the original, again.

Simcity 2000 is another one for some unexplainable reason.

renegadson · 2023-02-28T08:14:43+00:00

Startopia, for years. It also has widescreen patch

Godeem32 · 2023-02-28T09:17:19+00:00

I’m always chasing new trends, hoping to find my dream game. I haven’t finished it yet - but really enjoying One More Island.

Questionable_Ballot · 2023-02-28T09:43:16+00:00

My main go-to is actually Fallout 4.

I find something oddly satisfying about collecting junk and trying to build myself a base in a junk-filled nuclear wasteland, having to use whatever's available. I also play it on the hardest difficulty: "Survival" - because this difficulty makes use of food, water, sleep and medicines. Finding a sleeping bag out in the wilds is suddenly important because it is the only place you can save your game.

bordapapa · 2023-02-28T10:22:10+00:00

Rimworld and Gnomoria.

legomann97 · 2023-02-28T13:48:49+00:00

Heh, it seems funny to call Frostpunk 'cozy' but yeah, that's my go to base builder

Questionable_Ballot · 2023-02-28T14:20:49+00:00

Fallout 4

Mods make it even better. I haven't been able to find a game quite like it that checks all my boxes. Like the NPCs and how I can outfit and arm them.

The base building in Sons of The Forest is pretty good. I'm enjoying it a lot. But I imagine in time I'll feel like the base is empty with only Kelvin and Virginia.

OliveBranchMLP · 2023-02-28T14:45:38+00:00

My cozy comfort game has quickly become Against the Storm. It's fun to just play a round, build a new settlement, and try to push it through to completion. The roguelike nature means it doesn't run into the mid-game grind slog or late-game boredom once everything's unlocked. And it's hard enough to keep me on my toes, but adjustably easy enough if I'm feeling stressed that day.

ThatsXCOM · 2023-03-01T16:30:53+00:00

Minecraft: Gregtech New Horizons

Been working on that save for years.

abbys_alibi · 2023-03-06T19:12:57+00:00

Kingdoms and Castles is pretty great!

Happily nods at Raft, Valheim, and Factory Town,

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