I Want to Write about Odd Realm.

What can I say? It is a charming, pixelated little colony builder. I genuinely consider it an unappreciated gem. Odd Realm originally sparked my attention a year before its initial early release on itch.io. I was charmed by the little pixel people walking around and building things. It looked like a mini Dwarf Fortress, and I had to have it. When I finally got my hands on it, I fell in love. While the initial Odd Realm release had a lot going for it, there were problems with pacing, and the balance of the game left me wanting. Another issue I had with the game back then was the font used for text. It was a custom font made by the game's developer with an extremely limited palette of pixels. This font was hard to read, not just for me but for almost anyone I spoke with at the time. Quite a few of my friends back then tried it, and most of them bounced off to never return due to this font. After about a month, a new font was patched in. I tried the game again and really liked the improvements that had been made, so I decided that I would continue to check in on it periodically.

I was going to describe Odd Realm and explain the basics. However, at the end of this article, I have an interview with the developer. I think it's best if I let him explain what the game is.

"Odd Realm is a colony sim set in a procedurally generated fantasy world. You take control of a group of settlers starting a new kingdom after a calamity has reset the world. Players can choose from one of four races to play where each has unique play-styles and mechanics. Their survival will be tested against changing seasons, roaming marauders, and underground horrors." - Waylon

It can be hard to stand out and get your game noticed. From my perspective, Odd Realm has floundered in early access but has built a small but extremely dedicated cult following. The game truly stands out from the competition with its unique playable factions. The Humans are the default and rather normal of the lot. They are well-rounded and are probably the best starting spot for a new player since there are no crazy mechanics that the player has to manage, and everything is quite straightforward. Then there are The Ancients. They are immortal skeletons. Due to being made of bones, they are extremely brittle. The way they reproduce is by digging and seeking out tombs that have more of their kind in them. Other factions can run into these as well, but they won't be friendly. When playing as The Ancients, keeping your skeletons from falling apart is crucial to their survival. Instead of doing work themselves, they summon small demons to do their work for them. It’s a really interesting set of mechanics and completely different from playing Humans. Now, I can’t forget The Ardyn. They are purple and have time powers. They are affected by time more than any other race, and because of this, they age quickly. This means they have to take the logical approach and kidnap living creatures so that they can feed off their life force—time vampires, so to speak. This is the faction I have spent the least amount of time with, but again, they are extremely unique. They also have a skill called Time Weave that allows them to manipulate objects into existence using time itself. The last of the set of playable factions are The Gwdir. This is a race of forest-dwelling plant creatures. They start off with seeds for their T'Thdir tree. Once planted, it grows quite quickly and spreads a purple moss. The tree grows fruits that can be harvested and planted to grow more population, or the seeds can be ground down into pulp to make weapons and gear. I try not to think about this process too much, but I've come to terms that they are plant spirit zerg. There is a planned fifth faction called The Tomek, but they are just on the roadmap for the time being.

Odd Realm is a little odd, I'll admit. The world itself takes place after the "Calamity" that broke the world as they knew it. As you play through Odd Realm, you will encounter written characters that reveal portions of the story. These folks are adorable and help build up an awesome feeling for the game's little world. Many of you reading this are probably wondering about the world generation and whether it compares to Dwarf Fortress. The game does not generate a book's worth of history, no. However, what it does do is generate absolutely beautiful maps to play on, with complex cave systems, discoverable loot, hidden threats, and much more. I really like the play spaces that Odd Realm provides. There are Desert, Taiga, Tundra, and Void biomes, with various terrain types. It can be simple on the surface, but there is a lot going on in these different embark sites. You can also pack up and move your characters to a new location mid-playthrough if you think you have seen what there is to see on a map and want to find more elsewhere. Odd Realm also lets the player embark on the ocean, just in case you want to reenact Water World.

The citizens in your colony have really basic needs. There is not much going on in the way of emotions or personality. I don't think those types of mechanics are needed here, though. The little meeples are also rather delicate and can die extremely quickly. They need sleep, food, and water. They would of course prefer alcohol but will take water as an alternative. While sometimes their sense of self-preservation is about as deep as lemmings, they are charming and amusing to see fumble about. Tasks can be individually assigned, and their jobs can be selected from a list. Jobs can have uniforms set for each person, and I highly recommend you get weapons as soon as possible. The research tree in the top right of the screen runs automatically when you select something to research. Although, I wish I could queue multiple items up in a row. Tomes are also awarded during the research process, and these can be held by meeples as part of their uniforms. They can give large bonuses to their tasks. Tomes of Agriculture give a bonus to farming, etc. There is an unlockable library to store these or break them down for crafting. Another interesting feature of the game is its currency, "Ren," which is made up of little gold coins. They are a physical item in the world and will need to be transported for trading. Bandits also target your treasure hoard when they assault your living space. Those meanies 😦

The UI for Odd Realm has seen a number of major changes over time. It used to be a lot bigger and less modular. While I think the original user interface had its perks for a player just starting out, the ambition of Odd Realm required something with more modifiable elements. The user interface that came with the full 1.0 release was a bit of a shock to me, mainly due to the fact that the game used to have a tutorial—and it was a good one at that. The new user interface did not have a tutorial. I had to remember how to play the game while attempting to learn a new and significantly smaller interface. Fortunately, I think it's actually a really well-designed playfield. Perhaps a bit obtuse at the start, but everything is easily searchable by holding down Shift. It also includes well-placed hotkeys that speed up the process as you play. As far as the tutorial goes, Waylon seems to be aware that it is sorely needed.

Hey everyone!

Happy to see so many new faces in the community. I'm working away furiously on the issues that were brought to my attention this weekend. In this patch I address a particularly nasty game freeze that happened after killing bandits. You shouldn't encounter that issue any more. As well, there are a few more serious bugs I'm working on for the next patch coming very, very soon.

And, of course, I've heard loud and clear that a tutorial needs to be added. That is one of my top priorities and I've added the first section to this patch. It's definitely not the final tutorial (maybe like 10%), but it's what I was able to get accomplished in between the chaos that was this weekend. Thank you so much for patiently waiting on that! - Waylon, Steam News Post.

That is a great sign for the near future of the game. I just hope that the initial folks who were turned off give it another shot as the tutorial gets fleshed out.

I really like Odd Realm, its deep, Charming, unique and Quirky. It stands on its own two feet in a deep dense and dark genre of games. It is bright and colourful with lots of content to sink your teeth into. I don't think its a game that I'd spend tens of thousands of hours playing but I will absolutely put a few hundred into it. I have not even scratched the surface of the over world map yet. Apparently you can send out armies and make alliances? That will be something I will have to dig into this week on stream. Odd Realm is on Steam, GOG and itch.io

Save 25% on Odd Realm on Steam

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.

STEAM

Odd Realm

Mac version is coming soon! Take control of a group of settlers to build a settlement th

GOG.com

Odd Realm by UnknownOriginGames

Take control of a group of settlers to build a settlement that survives the passing seasons.

itch.io

Odd Realm is the kind of project I love to support. The best part of my job is finding these small artsy projects and helping them find a bigger audience. While it might not become the biggest game in the genre it deserves ever ounce of success it receives. I think a lot of people have bounced off it for one reason or another. I hope that the 1.0 release is a reason for them to give the game a second chance and return to the Realm of the Odd. Perhaps they will tell a friend and help the game grow. I plan to do more full days of Odd Realm on stream in the next few weeks. Its got its hooks in me and I need to see where that takes us.

The Following is a interview with the developer of Odd Realm.

• Could you describe what odd realm is for anyone who has never seen or played it before?

Odd Realm is a colony sim set in a procedurally generated fantasy world. You take control of a group of settlers starting a new kingdom after a calamity has reset the world. Players can choose from one of four races to play where each has unique playstyles and mechanics. Their survival will be tested against changing seasons, roaming marauders, and underground horrors.

• What makes Odd Realm unique when comparing to other games in the genre?

I've put a lot of work into the charm of Odd Realm. It has always been a goal to make it feel like a thriving world with a special personality of its own. There's always going to be an element in the game that you could say another game has, but I think Odd Realm really brings many great features together into one whole. Passing seasons, temperature systems, varied biomes, races with unique gameplay mechanics, 3d procedural terrain, animated characters, simple but charming visuals, whimsical soundtrack, and so on. All this comes together to form a cozy... vibe.

• How long have you been working on Odd Realm?

I quit my job at the beginning of 2017 and immediately started working on Odd Realm. So, 7.5 years. Ha!

• What were your main goals for the project during your time in Early Access? Did you achieve them and was there any you missed?

Early Access was a proving ground for whether I could technically make something so complex. I didn't really know how to program a whole game when I started and it was a serious challenge for me to learn how to code all the systems for something so complicated. I'm extremely happy with 1.0 because I was able to overcome those technical hurdles and I now feel free to expand the game's content. I definitely wasn't able to add every single thing I wanted to, but I'm confident I can do so for 1.1 and beyond without fearing the technical side of development.

• Odd Realm has had some major user interface renovations over the years. Is there anything you preferred more about the original user interface you had?

There are some things which I plan on adding which were present in older versions. For example, the entity overlay is coming back because I want players to be able to inspect entities and their histories (another feature I will be working on soon). A lot of things from the old UI like this were meant to come into 1.0's UI, but I ran out of time. The old uniforms UI comes to mind (another thing I'll be updating). I think a lot of players think those things are cut, but it is just a slow process migrating everything to the new UI system. Which, for the record, was re-written for several reasons: optimization (the old UI was slow), iteration speed (the old UI was difficult to iterate and work with), as well as design uniformity and common visual language.

• What were the main goals when rebuilding the UI?

Make it faster, make it all have the same visual language and design principles, and make it easily extendable.

• What is your favorite faction in Odd Realm to play?

I love the Ancients for their lore (which I hope to inject more of into the game). I like the Humans for their mechanics. They are just a comfortable play style I guess I'm used to now.

• What faction was the most interesting or challenging to design?

Definitely the Gwdir and is a reason why they are half finished at the moment. I had to spend a lot of time upgrading the world simulation system to support them as they heavily rely on trees and plants growing. I wanted them to feel like they grew huge unique trees to live symbiotically with and the old system of spawning prefab trees just wasn't going to cut it.

• Lets talk about 1.0, was this goal post always set here? 4 playable factions and a structured experience? What makes this a 1.0 in your eyes.

Truthfully, 1.0 should have been 5 years ago. I don't think it really matters what a 1.0 is and I think people would have still enjoyed the game. It's just, I don't know, words. All that matters is, as a story teller and creator, you keep going forward. What I should have done back then was say, ok, 1.0 is the humans, 1.1 is the Ancients, 1.2 Ardyn, etc. My mistake was I promised those five races from the get-go as the "1.0" and I hate letting people down after I've promised something, so I kept on going. In the end, I didn't make it, but I'm still extremely proud of what I've accomplished. I'm still able to work on the game and continue to make it better, so it all turned out ok.

• After launch plans, there is still one faction left to add could you talk a little about what they will be like?

The Tomek! They are a subterranean race and are 1 of 2 races that let you choose a starting location underground from the start. The second race being a secret for now. They are also unique in that they live off crystals they grow in their cave dwellings. I think they are going to be a blast to implement and play.

• Whats next?

I have a brief rest holiday planned as I worked almost every day for the last year, but I plan to keep working on Odd Realm and Odd Realm related stuff for as long as I can. The Tomek, kingdom features, modding support, localization into other languages, UI polish, QoL, and more content will be my main focus once I'm back from vacation.

Additionally, here is a video interview I recorded with Waylon a few years ago. I will also leave a link to a video where he guest-hosted one of my interviews with the Adams brothers.

I am deep in the weeds of editing the next major project. Goretusk is coming along well and the video has a vibe to it.

Let's talk stats! The YouTube channel is still rolling high compared to normal, getting 189,862 views in the last 7 days. This is largely due to the fact that Godlytombs is still pulling 19k views every 48 hours, which is causing many of my other videos to be recommended more. It is also my most commented and liked video of all time, sitting at 1,499 comments at the time of writing. Twitch is still moving along, slightly better than last week, with an average view count of 163, and revenue recovered a little bit over last week. It's still not great, but the uptick is encouraging. We are still in summer, after all. I'm excited to see what happens when Adventure Mode releases properly. I'll need to have a video ready when it leaves the beta branch.