The wizards at Don't Starve developer Klei Entertainment helped write a new playbook for colony sims with the release of Oxygen Not Included, and Ratopia has taken a few pages from it and gone off in an adorable direction of its own. It's a survival city builder that hit Early Access last month, and I'm mighty impressed with the demo so far, which is also giving off some unexpected Terraria energy.
Ratopia's user reviews – which are 88% positive at the time of writing – draw countless, understandable comparisons to Oxygen Not Included. Both are 2D colony sims about gathering resources, assigning jobs to citizens, building facilities to process and generate goods, and researching new technologies that enable further expansion. You recruit more people to do more stuff and you need more stuff to keep those people happy and alive. Round and round the progression curve goes, and boom, there goes eight hours in the blink of an eye.
