RimWorld is an ambitious sci-fi colony sim inspired by Dwarf Fortress, Dune and Firefly, and if you like all those things you're probably at least aware of it, as it's been around—in alpha form—since 2013. Now, like most things, it's heading to Steam; at the same time, RimWorld will be expanded with a new scenario system that allows you to select from a bunch of different starting conditions, or to create your own. Here's an example screenshot of what that system might look like:
And here's a bit more info on scenarios, from the linked blog post:
"For example, we have a scenario where you play as a lone rich guy out seeking adventure, trying to build a colony on his own. He starts with a lot of wealth and research, but is alone. Another scenario has you playing six lost tribespeople trying to build a new home. As a tribe, they start with less tech (though they do have some tech that the space people lack) and get research penalties when researching high-tech projects. However, they have advantages in numbers.
"Scenarios can also be randomized and manually edited. A random scenario might have a permanent toxic fallout, but start you with a pile of golden spears and ten pet bears, but not allow you to tame animals. You can edit that any way you like, write your own summary, description, and game start dialog."
Custom scenarios will be integrated into the Steam Workshop, which is handy.
RimWorld is coming to Steam this Summer—there's a "tentative" release month of July given—but hey, you can look at the page right now. Early purchasers of the game from the official site will be given a Steam key, but if you bought it after November 4, 2014, you might not get one—you'll find details about that in the FAQ.
I'll finish with the latest trailer, which is quite lovely:
