Tynan's book is one of my favourites for gamedev. I'll have to re-read some of it through the lens of Rimworld to see if it might be useful to someone who wants

Tynan's book is one of my favourites for gamedev. I'll have to re-read some of it through the lens of Rimworld to see if it might be useful to someone who wants to develop a simulation game (e.g. the Balance chapter), as I'm keen to start a colony sim / base building game next year. As FragrantRiver also already said, start small. Think of the smallest scope possible, then reduce it even more. Perhaps consider a game engine, so your programming efforts are focused on the economy side, then the ants can be event driven, and graphics are easier to handle/implement. (I started a Universal Paperclip clone a while back, using cljs, and had bags of fun making the tech tree and economy logic, but then got bored when I had to build a UI finally.)