I have never seen a game with more dedicated and transparent developers than Against The Storm.
Singleplayer.
While there is plenty of danger to discover, players cannot attack enemies directly; their villagers must use resources to handle difficult situations such as raging monsters, overheating generators and vengeful spirits.
While it’s possible we may see combat in future, at least for now, Against the Storm remains a title that even the most ardent pacifist can enjoy.
Despite its cartoony atheistic, Against the Storm is one of the more challenging survival city builders on the market. One made even more difficult due to the presence of roguelike and deck-building mechanics.
If you like city builders and are looking for a challenging title to see you through the winter, Against the Storm is the game for you.
While we have seen the end of the world before, It has been a while since the end of the world has been caused by a force of nature rather than a zombie or nuclear apocalypse.
Exploring a procedurally generated world populated by anthropomorphic animals while battling against a near-sentient rainstorm is a great break from a traditional Tolkienesque fantasy setting. It gives the developers greater creative freedom when introducing new races, mechanics and even entire biomes.
Against the Storm is one of the few which is more “addicting” than Sir Meir’s Civilization; time and time again, I intend to put Against the Storm aside for a few days to play a new AAA release, only to return to it for “just one more round”.
Part of why Against the Storm is so addicting is the way that deckbuilding, roguelike and exploration come together to create unique challenges; while players are given some information about the area they have chosen to settle, one can never be 100% sure that there is not some danger lurking close by that will end your run real quick.
Managing the morale of 4 distinct races, each with their own needs and desires, is challenging enough in the fertile royal woodlands surrounding the Smouldering City; doing so on the far barren reaches of the kingdom is something else entirely.
I have discovered maps without a single fertile title, forcing my villagers to live off bugs and whatever else I can scavenge up, and don’t even get me started on complex food, which can feel impossible when you have enough trouble giving your workers raw egg, let alone mush soup, (which is apparently delightful, despite its awful name).
As players successfully settle areas and move onto new regions, they are rewarded with various currencies that allow them to unlock new and improved buildings and cornerstones, which allow players to change up their fortunes with a constant trickle of various resources or receive compensation on the death of their villagers among to name just a few of the possible cornerstone modifiers players can activate after each stormy day.
Choosing the right upgrades and cards before and during each mission can be the difference between success and failure. A careless choice can doom a settlement to failure or inadvertently ensure its long-term success.
Against the Storm was created by a team of six friends in just three years; amazing progress, and I wish them well in their current and future endeavours.
In Against the Storm, players must clear forests to access additional resources and glades; without expansion, your settlement will fail.
While the lure of riches and excitement is a heady tonic, expand too fast, and you risk angering the forest, which can cause massive debuffs and overall bad luck, including the activation of settlement-wide curses that actively harm production and, in worse case scenarios, kill your villagers.
Against the Storm allows players to switch out resources for similar or equal resources of another type, such as exchanging clay for stone and insects for raw meat.
While this seems like a small thing, it is a great way to mitigate some of the more frustrating aspects of procedurally generated maps, such as when a building required to progress needs stone, and there is not a single rock to be found anywhere on the map.
I would love to see all RNG-heavy games utilize similar systems in future, as it allows a game to be challenging and still require careful resource management without punishing the player for a situation they have no control over.
In Against the Storm, players are given 12 opportunities per round to impress their eternally irate sovereign by undertaking and completing various quests for the Smouldering City.
Until Update 3, this system frankly sucked, with players occasionally being asked to provide items they had no way to produce without access to new buildings, which they were unable to access without completing said orders.
However, Update 3 changed everything, with the orders given to a player being limited by what the player can reasonably accomplish at whatever stage of the game the orders are activated.
As a result, early game orders are now far more attainable and only require 35 pieces of wood or call for the construction of a certain amount of basic shelters, ensuring that players who can barely keep a roof over their villagers’ heads will not be required to contribute a king’s ransom in complex food and machined tools.
Against the Storm is a strategy video game developed by Eremite Games and published by Hooded Horse, it was released on 18 October 2021 and retails for $29.99.
Against the Storm is available exclusively on PC.
Against the Storm currently receives updates every two weeks, a cadence that is unheard of for a game of this scope and a team so small; while some of these updates are smaller bug fixes and quality-of-life changes, many of these updates are substantial and include new mechanics, buildings and even races.
The following peripherals are officially supported:
Against The Storm is unrated and contains no mature content.
Against the Storm is one of the best games I have ever played, and I wholeheartedly recommend it to any fans of survival builders or alternative fantasy.
Against the Storm was our 2021 and 2022 Indie Game of the Year, and after a phenomenal year of updates and a successful release of version 1.0, Against the Storm is our Indie Game of the Year 2023.
