Steam code for PC provided by Hooded Horse.
What do you get when you cross a rogue-lite and a city builder? That’s not the start of a weird niche gamer joke, that’s the premise for Eremite Games and Hooded Horse’s new title Against The Storm, which is entering Early Access at the beginning of November. I gave it a brief look a little while ago, and with its looming public release, it was time to return to the forest and see what’s new.
Gameplay
In Against The Storm, you are placed in a world that has a problem with storms, a near-apocalyptic one. It rains almost eternally, with ebbs and flows in severity. Periodically, the enormous Blightstorm rips across the landscape, wiping out any constructions or semblance of civilisation. The only bastion of order is the Smouldering Citadel, a great tower built against an active volcano, which is able to withstand the deadly weather. The Citadel is ruled over by the mysterious Scorched Queen, a mighty and slightly sinister-seeming monarch whose word determines most of what goes on.
You are a Viceroy, appointed by the Queen to mount expeditions into the wilds beyond the city. The Citadel needs resources, and trade routes are the best way to get things from the far-flung reaches of the flooded world back to settled areas. This is done through Viceroys building up villages that farm, mine, scavenge, and turn those things into goods. The landscape is against you, and many will not succeed, but nothing is permanent, the Blightstorm will eventually return, and reduce everything to rubble.
Being a Viceroy is not easy. You have complete control over your settlements, and they will rise or fall on your choices. And they will fall. What sets Against The Storm apart from other city builders is that it is a rogue-lite. Each expedition is randomised, insofar as the glade events, distribution of resources, the blueprints you get, and the orders you receive.
You begin with a small assortment of workers, a storage building, and a hearth. Hearths are the heart of any settlement, and cannot go out. To keep it going you will need a ready supply of fuel, and a keeper to maintain it. Aside from those, all the buildings you can construct will be picked from randomized selections offered to you. Once you have the plans, you can create as many of each building as you like, though it’s not a good idea to be too profligate with your resources.
At its core, Against The Storm is all about managing your supply chains. You will receive orders from the Scorched Queen periodically, of which you will generally be able to pick one of two. These may be a certain number of goods, buildings, or an expansion of your influence into different glades. Fulfilling these will progress a bar toward success. Another bar at the bottom details the Queen’s impatience, which will continue to rise with time. If it hits the top, it’s over for this village.
Fulfilling your orders, and keeping the village afloat means making the most of your resources. You’ll find trees everywhere that can be cut to expand the visible area and potentially reveal more things to scavenge, though some marked glades come with hazards that will have negative effects on your community, temporarily if you try and fix them, and periodically if you leave them alone.
Once you have raw materials, you’ll often need to process them into ore useful things. Various different buildings can do this, with some of their exports overlapping to make up for the randomized nature of their availability. Sometimes, when certain things are scarce you need to get a bit creative. Some crafting recipes can have ingredients swapped around to make the most of what you’ve got. Work happens automatically and can be turned off, in fact, it often should be turned off, as unchecked workers can quickly get over-enthusiastic and turn all of your food into incense.
In addition to the resources, you have your people. You will generally be hosting more than one species in any given settlement. You’ve got ordinary humans, engineering-loving beaver people, big carnivorous lizards in hats, and flightless bird ladies. Each species has jobs that they’re good at, and job aspects they enjoy. Beavers are gifted wood-cutters, and lizards like to work in warm places. Keeping each race happy is something you’ll need to factor into your choices. If they get too disgruntled with your leadership style, they’ll simply up and leave, if you mess up too hard, they’ll die.
The final major factor you have to keep in mind is the forest itself. The landscape is a living and wrathful thing. Seasons turn as time passes, and while Drizzle and Clearance seasons are relatively safe, Storms will hit and everyone in your little community will take a hit in their will to continue until the weather has calmed. A storm is also when you receive the consequences of your greed. As you expand your village and pillage natural resources, a hostility bar increases, and allowing it to get too high will start additional events and detriments as Storms rolls around. Beware spreading too fast.
Expectations
Against The Storm is a very competently-made game, and most of the issues with it could be considered requests for polish, or a wish for some additional features. More about the world would be lovely, as I feel it tantalizes a fantasy world that still holds its secrets very close to its chest. Hopefully, we will see more in the future.
A few models could be worth changing for the sake of clarity, and the sheer number of different resources available means I did sometimes find locating where my supply problem was to be a challenge in and of itself. There were a couple of mechanics that I only really understood by stumbling across them myself.
Eremite Games seem to be eager for feedback, and working to take community suggestions in mind when working toward a full release. Many things that troubled me during my first playthrough a couple of months ago seem to have been revised and worked on. This is very encouraging and does reassure me that much of this is simply a matter of smoothing out rough edges as they work toward a 1.0 release.
Verdict
Against The Storm is a game that is exceptional at what it does. It is a deceptively complex game that sees you trying to walk a tightrope to balance opposing forces and do it while making sure you have enough barrels to keep your ale supply topped up. It’s tough, engrossing, and keeps you on your toes.
Given the combination of the rogue aspects and the slow settlement management, it’s inevitable that not everyone will find it enjoyable. Each village is a significant timesink, and some will fail because you just can’t find the food you need, or that dangerous grove was more than you could handle. If the idea of watching your hard work slip slowly through your fingers as you try in vain to save it sounds infuriating, then it might not be your kind of game. If, on the other hand, that risk inspires you to work smarter, keep your cool, and hope the next grove will have what you’re looking for, Against The Storm can keep you coming back for a long time.
It is still subject to a bit of polish work, and there are some things I would like to see, but all in all, it is extremely solid and well-designed. Where some might use Early Access as a crutch for releasing very little content, Eremite seems eager to present a good game and keep growing.
Against The Storm is will be available on November 1st for PC via Steam Early Access.
