Just wanted to bring some more well deserved attention to this awesome game!
After playing too many city builder games I thought it’d be a long time before I got into another but after seeing the crazy high rating on steam (95% positive with more than 11k reviews) I decided to try it out and boy is it awesome.
I’ve been hooked playing this game for the last couple weeks now, I’d love to hear Lemmy’s thoughts on the game
Official description:
A dark fantasy city builder where you must rebuild civilization in the face of apocalyptic rains. As the Queen’s Viceroy, lead humans, beavers, lizards, foxes, and harpies to reclaim the wilderness and secure a future for civilization’s last survivors.
I have more than 200 hours in this game. This is the review I posted in Steam when I had 50 hours:
Against the Storm brings novelty to gaming. It is an experience that you haven’t seen.
The initial premise in Against the Storm is similar to Frostpunk and Banished. At the core it is a RTS with focus on survival. Nothing that we have not seen before, but bear with me.
You are probably familiar with the countless roguelites we have seen in the last years. It does not matter if they are card based (Slay the Spire, Monster Train), bullet hells (Vampire Survivors and its million clones), 2D platformers (Dead Cells, Rogue Legacy) or hack and slash (Hades, Streets of Rogue).
All those games have the same common denominators. They bring RNG based rewards (with choices), have meta-progression and naturally, being roguelites, they revolve about the concept of doing “runs”.
As a whole, these games give us dopamine rushes, and therefore it is no wonder that we are being swarmed by developers adding roguelite features to their games.
I am not complaining, I enjoy my gaming dopamine rushes the same as I enjoy my morning coffee.
So what exactly the Against the Storm developers did? What is the novelty?
They took all those roguelite features and put them into their survival RTS; they did it in a way that was never done before, and the execution is flawless.
If you are someone that enjoy the first hours of RTS games; when you discover, explore, plan ahead, climb the technology tree; then this game will be paradise for you. You get to experience exactly that, time after time, in each run.
It helps immensely that Against the Storm have a neat UI and great QOL features. It is truly impressive and part of its winning formula.
In the negative side I find the meta-progression slow in comparison to the run length.
I know I am not playing optimal but my runs take hours and unlocking the good stuff is taking me forever.
To be fair the game encourages the player to raise the difficulty levels (Settler, Pioneer, Veteran, Viceroy and then 20 levels of Prestige) to get more resources so we get to unlock things faster.
I am currently playing Prestige 5 and the runs are getting harder but the meta-progression rewards feel minor in comparison. I could play in lower difficulties and still have fun, but then it will take me even longer to unlock everything.
I think this area of the game requires balance, it is too punishing for my taste. Nobody forces me to keep upping the difficulty but that is part of the appeal of a roguelite.
In any case this is something minor in a game that is just wonderful. Highly recommended, easily a 9/10.
I hope we will get more games like this one and more devs that are not afraid to try something new.
I cannot recommend this game highly enough. It’s already a fantastic game, and the devs keep updating it. To put this game in perspective, I usually play city builders (RimWorld) at max speed, music of, watching a TV show on another monitor. This game is so beautiful and chill I’ve never taken it above realtime, and I can’t bring myself to turn off the music.
It’s not that it’s easy, it can be really difficult, but you see the bad things coming. You don’t suddenly get jumped by something unexpected, but things build up. And the way various random effects come together every run means that the way you play is different every time. They call it a Roguelite City Builder, and it is a fantastic combo.I just bought it for my son. I’m writing this to let you know that you’re responsible for this. 😜
Keep an eye on Roots of Yggdrasil if you’re into Against the Storm! They’re trying out a different take on the roguelike city builder concept
City builder with no combat is right up my alley, so I thought Against the Storm was absolutely brilliant. A much needed fresh take on the genre.
I’m also looking forward to Steamworld Build. I’ve loved the Anno series since I was a child and I love most of the games in the Steamworld series, so this combination is shaping up to make for an amazing game. I tried the demo a little bit and it looked so well designed and polished.
I’ve been enjoying it, I haven’t exactly got the hang of it yet but I’m having fun none the less. I like that you can play it in nice sessions instead of pulling an all nighter with something like civilizations
That seems to be what most people like about it. But I actually wanted a more long form city builder, so it didn’t really scratch that itch for me. I did enjoy it, though not as much as I thought I would. Would definitely recommend if you’re looking for something a bit different (in terms of city builders, that is).
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Bought it but still haven’t started it yet as I’m still stuck into Halls of Torment, but it’ll be next up on my to-play list!
I’ve been looking for something like Banished for a while and this looks ideal.
I got it today and am also loving it! It’s so chill, even when three if your villagers get killed by an evil totem. 😂
So glad more people know of this game every day, it is such a great experience. The devs are also great at providing constant meaningful updates and communicating with the players, they are really one of the best indie early access games I’ve followed, ever. Deserve every cent
I really enjoyed the game in many aspects, especially some of the mechanics and art style.
But I eventually dropped it. Two reasons:
- In many cases, success depends not on your skill, but on luck and random.
- It’s a roguelike (roguelite).
Honestly, if they added some depth to the core mechanics and complexity that depends on skill rather than random events on the map and resource types, it would be one of my favorite games. As it is…
Damn I like the pre-World Warcraft vibe the visuals are giving me. Has anyone tried this on steam deck?
It didn’t work on deck when I bought it. Just checked and it says playable now.
I played this a bunch for a while! It’s both good and such an interesting game that I think you’ll get something out of the experience even if you didn’t particularly enjoy the gameplay. In the harder difficulties it’s the chillest tense game
Huh, I bought this some time ago but was pretty disappointed, to be honest. Not super intuitive, and, I dunno, not that much fun. My wife gave up on it pretty quickly, too. I guess that was in early access. Maybe it’s gotten better? Do they have Steam Deck support yet?
