| #34 | Against the Storm |
|---|---|
| guessed by | no one |
| platform | Windows |
| release year | 2022 (early access) |
| developer/publisher | Eremite Games/Hooded Horse |
| genre | colony sim |
Dwarf Fortress made 20 years ago the subgrenres of simulating a colony with multiple workers surviving harsh environments. There are many games that do that too. But some add a twist to that, and Against the Storm is among them. What they add as a component is the run-based gameplay of shorter stints with each colony but acquiring upgrades and progress each time and therefore having a global progress as well. And this simple little addition changes the typical genre feel so much, that the game feels fresh and new.
This change in how the game feels to play is supported by it's theme, which is in accordance with the name: storm. The world is ravaged by the blightstorm. The survivors have fallen back to the last bastion of civilization: the Smoldering City, ruled over by the scorched queen. The blightstorm is cyclical, so in phases the storm is relenting caravans are sent out into the wilderness to establish temporary settlements to gather resources and send them into the Smoldering City. You are playing as one of her viceroys tasked with establishing these settlements. Once a cycle ends and the blightstorm comes back, these settlements are destroyed and you start again in the next cycle close to the city.
In one cycle you usually have multiple settlements, creeping deeper into the wilderness and exploring more and more. Your successes allow you to unlock more buildings and other boons in the Smoldering City, so your next settlement can have more success. Deep in the wilderness you also can reforge ancient seals to slowly tame the blightstorm, allowing for more time to get deeper into the world.
Each of the settlements works like a more classic colony builder, but the time of each run is limited as you either reach a goal in reputation with the queen or running out of the queen's patience, signified by blue and red progress bars at the bottom of your screen respectively. As the blightstorm ravages the land it looks different each cycle and the map is mostly covered in a thick forest. There are different biomes (like coral forest or scarlet orchard), resulting in different tree types like big mushrooms or things like that. These lands have also differing modifiers which make the gameplay different. More importantly though you also have to unlock building plans with the queens reputation and you get a random selection, which also changes how you play. The random selection is based on the unlocked plans and you also can unlock some buildings to your base plans so they are always available.
As most of the land is covered in forest you are starting off cutting down trees (the wood also is a basic resource). With clearing out forest you gain room to build more buildings, but also uncover glades. Most glades have some glade events (like ruins from the previous cycle) you have different options of clearing. Many of the glades have dangerous events, that have nagtive effects if left unworked for too long. Also as you progress through the map the forest gets more and more hostile, which in turn lowers the resolve. So as your settlement grows you need to fulfill more needs of your citizens to offset the negative effects to their resolve, which if it goes to low leads to citizens leaving.
With all this the game manages to exude a feel very different from other colony sims or city builders. There is especially a feeling of progressing into a hostile environment which bites back as you clear the forest and a feel of non-persistence, as all your settlements will be destroyed in the next cycle. For fans of the genre I can only recommend to give the game a try, and even people who shy away because usually you play so long at a single settlement can look into this, as each settlement is done in one or two hours - and you go on to the next with different parameters. The game is still early access, but set to release in 1.0 version on December 8th. So this week. So let's build - for the queen!
Initial trailer from a year back:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GioJK1pT6vY
You can see some of the changes made in the early access if you compare it to the trailer for the 1.0 version:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CcFX2Ep1GPA
