Against the Storm – -apkrig
The world of building strategies is currently experiencing a renaissance. Or so it works, depending on how many new titles within the genre are released on Steam each month. Against the Storm is one of them, with the only difference that its creators try to fit elements of roguelite games like Slay the Spire into the classic formula.
You can see for yourself if they are doing well. Against the Storm has a playable demo version in the Epic Games Store, which is surprisingly fine-tuned. The game makes an almost finished impression, even if you are deprived of a large part of the content.
The purpose of the demo is to introduce you only to the very process of building a city with several procedurally generated elements. And even if you don’t get to the level of systems where there is some administration of the whole kingdom, there is still a lot to stand for.
It all starts quite unsurprisingly at a campfire with a bloated warehouse next door. However, the supplies are rapidly depleting, so you are immediately building the first logging shack and placing an order to cut down the trees you have selected. Next to it, you start mining stone, collecting edible mushrooms, grass, roots, strange eggs and more and more raw materials.
There are also production chains where you can create ropes from grass or roots, for example bricks from brick or beer from barley, if you get to farming, cooking malt and then serving chilled juice in your own pub.
Against the Storm is a very nimble and short game, despite the amount of buildings and work that your workers can do. As a roguelite, you may soon lose if you run out of fuel for a central fire that protects you from bad weather. It is constantly raining here, which affects everything possible in various ways.
But if you succeed, you will see a screen announcing your victory after some 30-60 minutes. The aim is to build a functional settlement which, despite the prevailing natural conditions, will survive. This is also helped by the queen’s tasks, which you must flatter, otherwise you will fall in her eyes.
But since we are in the field of roguelite games and there is procedural generation, none of your towns will be the same. Not all buildings are always available to you. For example, I once had an acute lack of mushrooms because I lacked a shack of collectors. I could buy it later after the position of the market, but I did not have enough funds for it.
Another variability is taken care of by various decrees from the ruler of the country, which, for example, will permanently increase the production of one raw material or facilitate the felling of trees. And there is one very interesting game mechanism associated with the felling of trees. This is the only way to explore a randomly generated map. Forests surround you completely, but in some parts they are less dense and behind them hide other, forests surrounded by pockets shrouded in mist.
As soon as you make your way to one of them, the fog will disappear and new natural resources will be revealed to you, forgotten supplies, an already built building waiting to be put back into operation, a tent with survivors or a dungeon. And I have to say that linking a satisfactory map survey to the most basic and necessary mechanism is a really great idea.
Another idea that could potentially be great, but the demo doesn’t have much room to show, is to divide your workers into three species – you have humans, lizards and beavers. Everyone can work practically everywhere, but in some positions in buildings and factories only a representative of a specific type may be present.
Each of them also has different requirements to be satisfied, and no one likes so much to live in mixed shelters that protect against endless rain than to live in a nice house only with friends of the same kind.
The demo version of Against the Storm filled me with optimism and I immediately added it to my wish list on Steam. But it is necessary that a full game offers much more. The base outlined in the demo works great and the game is cute in a way, but so far there was almost no depth from it, which is definitely needed for many hours of playing.
It needs some mechanism that would cover each of your successful or unsuccessful attempts to build a new city and make sense of it. And I somehow believe that in the full game, which I am very much looking forward to after this experience, I will eventually find him.
Against the Storm doesn’t have a release date yet, but it looks like it’s Epic’s time exclusivity. The creators are presenting it there soon, while the year 2022 is on Steam. And even though time is running out like water, I would not explicitly mark next year as soon as soon…
