Against the Storm takes roguelite city building into a fantasy world

I love city building simulations at every stage of the game – from laying foundations, to planning a city network, improving the complexity of buildings, to dealing with the bureaucratic elements of the late game. I spent long nights playing Frostpunk And Timberborn, caught in the difficult balance of avoiding the complete collapse of the city. That is, if you had told me a week ago, “You’re going to spend about an hour trying to reach an agreement – and then you’re going to start all over again,” I would have balked at that. But Against the stormThe roguelite city-building game, which came out of Early Access on December 8th, proves that this formula is not only sensible, but also fantastic.

To be clear, there are other games with this unconventional genre pairing. In Cult of the Lambthere is a home base that functions like a simulation game in which cultists work, worship and of course make living sacrifices. You can leave this base to take part in roguelike dungeon crawls. But Against the storm does not have this separation of mechanics. They are perfectly coordinated, keeping things fresh while giving you the opportunity to increase complexity with each subsequent run. After fifteen hours I can hardly tear myself away from it.

In Against the storm, you are the Queen’s Viceroy in a land with catastrophic weather events – you have been tasked with establishing settlements outside the capital, Smoldering City, in the direction of a number of mysterious seals. You begin each “run” by selecting a tile on the game’s brooding overworld map. You then select your starting population from a delightful fantasy lineup of lizards, beavers, humans, harpies, and more. Finally, gather some basic supplies – stones, maybe a few edible mushrooms – before heading to the settlement. Then the racing begins: you build shelters and basic structures on the site, just like a lumberjack cuts down trees or sometimes even huge orchids. The whole thing has a dark fantasy flavor. Every place is full of hidden glades; If you uncover them, you might find a poisonous flower that will rot your food or a graveyard that will instill fear in your villagers.

From there the game turns into a resource puzzle. Each scenario gives you different options for executing a series of “jobs”. You may have to deliver bags of grain or enter a certain number of “dangerous clearings” in a certain time. Completing these will give you reputation points. Typically you need 14 points to win a scenario. All the while you’re fighting a moody queen. The Queen’s Impatience meter only fills over time, and if it reaches its maximum before the reputation does, you have lost the reckoning.

That’s the challenge and the fun of the game: developing a successful strategy before you know what tools you’ll even have. Think of it this way Hades, where Zagreus receives various blessings from the gods – while all options are fun, some can create fantastic and unexpected synergies when fighting enemies. But in Against the stormget options for building types, global perks, clearings to discover, and orders to complete. You have to constantly refine the distribution of resources: your wood is used to keep the hearth warm, to build new important buildings, And Fulfilling a barrel order. And by the way, don’t forget to prepare some food for your villagers. It’s so easy to screw yourself up every step of the way Against the storm.

Suffice it to say, this is just the tip of the iceberg. There is worker “determination” and “hostility” – each citizen is characterized by different work and simple must have a certain luxury. These are delightfully silly: lizards love dried meat and work in cookhouses (they are cold-blooded and love warmth); Beavers enjoy cookies and are very good at cutting wood. There is also a weather cycle that determines the timing of the harvest and how angry all the workers become. It says Against the storm, so I’ll let you guess how much these guys like rain. (Spoiler: They hate it.)

It sounds complicated, but it’s actually very digestible. The game manages its complexity effectively, which helps curb the overwhelming feeling that can come with those management sims that feature a dozen menus and mechanics. There is a perk tree that you can unlock as you progress through the game that introduces new game mechanics – win or lose, you can purchase some of these upgrades. For example, trading isn’t something you really need to worry about at the start, but as you unlock more benefits it becomes an important force.

Against the storm always has a new trick up its sleeve, and like any great roguelite, it encouraged me to make unusual, bold moves that I would never try in a more typical city-building game. Since I know that every run has a finite end, I can always start over if something doesn’t work out. And when they do, it’s even sweeter.

Against the storm was released on Windows PC on December 8th. Vox Media has affiliate partnerships. These have no influence on the editorial content, although Vox Media may earn commissions for products purchased through affiliate links. You can find More information about Polygon’s ethics policy can be found here.