🔥 HOT: Profiles/ - Collection

Aesthetically, this game is BEAUTIFUL. The art style is charming and the love in the details shows. The music is present but not overwhelming so even when you are making decisions there is definitely a sense of calm and relaxation. The effects are also great and subtle -- the crack of thunder when storm starts, or the little alert when a new trader shows up. I think overall a great job from the dev team on providing the player with useful cues without making the interface seem overwhelmed with information.

As a city builder / colony management game, Against the Storm is honestly much better than I had expected and I have not been able to put it down. I only have about 30-ish hours logged as of this review, and I am already getting "just one more turn" vibes from this game. Just the core concept of not having access to every building on every settlement felt like such a gamble when I read it, but it also creates such amazing decisions as a result. Do you want to have a better way of making fabric, or do you want to open up the ability to make some new stuff instead? Do you want to be able to harvest from a large resource node (that you maybe haven't even confirmed exists on the map yet), or grab another building for the limited farming space you have?

Orders are a neat concept that hits similar but different to blueprint selection. While the resolve mechanic (keeping your citizens happy) can get around it a little bit, orders are clearly the main method by which you will succeed or fail with a given settlement. And each time you get the chance for another order, you choose one of two options with full transparency of what you need to complete that order as well as what you get for completing it.

...and that's the core loop. Start a settlement, choose some buildings, choose some orders, and then as you play that settlement you will unlock another roughly 6-8 orders and maybe 5 blueprints (unless you purchase some from a trader). That settlement either succeeds or fails, and you do it again. Afterwards you can take your spoils and unlock items on the tech tree to start with more resources, add some buildings to your "essential" list, or just buy you a little more time with each settlement. This loop is so satisfying, and again I am only about 30 hours in.

I am just beginning to explore the rainpunk technologies, which already look to be their own risk/reward system layered on top of everything else. I will certainly update this as I get further, but this game is worth every minute of your time that you give it.