Forest air sets you free – fm4.ORF.at

The original strategy game Against the Storm refreshes the roguelike genre and is truly an early access mini game.

to Rainer Siegel

Its a building strategy game “against the storm” I have received an order from my queen to bring civilization to the dark fantasy forest. My small group of settlers starts out humble in the middle of the wilderness, but anyone familiar with the genre knows: the smallest village first becomes a thriving city and over time, with a lot of effort, eventually becomes a mighty city.

Yes, Your Majesty

But wait, it’s not quite that fast or quite in Against the Storm, and that’s not the only thing a little different about this building game. I am not allowed to build in the woods except in clearings, and I must let the loggers pave the way there; But if I’m walking around too big, the dark wood spirit starts to lurch and make my life difficult. In some areas, there are also special challenges waiting for me to allocate settlers and resources to master.

The exact houses and workshops I can build depend on my queen. It gradually provides me with only a few expansion options for each settlement mission. In terms of nutrition, I have to focus on hunting, then farming, and then again on gathering berries. The same applies to the remaining buildings and additions. I get new opportunities only when I complete the set tasks, which are also new each time – brewing a certain amount of beer, for example, or dressing all the lumberjacks in valuable cloth.

This trick makes the lively city building quite diverse and prevents me from building my settlement according to Scheme F every time. After an hour or two, you’ll move on to the next task anyway.

Building strategy plus roguelike

As a mixture of a development strategy game and a roguelike, “Against the Storm” is based on fairly short, randomly generated single missions that can be played progressively into the campaign. Apart from that, I can, as a meta game, so to speak, expand my imperial capital and thus unlock new perks and building types for missions. As the game progresses, conditions in the jungle become increasingly uncomfortable, dangerously volatile weather and the approaching apocalypse create drama.

The mixture of genre elements results in a great stimulating mix, which is also great for a quick run in between – a rarity in strategy games. “Against the Storm” is still in early use, but it’s almost finished, perfect tutorial included. Its qualities made it an early access surprise that was received in late fall with enthusiasm.

This is how a new build strategy can feel; Let’s see if The Settlers bring the same amount of momentum with them next year.