I have always loved playing resource management games. However, most of these games suffer from a shared weakness: a lack of clear goals. In the sub-category of colony sims, this is an eternal question.
It always feels like the first couple of hours are fun as you discover new systems and mechanics. But soon, you enter a loop of having nothing to do, expanding, managing resources, and then returning to having nothing to do. Many games try to fix this cycle by adding timed hazards (for example, winter making food unavailable, or enemy invasions) to force the player to work on expanding or hoarding resources. However, this only replaces “nothing to do” with “prepare for the hazard.” Even with those systems, players eventually run out of tasks, and many hazards end up being handled automatically.
In this regard, Against the Storm found a unique solution. If the problem is a lack of gameplay in the endgame phase, why not just loop the beginning of the game?
Against the Storm is a game where you build settlements in a wicked land to reach ancient Seals and keep a world-ending disaster at bay. Each settlement has specific requirements you must meet to move on, and you must end your expedition before the storm destroys everything. When you finish a Seal, the storm is pushed back, slowing its arrival. The more Seals you finish, the more time you have in the cycle, allowing you to travel further.
The goal is clear: reach the Seal. As the nearby Seals are completed, players naturally push for further ones. Since the cycle of the storm is long, restarting the cycle becomes costly, which increases the stakes and play time.
To ensure the gameplay feels different every time, there are multiple races with specialties that are offered as randomized choices, along with randomized starting buildings. People usually develop their own “to-do list” at the beginning of colony games, but the randomized starting conditions ensure there will always be some variation. Furthermore, “victory points” in the game depend mainly on the request (Orders) system. Every request offers a few choices; players can pick the one that is easiest for them, or one that aligns with what they were about to do anyway.
The randomization system in this game ensures the player has a say in what happens. It provides unpredictability and a sense of control at the same time.
With these systems, Against the Storm offers a one-of-a-kind experience. On that note, however, there are a few things that could be improved.
There is one area where the randomization system does not provide much choice: the hazard system. When you explore the forest, you encounter empty spaces that trigger events with negative effects. These events are solvable and usually come with decent rewards that are important for the game. The issue is that sometimes the game gives you something you cannot solve at all. This is a particular problem when a player needs to expand into those spaces for resources early on. You can do everything right, but picking a card without being able to look first can kill the entire game.
If a failed game didn’t take up all the time accumulated in the cycle, or if there were a way to avoid a “hard failure,” this wouldn’t be much of an issue. One could argue this is a skill issue—that you should always be prepared for the coming hazards. This is true, except on higher difficulties where preparation is not always an option. As a result, it feels extremely frustrating when playing on Prestige 20 or attempting the last Seal. Since it is required to play on max difficulty in many settlements just to reach the Seal, hours of perfect play can go down the drain with one second of bad luck.
Regardless of the bad taste left by these failures, the game does succeed in increasing playtime. It took me 20 hours to try for the last Seal, and I failed. Now it will take another 20 hours, or maybe I will take a break until I feel like playing again.
It would be nice if we could collect resources from failed cycles to help improve the next one. The game attempts this by giving you resources to upgrade your settlement’s starting package, but there is a limit on how many upgrades you can have. After that, it is just “dead resources” that don’t do anything.
Ultimately, Against the Storm is a masterclass in genre-blending. By combining the satisfying loop of city-building with the high stakes and replayability of a roguelite, it solves the “endgame boredom” that plagues almost every other colony sim. While the punishment for bad RNG at high difficulty levels can feel disrespectful of the player’s time—and the meta-progression system hits a ceiling too early—the core gameplay loop remains incredibly addictive. It is a rare game that manages to make starting over feel just as interesting as finishing, cementing its place as a standout title in its genre.
Pohsuan Wu 