Against the Storm

[gorzek]

do you like roguelikes? do you like city builders? do you like roguelike city builders?

"what the hell is a roguelike city builder?"

check it: https://store.steampowered.com/app/13364...the_Storm/

it would be interesting enough if it was just a roguelike city builder, as that's an unusual choice to start with. but it also has a distinctive setting: a "rainpunk" world with anthropomorphic creatures including beavers, foxes, lizards, and harpies. humans are in there, too. (you can also get frogs in a DLC, and i do love the froggies.)

if you've ever played an Anno game, the basic gameplay loop is very similar. the premise of the game is such that you are always building new settlements, trying to reach deeper into your ruined world to reclaim it. your cities are wiped away every several years by "the storm." your hope is to close all the magic seals which enable the storm to continue, thus permitting you to reclaim the world completely. (i have yet to accomplish this, though i have done several of the seals.)

i love this game and will tout it to anyone who will listen.

i also have a Steam key for it if anyone wants it!

[antipelican]

This looks right up my alley. Once I am finished with my current obsession (Workers and Resource: Soviet Republic) I will have to check this out.

[gorzek]

would you like a Steam key for it?

[antipelican]

Sure! Thank you!

[gorzek]

Sent!

[antipelican]

Now I've had a chance to play, can confirm this is a great game. Really addictive game play loop. I spent at least 6 hours yesterday playing...

[gorzek]

Right? It's really so good. And as you unlock more buildings you get more options for how to tackle problems.
I'm not sure I would have believed "roguelike city builder" is a viable format before playing this. The fact that every town starts with unique circumstances, and you get different orders and cornerstone offerings in each run, means there's so many combinations and so many different ways things can go, it never really gets boring. I've probably built a couple hundred towns by now and it just hasn't gotten old.

[antipelican]

I can't stop playing...I just unlocked the lead seal last night and I'm already forty hours in despite having no free time. Do we ever unlock the better versions of all of the resource gathering buildings?

[gorzek]

The basic resource gathering buildings have two tiers, "small" and regular. If you've unlocked those, you have unlocked them all. I don't think they have any higher tiers.
There is an Advanced Rain Collector with bigger storage and fast collection.
Most of what you unlock as the game progresses are new production buildings, and new decorations. In the upgrade tree, you will also unlock the ability to upgrade people's houses, and those have all kinds of interesting capabilities. You can think of them as mini-cornerstones because they offer similar abilities but on a smaller scale (and scaled to the number of houses you've upgraded with that ability.)
Otherwise, most skill tree upgrades just make little things cheaper and/or faster, or give you new embarkation bonuses, stuff like that.