Hooded Horse's roguelike city builder Against the Storm slipped out of early access late last year—too late to be in contention for PCG's Game of the Year Awards. Which is a shame, because—as our 91% review can attest—it's a triumphant reimagining of the genre, and a game that absolutely deserves more attention.
Rather than building one city that grows and grows until you get bored and start a new one, here you're just a temporary resident, battling against the hostility of the forest until you complete enough objectives to pack up and move somewhere new. The resources on each map are limited, and exploiting them raises the general sense of foreboding your citizens are toiling under—as you rise up the difficulty levels, it can often feel as if success is achieved just as your production chains are on the verge of irrevocable collapse.
It's clever stuff, and made better thanks to the series of free updates made in the months since its release. And now developer Eremite Games is putting the finishing touches on the game's first expansion, Keepers of the Stone, which the studio today revealed is coming out next month, on September 26.
The expansion is adding a bunch of stuff to pretty much all of Against the Storm's main systems—a new biome, new buildings, and new orders, risks and opportunities. But the main addition is a new species that will be joining your caravan. The frog peoples are skilled stonemasons, apparently, which I assume means they get gathering bonuses when you pop them in the Stonecutters' Camp. But more than just a new set of specialisations, a new species also brings its own distinct set of needs—meaning you'll need to spec into different complex foods and luxuries to keep them happy.
Alongside Keepers of the Stone, Eremite is also releasing the game's free 1.4 update on the same date. Around the various balance changes and bug fixes, the big addition here is fishing. A new resource node will let you gather fish and algae, which will be integrated into some new production recipes. The wrinkle here is, unlike other resource nodes, your fishermen won't transport their haul to the warehouse until the entire pond is depleted—and if you manually order them to pull in their nets and deposit their goods, the pond will instantly dry up. A little risk and reward then—do you wait however long it takes for your fisherman to finish the job, or take the short-term gain of some fish, at the long-term cost of more fish. Decisions, decisions.
Basically, it's a bunch more complications in a game that is all about mitigating those complications for as long as it takes to get the job done. If you've not yet given Against the Storm a try, it's well worth picking up—I've been playing it pretty obsessively these last few weeks. And you've now got just enough time to get a good basis on its current systems before the frogs and fish arrive next month.
