Updates and Devlog

Updates Changelogs

Changelogs

Early Access version: 0.12.6R

CHANGELOG Changes marked with ⚡ were inspired by the community.

New content and features

• ⚡ The new exploration revamp has been introduced. This is a massive update to almost every aspect of this system – how glade events work, how resources are spawned, how glades are sized and distributed in the forest, etc.
• All glade events in the game have been changed – they now have different effects and requirements, ranging from simple good delivery to surviving hostile effects for a period of time. Rewards have also been adjusted and more events allow for a “send” or “keep” reward choice.
• A new requirement type has been added to Glade Events – working effects. Working Effects are penalties or challenges that trigger when an event is being worked on. The player’s objective is to adapt and survive them in order to solve the event.
• Added 3 new Glade Events and replaced 2 older events with completely new ones.
• Added Lore Tablets – a new extremely rare type of object found in glades. They contain lore snippets and hints about the world of Against The Storm. And more of them are coming in the future.
• Added new types of structures with positive effects as rewards for solving some Glade Events (for example “flipping” a Totem to become a decoration with a Resolve boost).
• The way glades are generated has changed – now there are no longer “free” big glades, and there is now a bigger difference between Normal and Hard difficulty.
• There are no longer three different values for Hostility when exploring. All glades, regardless of size and threats, now give the same amount of Hostility points.
• Resource generation has been adjusted to better reflect what is stated in the biome preview displayed before each game.
• All ruins have been rebalanced – they now cost a bit more and give fewer rewards. Ruins spawn rate in glades has also been adjusted.
• There are now more than double the amount of unique glades that are possible to appear on a map.
• Rebalanced glade rewards and resources. There are now fewer things to find in regular Glades, but much more treasure in Dangerous and Forbidden Glades.
• Service buildings have been changed. Now all structures such as the Tavern, Temple, Teadoctor, etc. are mechanically more distinct.
• Added unique effects to all service buildings in the game. These effects are activated based on the number of workers assigned. There can be one or more effects per structure (the only exception to this is the Common Hall).
• Removed the “free” tier of needs in service buildings. Now all needs require goods to be fulfilled.
• Rebalanced the costs and worker slots of all service buildings in the game.

Balance

• Hostility of the Forest has been rebalanced to fit with the new exploration revamp.
• All glades now give a flat amount of Hostility points.
• Increased the amount of Hostility coming from all villagers.
• Increased the amount of Hostility coming from woodcutters.
• Each Impatience Point now subtracts more Hostility points.
• Positive Hostility modifiers (such as Hearths and Impatience) will now always subtract the same amount of points and no longer scale with difficulty.
• Adjusted some Resolve bonuses to better fit the service building changes:
• Biscuits and Pie now give 5 instead of 6 Resolve.
• Brotherhood gives now 8 instead of 5 Resolve.
• Education and Luxury now give 10 instead of 5 Resolve.
• ⚡ Housing needs are now instantly fulfilled after a villager is assigned to a home (no more waiting for a villager taking a break to update their status).
• ⚡ Increased the chance of Sahilda having certain goods for sale (like Eggs or Mushrooms).

UI/UX improvements

• ⚡ Added status icons on worker slots – it’s now possible to see what a worker is doing in a given moment (if they are fetching resources, resting, idling, etc.). All status icons also have a tooltip when hovering over with a description of the villager’s actions.
• ⚡ Added an “idle workers” icon above buildings in which no one is working.
• ⚡ Allowed tree marking without the need for a Woodcutters’ Camp being built (outside of the tutorial).
• ⚡ Greatly reduced the amount of fog around the camera.

Bug fixes

• ⚡ Fixed numerous issues with the world map fog not loading correctly or covering up the entire screen on some machines.
• ⚡ Improved the overall performance of the fog on the world map.
• ⚡ Fixed a bug where sometimes Cornerstones would not be given to the player after starting a new year.
• ⚡ Fixed a bug where the players would be rolled back into Phase I after a forced world map reset.
• ⚡ Fixed a bug where some Coral Forest maps would have incorrect forest generation (some trees and glades were placed on water).
• ⚡ Fixed a bug where some Glade Event effects would not be removed after solving them.
• ⚡ Fixed a bug where some tooltips would go off-screen.
• ⚡ Fixed an issue with the Survivor Bonding Cornerstone giving the Resolve Bonus from the Ancient Artifact.
• ⚡ Fixed a bug that caused the Drainage Mole to appear on Dangerous Glades instead of Forbidden.
• ⚡ Fixed a bug where Glade Events sometimes wouldn’t spawn in Dangerous Glades.
• Timers in Glade Events are now real-time and also update based on the number of assigned workers.
• ⚡ Fixed a bug with Glade Info tooltips (from Cornerstones like Ancient Pack) covering regular glade tooltips.
• ⚡ Fixed an issue with marked trees being difficult to spot on certain biomes (like the Coral Forest or the Cursed Royal Woodlands)
• ⚡ Fixed a bug with player settlements disappearing from the world map.
• ⚡ Fixed a bug with the Small Farm being given to the player as a reward for completing an Order in a Barren Lands map.
• ⚡ Fixed a bug with Embark Bonuses being rerolled each time the game is loaded.
• ⚡ Fixed a broken icon in the Leaking Cauldron Glade Event.
• ⚡ Fixed a bug where the camera zoom would be interrupted when hovering over UI elements.
• ⚡ Fixed a rare bug with negative resource numbers appearing on the HUD after selling goods to a trader.
• ⚡ Fixed a bug with the perk overview in the building panel not being scrollable.
• ⚡ Fixed an issue with needs having different icons in different places (species panel vs villager panel).
• ⚡ Fixed a bug with the Clay Pit worker incorrectly being called a Greenhouse worker.
• ⚡ Fixed an issue where the trader Vliss Greybone had a visible color code in her description.
• ⚡ Fixed an issue with incorrect resource numbers displayed in the Cycle Summary after a force world map reset.
• ⚡ Fixed a bug where the Cellar Blueprint would give access to the Bakery instead.
• ⚡ Fixed a bug with the Order icon frozen mid-blink.
• ⚡ Removed Reputation and Impatience tooltips from the Reputation Bar after a game was won.
• ⚡ Updated the names of perks increasing Barrel and Leather production to no longer be duplicated of other existing perks.
• Updated the descriptions of Deeds requiring the player to win multiple games near a modifier to more precisely reflect the Deed’s meaning (that this should be done near different modifiers of the same kind).
• Fixed a bug where the “Trader Arrived” icon was still visible even if the Trading Post was destroyed.
• Improved save stability.

Other

1. Missing translations will now default to English.
2. Slickshell Broodmother textures have been updated.
3. ⚡ If you take more villagers with you at the start of a game, they will now position themselves around the Hearth, and no longer be crammed into one spot.

Early Access version: 0.12.6R

• Added Community Vote (available via button in the right bottom corner of the Main Menu)

Early Access version: 0.12.3R

• We just pushed a small hotfix which should prevent the seasons from not changing if Violent Dusk (+100 to Hostility) became active during the storm.

Early Access version: 0.12.1R

Changes marked with ⚡ were inspired by the community. New content and features

• ⚡ Added a new biome – the Coral Forest. Besides the standard differences, like resource availability and visuals, this region also brings a set of new content:
• three different types of trees with varying bonus resources
• a new forest layout – trees are now clamped together into distinct “islands”, making it easier to mark the ones you want for a specific resource
• an effect that boosts bonus production based on the Hostility level
• Added 6 new Forest Mysteries with unique effects to all biomes
• Implemented the first iteration of the new Order generation system
• Orders should now generate based on settlement conditions and unlocked meta progress, without impossible tasks like a farm on Barren Lands
• Added 20 completely new Orders and objective variations to existing Orders
• Added new objective types (like selling goods worth X Amber, opening up Caches or solving Dangerous Glade Events)
• Changed some objectives with the delivery of complex consumable goods to now require satisfying a need
• The amount of available Orders and their difficulty is now based on the map that is played. This means that games played on “Normal” (close to the Citadel) will have 12 easy Orders, whereas games on “Impossible” will now have 9 very hard Orders.

Balance

• ⚡ Changed the Resolve balance based on feedback from the previous patch
• ⚡ Added a system for dynamically moving the Reputation threshold (the blue bar) on the species Resolve indicator. It’s now easier to generate Reputation early on during the game, but the more Reputation is gained, the more Resolve is required.
• Stagnation no longer grows with gained Reputation.
• Stagnation is now a flat number and no longer a range.
• Lizards now generate more Reputation after reaching the blue threshold.

UI/UX improvements

• Added a new tooltip when hovering over a species’ Resolve bar. It now shows the current Resolve, Reputation gained from a given species, and the Reputation threshold.
• ⚡ Perks with unique effects (like Mist Piercers) will no longer appear in the Cornerstone selection window if the player has already picked it.
• ⚡ Perks will no longer appear in the Cornerstone selection window if they are useless in a given environment (like trading focused Cornerstones on a Trade Block map).
• In-game reports that were not sent due to network errors are now saved and possible to be sent again after reopening the feedback window.
• ⚡Added a biome summary screen with information about resources, fertile soil, and seasons in the ESC menu when playing on a map.
• Added a new panel with a summary of a given biome’s effects underneath the “Forest Mysteries” section when starting a new game.
• Added labels to villager needs’ tooltips (like “services”, “clothing”, “complex food”, etc.).
• Bug fixes
• ⚡ Fixed a bug where the Woodcutters’ Camp would go invisible when moving it after saving and loading the game multiple times.
• ⚡ Fixed a bug where destroying a building wouldn’t return goods located in its internal storage.
• ⚡ Fixed a bug where hovering over the UI would interrupt input while moving a building.
• ⚡ Fixed a bug where opening up the construction panel would not close the building window of a selected building.
• ⚡ Fixed an issue with the Important Matters effect lowering the Queen’s Impatience only by around 50% instead of 80%.
• ⚡ Fixed an issue with the Devastating Storms effect incorrectly stating that it stacks with Hostility.
• Fixed an issue with missing minus symbols in descriptions of effects shortening season durations.
• ⚡ Fixed a bug with the Prosperous Archaeology Cornerstone not giving Resolve for opened Caches.
• ⚡ Fixed a bug with the Prosperous Settlement Cornerstone not correctly counting its Resolve bonus based on traded goods.
• Changed the Prosperous Settlement description to more accurately reflect its effect (it now only counts goods sold to the trader).
• ⚡ Fixed an issue with ingredients overlapping in the goods selection UI.
• ⚡ Fixed a bug where the Feedback Window couldn’t be opened when in the Citadel, Deeds or Upgrade view.
• ⚡ Fixed an issue with incorrect tooltips and descriptions for alerts regarding idle scouts and freshly discovered Glade Events.
• ⚡ Fixed a bug with resource tooltips still being visible when opening the ESC menu in-game.
• ⚡ Fixed an issue with the goods counter overflowing when the player has more than 9999 resources of a given type (seriously, how? Are you cheating?).
• ⚡ Fixed a bug with the Trade Route window not opening again after closing it.
• Fixed an issue with the Rebellious Spirit Cornerstone not working correctly.
• Improved meta save backup stability.

Other

• Brought back the temporarily disabled seasonal effect Gift from the Woods.
• Removed the town preview in the biome summary view (we’ll bring that back in the future, once we iterate upon the entire world map system).
• Renamed the “Pan Camera Outside Main Screen” option to “Constrain Cursor”.

Early Access version: 0.11.4R

• Fixed a bug that caused the *Rebelious Spirit* cornerstone to to display an incorrect status in the tooltip
• Fixed a bug that caused the *Lost Supplies* cornerstone to display and incorrect status in the tooltip
• Fixed a bug that caused the *Exploration Contract* cornerstone to display and incorrect status in the tooltip
• Fixed a major issue that caused incorrect Hostility stacking after saving and loading a game. This bug was making the game harder than intended for some players (thanks to <@!183663406589411328> for reporting this)

Early Access version: 0.11.3R

Balance:

• Crystalized Dew recipe now has Insects instead of Resin in the third ingredient slot. This is however a temporary measure and the recipe will be updated in an upcoming patch.
• Lizards now give more passive Reputation from Resolve after surpassing the blue threshold
• Adjusted species sensitivity to Resolve changes. Beavers will now react a bit quicker to Resolve changes, whereas Lizards are now slightly more resilient and won't drop Resolve as drastically as before (but all species are still different in that matter)

Bug fixes:

• Fixed a bug where clicking on a built Homestead would highlight Fertile Soil hidden in nearby undiscovered Glades
• Fixed a bug where turning off Complex Effects would cause Blightrot to be invisible
• Fixed the "Turkish-I-problem" again, for good this time (probably?)
• Fixed an issue with the Trading Post still showing an upcoming trader message on maps with the Trade Block modifier

UI/UX imporvements:

• Added a timer to Recipes in the Rain Collector, Clay Pit, Greenhouse and Mine
• Adjusted the UI Size slider in the options menu to allow for an even smaller UI setting

Early Access version: 0.10.7R

New content and features Changes marked with ⚡ were inspired by the community.

• ⚡ Farm field preparation: Farmers now prepare fields during the Storm for a 20% chance of double yield next year.
• Yearly Newcomer groups now come with food or resources.
  
• Added Cloud Saves.
  
• ⚡ Added a system that detects low-end GPUs and turns off some of the more demanding particles that were causing game crashes.
• Balance
  
• ⚡ Resolve and Stagnation have been heavily rebalanced. The number of value changes in all aspects of the game is too numerous to list (food, housing, services, etc.), but it’s now way harder to get to the maximum Resolve and the passive Reputation generation threshold.
  
• Adjusted the trading value of most goods in the game, especially luxury goods used to fulfill villagers’ needs (Tea, Wine, Manuscripts, Ale).
  
• Barrel production in all buildings has been buffed significantly.
  
• Crystalized Dew production has been buffed in all buildings, and its trading value has been increased to match other metals.
  
• Manuscript production has been buffed.
  
• ⚡ Greenhouse production has been nerfed significantly (from 10 to 3), but an additional worker slot has been added.
  
• ⚡ Goods per minute cornerstones now give less resources and have a lower chance of appearing each year.
  
• ⚡ Mushrooms have been slightly nerfed – more Mushrooms are now required to make Flour and some Cornerstones boosting mushroom production were removed or shuffled around.
  
• ⚡ The Grove now has a two-star recipe for Berries.
  
• ⚡ Trade Routes have been rebalanced – they are now equalized, making it impossible to get free resources from back-and-forth exchanging.
  
• ⚡ The Workshop now costs more resources to build and has one worker slot less.
  
• The last three orders in the second tutorial have been nerfed – they now require fewer packs of goods and less resolve.
  
• Doubled the production time for Coal in the Mine.
  

UI/UX improvements

• ⚡ Added cycles and goods counters to tooltips of progressing perks (like Mushroom Specialization).
  
• ⚡ Added a timer to tooltips of timed effects (like Thrill of Exploration).
  
• ⚡ Added a death count to tooltips of effects that kill villagers (like Ancient Pact).
  
• ⚡ Added an alert for newly discovered Dangerous Events in Glades.
  
• ⚡ Added an alert for when workers have been assigned to a Glade Event, but the investigate button was not pressed.
  
• ⚡ Added an alert when no Firekeeper is assigned to the Main Hearth.
  
• Added an hourly alert that monitors the player’s playtime.
  
• ⚡ Added a checkbox for edge scrolling (you can now disable camera movement when the cursor is near the edge of the screen).
  

Bug fixes

• ⚡ Fixed a bug where goods bought from the Trader could still be stolen.
  
• ⚡ Fixed an issue with the incorrect save popup not being localized.
  
• ⚡ Fixed an issue with the blue dots staying on the Reputation bar after acquiring a Blueprint.
  
• ⚡ Fixed an issue where the Abandon button wouldn’t work right at the start of the tutorial.
  
• ⚡ Fixed a bug where the Storm would last only a few seconds due to incorrect time calculations after solving a Dangerous Glade Event.
  
• ⚡ Fixed a bug where the Finesmith Blueprint had the Smithy building attached to it.
  
• ⚡ Fixed an issue with the Æ and Œ characters not displaying correctly in the French version of the game.
  
• ⚡ Fixed an issue with the Woodcutters’ Camps not working after being rebuilt.
  
• ⚡ Fixed a bug where the in-game reports could only be sent once per session.
  
• ⚡ Fixed an issue where the Cursed Royal Woodlands reward was used up by towns built on a nearby hex.
  
• ⚡ Fixed an issue where the game wouldn’t pause after opening the Trade Route window.
  
• ⚡ Fixed a bug where some ruins (Supplier, Pantry) would require Simple Tools instead of Infused Tools.
  
• ⚡ Fixed an issue with Mist Piercers and Ancient Pact perks being available in the Cursed Royal Woodlands.
  
• ⚡ Fixed an issue with the Ranch only having a maximum production limit of 5.
  
• ⚡ Fixed a bug with the game unpausing at speed 1 after closing the Order window.
  
• ⚡ Fixed a bug with the Homestead showing Fertile Soil hidden on nearby Glades.
  
• ⚡ Fixed a bug where trend values were calculated incorrectly for the Fuel and Exploration goods category.
  
• ⚡ Fixed a bug where the Fading seasonal effect was applied even though its requirements were met.
  
• ⚡ Fixed a bug where the “no resources” notification would appear for a split second after a camp ran out of resources to collect.
  
• ⚡ Fixed a bug with incorrect time calculations on the vote button in the main menu.
  
• ⚡ Fixed an issue where some Glades would not have enough space to spawn a Dangerous Event.
  
• ⚡ Fixed an issue with the capital letter “i” not being displayed correctly on Turkish systems.
  
• ⚡ Fixed a bug with the “low on fuel” notification opening up the building menu after clicking it (instead of pointing to the Hearth).
  
• ⚡ Fixed a bug where a negative number could be put into the production limit text box.
  
• ⚡ Fixed an issue where typic was impossible if there was a “-” symbol in the production limit text box.
  
• ⚡ Fixed a bug where Citadel Resources wouldn’t show up in the Cycle summary window if the player had none left.
  
• ⚡ Fixed an issue with the missing scrollbar in the Cycle summary window.
  
• ⚡ Fixed a bug with the scroll bar in the Trade Route summary in the Citadel not working correctly.
  
• ⚡ Fixed a bug where old Trade Routes would still be displayed in the Citadel after starting a new Cycle.
  
• ⚡ Fixed an issue with season duration perks missing a minus symbol.
  
• ⚡ Fixed an issue with the “trader is on their way” message appearing after opening the Trading Post in a map with the Trade Block modifier.
  
• ⚡ Fixed an issue with tracked Deeds being displayed as unfinished if the reward was not yet collected for them.
  
• ⚡ Fixed a bug with the Forbidden Glade icon being turned away from the camera.
  
• ⚡ Fixed an issue where clicking on icons in build mode would open up the UI instead of placing a new building.
  
• ⚡ Fixed an issue with reward tooltips not being displayed while workers are in the middle of investigating an event.
  
• ⚡ Fixed a bug with the “comfortable” worker slot effect not being displayed in the [Alt] key overlay.
  
• ⚡ Fixed an issue with incorrect visual sorting while in tree marking mode.
  
• ⚡ Fixed an issue with resource costs still being shown for already bought upgrades in the Citadel.
  
• ⚡ Fixed an issue with the “Embark” button not turning grey after exceeding the Embark Point limit.
  
• ⚡ Fixed a bug with missing scrollbars in the “My Goods” and “Trader Goods” areas of the trading UI.
  
• ⚡ Fixed a bug with the Devastating Storms description incorrectly stating that the effect stacks with Hostility.
  
• ⚡ Fixed a typo in the Petrification effect description.
  

Other

• Updated the farm field model and texture.
  
• ⚡ Updated the resource description for Parts.
  
• ⚡ Changed the Basic Housing effect name to Sheltered.
  
• ⚡ Updated the Toxic Ooze threat description to more clearly indicate what the effect does.
  

Early Access version: 0.10.7R

improved the save system stability • ‘Move Camera Outside Game Screen’ checkbox will also lock the cursor to the game window

Early Access version: 0.10.5R

• fixed an issue with the Cursed Royal Woodlands being ranked as Normal difficulty
• fixed an issue with Mush Soup not counting towards Complex Food requirements
• fixed the Important Matters seasonal effect (it now lowers Impatience generation by 50%)
• Removed colored frames from building blueprints
• Fixed a few typos (graphical options in German, missing Black Market description in Russian).

Early Access version: 0.10.3R

• • HOTFIX 0.10.3R**

We just pushed a small update that fixes the missing perk texts (*Bone Tools, Black Market*) and the missing *Poisoned Food* effect description.

Early Access version: 0.9.17R

• • HOTFIX 0.9.17R**

We just pushed a small hotfix that prevents the game from crashing after following the World Map Deeds on certain CPUs.

Early Access version: 0.9.16R

• Fixed multiple issues with the save files compatibility between the Early Access version and the Demo
• Improved save stability and removed backup overriding
• Goods in the “Trader offer” and “My offer” categories no longer disappear after buying a perk/blueprint for Amber
• Fixed a bug where perks like “Ancient Pact” caused the glade information icons to be displayed above the already Discovered glades
• Faction AI no longer hyper focuses on one tile on the World Map
• Fixed a bug where Citadel Resources were incorrectly counted in the Cycle Summary View
• Fixed a bug where the trader could offer already owned blueprints
• Fixed a bug where Zhorg (Trader) wouldn’t buy building materials
• Removed a duplicated Deed from the game
• Fixed a bug where the sacrifice panel in the Hearth was incorrectly scaled after removing a “sacrifice block” effect
• Fixed a bug where Firekeeper bonuses stayed active after the Firekeeper died or left the village
• Fixed an issue with the extinguished Hearth automatically reigniting after loading the save
• Adjusted the UI in places where translated text was too long (I’m looking at you, German language)
• Removed the minus symbol from certain perk descriptions
• Fixed a bug where the “complete order” sound was played after finishing a game
• Fixed an issue with the intro voice-over volume being too low
• Fixed multiple building construction sites, so the roof wouldn’t stick out from underneath the ground
• Fixed a bug where villager numbers wouldn’t update on the HUD when the game was paused
• Fixed a bug where the food category of goods was always open after loading a save
• Fixed an issue with Resolve Effects overflowing in the Species Panel
• Right-clicking on a building icon no longer opens up the building window
• Fixed multiple issues with texts (grammar, perk names, incorrect icons in text, etc.)
• Centered the Trader icon above the Trading Post
• Fixed an issue with non-dismissable “Report not sent” notifications

Early Access version: 0.9.15R

• Fixed a bug where eating biscuits wouldn't meet the Food need
• Fixed a bug where Demo players who bought Upgrades during a Cycle could not finish the Cycle in the Early Access version
• Corrected Hearth's Sacrifice tooltip values
• Fixed a bug where passive reputation bonus was incorrectly displayed on the species Resolve Bar tooltip
• Fixed a bug where the building's preview would lack '+' and '=' signs in the Recipes
• Added a missing text in the building's preview
• Fixed a bug where the Ancient Pact would not show the content of regular glades
• Russian localization improvements (due to an oversight on our end, some of the texts were not up-to-date)

Devlogs

Devlogs

Devlog #1 – It’s alive!

Apr 28, 2021

Greetings, Citizens! We’re starting a series of development blogs to let you stay on track with the development progress and provide you with an opportunity to learn more about the game.

One of the ideas behind Against the Storm is community-driven development. We believe that a well-informed community can provide more valuable feedback and thus have a stronger impact on the development process. So without further ado, let’s take a deep dive into the last couple weeks of our work.

Dense Forest & Glades – roguelite features

We always planned Against the Storm to be 70% city builder and 30% roguelite. While the city builder part is easily distinguishable from the screenshots, the roguelite one… not necessarily.

We develop Against the Storm with three pillars in mind:

The feeling of rebuilding Becoming a part of the world Diversity of experience Although we felt that the game already delivers the first two of them, we knew it falls short on the last one. So we decided to discuss once again what we believe are the most essential roguelite features (which we believe to be an essential part of the Diversity of experience pillar), what problems we are facing in this area, and how we can resolve them.

Here’s what we found out.

Roguelite features: Plurality of choices Emergent gameplay Strategy without micromanagement Consequences of choices Emphasis on the mastery Learning from your mistakes ‘Ultimate power’ fantasy Decision trade-offs Procedural generation Exploration

Roguelite pillars: Diversity of challenges Diversity of imperfect tools to cope with the challenges Choices that permanently determine what tools are you going to use to cope with the challenges

Three deadly sins We were able to distinguish three major problems (three deadly sins) that contrasted with the previously mentioned features and pillars.

Sin I
We lack long-term challenges. With no challenges upon players, there’s no real risk and without the risk, there are no meaningful choices (e.g. which passive bonus should you invest in).

The long-term choice in Slay the Spire (source: u/MisirterE)

Sin II
We have no synergy. As a result, we also don’t have our ultimate power fantasy. You know – that one ideal run during which you performed so well you keep coming back to it in your mind and try to find a way to recreate this scenario on consecutive runs. The lack of synergy also means there can’t be any complex and diverse tactics.

A synergy of items in The Binding of Isaac (source: BungieMuffin)

Sin III
There’s no mastery. After learning the initial rules there are no systems that allow players to learn, get to know the game, and become better.
Mastery in Dead Cells (source: Rock Paper Shotgun)

Dense Forest – Overview

With that in mind, we formed a list of systems & features that could be implemented to support the Diversity of experience pillar and strengthen the roguelite aspect. One of the ideas we decided to test is the Dense Forest system, which supports exploration, perks, rewards, synergies, and mastery.

The Dense Forest system tries to address three problems:

• Game’s fantasy: the forest is not mysterious and overwhelming enough
• Gameplay: there are no systems that encourage exploration, which is an essential part of roguelites
• Gameplay: too much of the map is uncovered. As a result, the player has too much information at the beginning, which encourages to restart the game to generate better resources on the map

How it works:

The player starts the game on a glade tightly surrounded by trees. The rest of the map is covered by the fog. However, the player is still able to see the shapes of other glades in the woods. Those are the places where resources and interesting objects lie, but also the danger awaits. The initial information about the contents of the glades is scarce, but it is possible to uncover it by sending a woodcutter expedition that will cut their way to the glade. Once discovered, the glade is no longer covered by the fog. The players’ task is to assess the risk of uncovering new glades.

This system resembles dungeon exploration known from other games. You are often faced with a choice, which chamber to visit next. You might get rewarded, but you can also get into serious trouble.

The majority of fields on the map are filled with trees, which can be cut down. In the Building panel, there are two icons dedicated to selecting (and de-selecting) areas marked for deforestation. The trees will only be active if the player has built the Woodcutters Camp and assigned Worker(s) to the building. The deforestation zones are marked by clicking and dragging the LMB over the desired area. Those zones are then highlighted in every mode. Workers will start chopping down trees of the closest zone and only proceed to the next one if the first is fully cleared.Your content goes here. Edit or remove this text inline or in the module Content settings. You can also style every aspect of this content in the module Design settings and even apply custom CSS to this text in the module Advanced settings.

There are three types of trees, which differ in terms of the generated resources and the amount of time necessary to cut them down:

• Evergreen – medium cut-down time; medium amount of resources
• Hollow – short cut-down time; low amount of resources
• Petrified – long cut-down time; low amount of resources

Tree models (from left: Evergreen, Hollow, Petrified)

Cutting the path to a new glade is a valuable opportunity to discover a vast area for the development of the player’s colony and most likely find new resources or more valuable rewards like passive perks. There’s also a threat of coming across new dangers.

We were able to implement the basic representation of this mechanic to the game and we’re already satisfied with the results from playtests. At the same time, we’d like to ask about your impressions. Many of you were curious what’s rogueliteish about Against the Storm. So, what do you think of this mechanic? Penny for a thought!


It’s a bird… It’s a plane… It’s a Beaver!


For quite some time we’ve felt that the Beaver population was underrepresented in the game. No wonder, since they didn’t have their 3D model implemented. Duh.

So finally we’ve added the Beaver Worker model to the game along with some basic animations. You can check the animated Beaver Worker model on our SketchFab.

We wouldn’t be ourselves if we didn’t make a PS1 Hagrid meme of it. Feel free to make it your new Steam avatar.

Yur a wizard Arry

Camps & Modules

From other news, we’ve been working on modules for some low tier buildings. Up to this point, we only had models of high-end buildings that leverage the rainpunk technology, whereas we didn’t have any in-house-made assets for buildings that are constructed early in the game. Ones that don’t impress with their high fidelity or scale, but still are the ones that players will see most often.

Hence, we’re currently working the following models:

• Lumber Camp
• Scavenger Camp
• Prospector’s Hut
• Hunters’ Lodge
• Quarry
• Simple Farm

Camps module list

Whenever we make new buildings, we create them from modules. It helps us significantly speed up the process. We create modules (as seen below) that allow us to duplicate them in various objects with various decorations.

Rainpunk Modules


In the meantime, we also created rainpunk modules that will be later used in various buildings that utilize rainpunk technology. What’s rainpunk you ask?

For centuries, the world of Against the Storm has been tormented by perpetual rains of extraordinary, magical properties. It can change the matter it touches and is charged with energy. Although it can be processed and utilized for noble purposes, the rain has a negative impact on all sentient races and a fair number of animals, spreading disease in their bodies.

Rainpunk term refers to a technology that utilizes magical rain.

Hello world!

The last few weeks will remain forever special for us as we finally stepped out of the shadows and announced Against the Storm to the world.

The announcement itself was one of a kind experience for us. Seeing your genuine interest in the concept and visuals of Against the Storm made our motivation and excitement skyrocket. We’d like to thank you for all your support in the form of retweets, wishlisting the game, or spreading the word about it. You’re legends!

The question we hear a lot among other developers is When is the best time to announce your game? The answer, as too often, is: It depends. It depends on the scale of the project, the quality and amount of assets at your disposal, your marketing plan, and many many more. For some, it would be as early as the first model is created, for others when the proper trailer (CGI or gameplay) is created.

For us, it was supposed to be the day when we were able to launch our Steam page (actually, that was the second idea – let us know in the comments if you want to know the other). The game’s Steam page is the ultimate place where we want to drive players. Every Steam wishlist counts and helps us get more visibility on the platform and attract new members to our community.

So we focused our efforts on creating essential in-game assets that would best capture the idea of the game: fantasy races, buildings that could only have a purpose in the world where it constantly rains, etc. But then, we managed to attract the editors of CD-Action with the overview and gameplay of the game (with some placeholders, but they are acceptable at this point). CD-Action is the largest Polish print magazine about games.

It was one a kind opportunity for us, so we shifted all our efforts towards creating the best texts and screenshots that we could provide them. Sidenote: we didn’t play with screenshots in any graphic editors. What you see is taken directly from the game.

At the same time, we started the process of setting up the Steam page. Piece of advice for other indie developers: have your Steamworks account created as early as possible. You will learn what assets are necessary to launch your store page and how long the procedures take. We have some experience in launching Steam pages, but nevertheless we barely made it on time. Save yourself some unnecessary stress.

In the end, we managed to set up all the pages we wanted on time. We’re on Steam, Game Jolt, IndieDB, Reddit, Facebook, Twitter, and more. That’s a lot of graphics to prepare, so we’re sharing with you our list of images and sizes that will help you prepare for launching your pages in advance: List of marketing assets and sizes (Steam, Game Jolt, IndieDB, and more!)

We appeared in CD-Action (dreams come true!) and connected it with the global press outreach. We got some coverage on pages like Tech Raptor, OffGamers, Blue’sNews, MMOinGame, Nano Gaming News, and more. We even made it to the front page of IndieDB, so once again thank you for your interest that allowed us to reach such a high spot.

Your turn! What would you like to see covered in future devlogs? We’re eager to share more news about the game or provide you with useful tips on game development and marketing. Let us know in the comments! This text is collapsible.