Against the Storm perfected the city builder by breaking the city builder

Against the Storm is one of the best city builders I’ve ever played, but what’s perhaps most impressive is that this was achieved by throwing away the city builder formula. Instead of spending hundreds of hours working on a city and steadily building it from a small village to a bustling metropolis, you start your city over every 1-2 hours. The roguelite progression should be antithetical to the city building genre, but instead it breathes new life into it.

The secret is that despite how much city builders focus on spreading your city across a map, it’s actually fun to start over with a new city. Against the Storm plays on how fun it is to look for raw materials, map out your first roads and plan your first city. The systems elegantly adapt the random loop of a roguelike so that each of these cities presents a unique challenge.

In the video above I explain how that and a lot of other ingenious systems work Against the Storm such a special city builder. If you like this video, be sure to check out the rest on our Youtube Channel and follow our TikTok!

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