Greetings, Viceroys!

It’s update time again, folks! And this time, we’ve got some exciting news: we’re introducing Training Expeditions that allow you to tailor your custom game experience to your heart’s desire.

What’s new:

• Training Expeditions (custom game mode)
• Steam Trading Cards
• UI/UX improvements

There’s more to unpack, so let’s dive in!

P.S. If you’ve already picked up Against the Storm and have been playing it, make sure to leave a Steam review. Every opinion matters!

DEVELOPER NOTES

New year, new me Against the Storm update! Today, we’re finally bringing you the long-awaited Training Expeditions – a customizable game mode, where you can freely choose your starting conditions and adjust game settings to your liking.

The Training Expedition is unlocked at level 10, after buying the Obsidian Archive Level 10 upgrade in the Smoldering City. We decided to lock it behind an upgrade for a reason – to not invalidate the game’s core gameplay and progression loops, and to avoid spoiling the fun too early. While the custom mode is an amazing feature to experiment with crazy runs and weird conditions, it’s not supposed to be the first thing a player experiences when starting the game.

Training Expedition

Now, what exactly is the custom mode and what does it allow you to do? Once you unlock it, you will get a new button on the World Map HUD. Clicking it will bring up a panel with A LOT of options. There you will be able to choose a biome, the 3 playable species, your starting resources, the difficulty level, embark bonuses, Forest Mysteries, and modifiers from all three areas of the game (Daily, World Map, and Prestige). You can freely combine modifiers, even if they are contradictory in nature (but beware, the game will simply choose one or disable both, depending on the nature of the contradicting effect).

One common request from the community was an option to adjust the game length. That’s why in Training Expeditions, you will finally be able to change the number of Reputation Points required to win a game, as well as choose the Impatience threshold. There are 4 options for Reputation (10, 14, 18, 30) and 5 options for Impatience (2, 4, 10, 14, 30). There is also an option to change the passive Impatience generation rate.

One last thing to note about Training Expeditions – they yield no rewards. That’s because balancing a fully custom mode like this would be a nightmare (both design-wise, and for the players). Training Expeditions are meant as a fun way of experimenting with the game, either by playing a more relaxed version of it or by challenging yourself beyond even the most difficult Prestige levels. Both these extremes, and everything in between, would be impossibly hard to reward fairly (and keep balanced as new features and modifiers are introduced into the game).

There are also some smaller changes coming with this update. This time we focused mostly on bugs and localization improvements, but there are a few UX/UI changes as well. Most notably – a much-requested camera speed increase when moving from building to building.

We also added Steam Trading Cards for Against the Storm. If you’re playing on Steam, you’ll now be rewarded with up to six (out of eleven) Steam Trading Cards which you can sell, trade with other Steam users, or collect to craft a Steam Badge. Crafting the badge will reward you with one (out of three) Steam Backgrounds and one (out of ten) emoticons. If you’re lucky, you can also get special foil Cards. Happy trading and collecting!

Crafting Steam Badge

Lastly – we wanted to take this opportunity and thank all of you who played the experimental branch over the last couple of weeks for testing the new Blightrot changes. With your help and feedback we finally see a clear way forward with this system, so expect a Blightrot revamp on the main branch very soon.

Thank you for providing us with feedback and suggestions for the new update. If you’d like to share your ideas for upcoming updates, here are some useful links:

• Steam Discussions, Discord, Reddit – discuss the game with the community and share your impressions
• Feature Request Tool – suggest specific new features

We wish you a happy new year and can’t wait to see what the upcoming 12 months hold for Against the Storm!

May the storm be gentle on you,
Eremite Games

CHANGELOG

Changes marked with ⚡ were inspired by community.

New content and features

• ⚡ Added a new customizable game mode – Training Expeditions.
  • To put it plainly, a Training Expedition is a custom game. When starting one, you can select a biome, species, Forest Mysteries, resources, modifiers, embark bonuses, and game length (among other things).
  • All modifiers from the World Map, the Daily Expedition, and Prestige difficulties can be selected when starting a custom game.
  • Some modifiers might be contradictory (like Dangerous Lands and Forbidden Lands) and you won’t be stopped from picking them – but beware, they will not work together, so the game will probably only activate one of them (and remove the other one when starting a run).
  • You can change how much Reputation is needed to win. There are 4 settings for this:
    • 10 points (quick game)
    • 14 points (default game)
    • 18 points (prestige game)
    • 30 points (marathon)
  • You can also customize the maximum number of Impatience points. There are 5 settings for this:
    • 2 points
    • 4 Points
    • 10 Points
    • 14 Points (default)
    • 30 Points
  • You can also change the speed at which Impatience is automatically generated:
    • 0% per minute
    • 26% per minute (default)
  • You can decide to enable or disable Blightrot, and choose between 5 levels of footprints/corruption (50%, 100%, 200%, 250%, 400%).
  • You can choose towns for Trade Routes, but they need to be on the World Map first.
  • You can freely choose the Forest Mysteries that will be active in a given game (or leave them to be randomly drawn).
  • If you like how a map looks, you can copy/paste its seed into the custom game UI. Seeds only influence glade layout, resource nodes, fertile soil, ore deposits, and events. Changing a custom game’s settings will also influence the map (so a seed will only give you the same result if all the other settings are the same).
  • Custom game settings can be saved into so-called templates. Every profile has 6 template slots.
  • To unlock Training Expeditions, you will need to buy the Obsidian Archive Level 10 upgrade in the Smoldering City. 
  • Training Expeditions give no rewards and don’t influence the Blightstorm Cycle.

Balance

• ⚡ Rebalanced the Pottery and Wine order. Instead of building an Artisan and providing barrels, it now requires (drumroll, please) pottery and wine.
• ⚡ Moved the Destroyed Cage of the Warbeast glade event from Dangerous Glades to Forbidden Glades. 
• Overheating and Vassal Tax Forest Mysteries were temporarily removed from the game. We found them to be troublesome because of several reasons – lack of proper UI, balancing issues, and potential bugs. We want to take some time and redesign them.
• Removed the Faster Building stat from the Vanguard Spire Level 5 upgrade. Added the Additional Caravan Choice reward instead (moved from the Obsidian Archive Level 10 upgrade). 
  • We decided to replace this upgrade because the +10% construction speed change was a minimal and boring stat increase. With it out of the way, we feel that every node on the upgrade tree finally has at least one interesting reward, and we can focus on adding more levels in the future (instead of replacing existing ones).
• Removed the Additional Caravan Choice reward from the Obsidian Archive Level 10 upgrade, and added the Training Expedition unlock instead.

UX/UI improvements

• ⚡ Improved the wording in the description of shelters and species-specific houses. Instead of saying “number of places: X”, the description now reads “can house X residents”.
• ⚡ Increased the speed at which the camera moves to selected buildings and glade events.
• ⚡ Camp icons in resource node panels are now ordered from advanced to small.
• ⚡ Changed the number color for some Hostility sources in the Hostility of the Forest tooltip (from green to red when the value is 0, so it’s clearly visible which sources increase Hostility). 
• Updated some Encyclopedia entries with more up-to-date screenshots and videos.
• Changed the icon for the Wet Soil Prestige modifier to avoid duplicates.

Bug fixes

• ⚡ Fixed a bug that caused villagers to stop working when being reassigned to the same worker slots too quickly. 
• ⚡ Fixed a bug with demo saves being incorrectly transferred to the full version. 
• ⚡ Fixed a bug that caused the Bed and Breakfast cornerstone to not give Amber on trader arrival.
• ⚡ Fixed a bug with the starting glade having an incorrect resource layout.
• ⚡ Fixed a bug with the delivery threshold in the internal storage exceeding the storage limit. 
• ⚡ Fixed a bug with camps displaying “no deposits” alerts when the delivery threshold is set to 0. 
• ⚡ Fixed a bug with the Like a Machine deed being possible to complete even after losing a game.
• ⚡ Fixed a bug with the Stormforged version of the Trade Negotiations cornerstone being drawn in games with a trade block effect.
• ⚡ Fixed a bug with the Forge Trip Hammer cornerstone applying its Resolve penalty to Workshop workers.
• ⚡ Fixed a bug where gaining multiple Reputation points would only decrease Impatience by 1. 
• ⚡ Fixed an issue with Citadel Resource icons not being visible on modifiers right after expanding the draw distance on the World Map. 
• ⚡ Fixed a bug with the Third Party modifier not working correctly.
• ⚡ Fixed a typo in the description of the Overexploration cornerstone.
• ⚡ Fixed a bug with the Temple of the Forsaken Gods daily modifier having an outdated effect (Reputation from Resolve block instead of additional Timed Orders).
• ⚡ Fixed a bug with the Hostility sound effect playing multiple times when gaining a lot of Hostility points.
• ⚡ Fixed a bug that causes the game to automatically unpause after choosing an Ethereal Cornerstone.
• ⚡ Fixed a bug with the Order reward tooltip staying on screen after finishing an Order. 
• ⚡ Fixed an issue with camps displaying a “no workers” alert for a split second after being upgraded. 
• ⚡ Fixed a bug that allowed players to turn off the Blighstorm Cycle animation and see the world generation process under it. 
• ⚡ Fixed an incorrect percentage value in the Hunter-Gatherers perk preview icon.
• ⚡ Fixed an issue with the Ancient Practices perk showing too little information about its progress in its tooltip footer. 
• ⚡ Fixed an issue with two buildings being permanently locked in the Encyclopedia (even if the player has unlocked all the content in the game).
• ⚡ Changed the name of one of the two Workstation Upgrade perks to avoid confusion (the one upgrading the Makeshift Post is now called Worker Mobilization). 
• ⚡ Fixed a few typos and grammatical errors in English:
  • Local Taxes perk description.
  • Tooltip for sacrificing oil in the Hearth.
• ⚡ Fixed a few typos and grammatical errors in Japanese:
  • Frequent Caravans perk description.
  • Objectives for orders based on Standing levels with other towns.
• ⚡ Fixed a few typos and grammatical errors in French:
  • Label in the difficulty tooltip in the Embark Panel.
• ⚡ Fixed a few typos and grammatical errors in German:
  • Embark button text. 
  • Score tooltip for Unity category. 
• ⚡ Fixed a few typos and grammatical errors in Russian:
  • Trade Hub perk description.
  • Species Resolve tooltip.
  • Fertile Soil section in the Embark Panel.
  • “Alerts” header in the options menu.
  • Rotting Wood Forest Mystery description.
  • Zhorg’s intro text in the trader panel.
  • “Unlocked content” header in the level-up pop-up.
• ⚡ Fixed a missing translation in Polish for the Liquid Luck order.
• ⚡ Changed the name of the Foragers\ Camp in Korean.
• Fixed a bug with one of the Dangerous Glades in the Cursed Royal Woodlands having fewer resource nodes than intended. 
• Fixed an incorrect label in the Quick Deliveries perk.
• Fixed an incorrect label in the Shattered Obelisk modifier.
• Fixed a bug with a missing visual effect on some buildings when they are hit by lightning.
• Fixed an issue with the lightning effect being always active in the Stormbird glade event.
• Fixed an issue with the water effect being always active in the Lumber Mill.

Other 

• ⚡ Added one new music track to the game (The Marshlands, clearance season).
• Added new sounds to all 8 traders in the game. Traders will now speak short phrases when opening the trader panel, making a sale, and closing the trader panel.
• Added Steam Trading Cards.  On Steam, you can now collect up to 6 (out of 11) Steam Trading Cards.
  • You can craft 5 levels of Regular Badges for Regular Cards and 1 Foil Badge for Foil Cards.
  • Crafting each level of the badge will reward you with:
    • 1 out of 10 emoticons,
    • 1 out of 3 backgrounds.
  • You can sell or trade your Cards.

COMMUNITY CORNER

The game’s origins

In this special section, we want to take a few paragraphs to answer a community question and delve into the origins of our game and provide some insight into how it came to be.

Sit back, relax, and let us tell you a story.

It all started back in 2019 when we were brainstorming ideas for a new game. We decided to adopt a world-building method where we would alter one element of the real world and explore how it would impact an imaginary universe. After considering various concepts, one idea stood out: what if there was a world in which it never stopped raining?

We began to consider the many ways in which this would affect the environment, culture, architecture, and other aspects of everyday life in this world. We explored the magical properties of the rain, the role of fire (including religion), the species that could inhabit the world, farming conditions, food spoilage, water drainage, rituals, urban design, technology, fashion, professions, and many other elements of a world plagued by constant rain.

As we delved deeper into this concept, Damian began sharing some concept art which further convinced us that we wanted to develop this world:

Wok Samurai concept art

However, this may or may not come to you as a surprise, we initially imagined Codename Rainpunk (as we called it at the time) as an RPG game. After all, we were a tiny indie studio working on the game after hours. Of course, it had to be an RPG! We were sane enough not to make it an MMO, though.

Rainpunk RPG concept art

After working on a prototype for a few weeks, we quickly realized that the scope of an RPG game (even a modest one like we had envisioned for Codename Rainpunk) was beyond our resources. Market research and our passion for classic strategy games led us to pivot towards a city builder enhanced by roguelite elements (one of the remains of the RPG game) set in the world of Rainpunk.

Rainpunk City Builder prototype

The new prototype (developed at the end of 2019) turned out to be very promising and thus we greenlit what later became Against the Storm. For the following months, the core team worked on numerous aspects of the game until we were finally ready to announce it to the public in May 2020, followed by the first public demo in September 2020.

And thus began our great journey with you – the players – whose feedback and support have been integral to the development and evolution of the game ever since.

Community Memes

And now, the featured community memes:

Against the Storm in a nutshell by KITVS

Big brain by Yassine Meskhout

Familiar city screen by gegc

Presents by AngryTetris

Primadonna Chickens by Lain Vohn Dyrec

Scroll of Truth by Edward

For more memes come to our Discord and Reddit. Have a great weekend!

CONTINUE READING...