History VideoGame / AgainstTheStorm

** Using Rainpunk technology will allow you to vastly increase your production, but causes Blightrot, which can corrupt your Hearth and kill your villagers if not handled properly. In additional, Rainpunk tech requires additional infrastructure that can tie up your villagers.

%%* FantasticFlora: The Coral Forest contains several different types of trees each of which produces a different secondary resource.%%Insufficient context. How are these "fantastic"?

* ThePhoenix: The Smoldering City and its Queen are highly associated with them, especially fire as the counterpoint to the constant rain. [[spoiler:The cutscene at the end of the Queen's Hand trial reveals the Queen is a phoenix BeastWoman herself.]]

* LizardFolk: Lizards are one of the villager species. They specialize in hunting and cooking meat while [[ColdBloodedWhatever preferring to work in warm buildings]]. They are as fickle as the Foxes and Harpies, but are the easiest low-Resolve species to hang on to, as their preference for warm buildings and relatively easy access to their preferred food makes them easy to please.

* BlackAndGreyMorality: The Scorched Queen is a ruthless, expansionist politician, though in all fairness every bit of the City's support network is completely destroyed every few years and the land regenerates thanks to the Blightstorm. She is also resolutely opposed to the [[EldritchAbomination Sealed Ones]] and will help you directly when fixing their Seals.

* BusyBeaver: Beavers are one of the villager species, they specialize in [[MightyLumberjack wood working]] and enjoy [[SteampunkGadgeteers engineering]]. They are also very hardy, matching Humans for base Resolve.

* ComfortFood: Each species has several [[TrademarkFavoriteFood Trademark Favorite Foods]] that raise their resolve; each of these complex foods requires some kind of processing.

* EasyLogistics: If you have multiple warehouses then your villagers can access any resource from any warehouse without needing to move it. Additionally, while villagers need a house they don't actually visit them, and simply rest at the closest hearth for all their needs.

* FantasticFlora: The Coral Forest contains several different types of trees each of which produces a different secondary resource.

* GeniusLoci: The forest is at least semi-intelligent, always aware of your settlements and actions, in particular hating woodcutters and glades being discovered while also [[FirePurifies fearing the fire that burns in hearths]]. The longer a settlement lasts, the more its hostility grows and the worse the storm gets on settlers as a result.

* GodSaveUsFromTheQueen: Downplayed. The Scorched Queen the only person (and that term is used loosely) that's able to protect anyone from the horrifying power of the Blightstorm, and she's a fairly good ruler besides. That does ''not'' mean that she is benevolent, it means she can be a real MeanBoss when she feels her representatives aren't up to snuff: each map has you in a race against time to make your settlement self-sufficient before the Queen's patience runs out. If she runs out of patience, the settlement ''immediately'' fails, with the implication that the Queen either killed everyone or let the forest claim them. And while the forest ''hates'' your settlement, it ''fears'' the Queen's impatience, which is one of the only things that can lower Forest Hostility. [[spoiler:She also burns off the arms of people she selects as her [[CoDragons Hands]], but this doesn't seem to be something she has a choice in - the ceremony involves shaking her hand, [[HarmfulToTouch and since she's a phoenix made of fire]]...]]
* GuideDangIt: Minor, but when it comes to marking/clearing trees for Woodcutter camps, the game doesn't tell you that you can use Shift to massively narrow the reticle. This allows for much more precise tree-clearing, and by extension, much faster progression toward glades if you need to hurry.
* HarpingOnAboutHarpies: Harpies are one of the villager species, they specialize in [[AlchemyIsMagic alchemy]] and [[TextileWorkIsFeminine enjoy working with cloth.]] They are fickle and have low Resolve, but their preferences are somewhat easy to satisfy, making them relatively easy to please.
* HauntedHouse: Haunted ruins can show up as glade events. Clearing the haunting allows you to either restore the building for your use or scavenge it for resources. In many cases the restored building has better performance than its normal counterpart.
* HumansAreSurvivors: Humans have a higher base resolve rating, meaning they are often the last to desert a colony when things are bad.
* LizardFolk: Lizards are one of the villager species, they specialize in [[ClassicalHunter hunting]] and cooking meat while [[ColdBloodedWhatever preferring to work in warm buildings.]] They are as fickle as the Foxes and Harpies, but are the easiest low Resolve species to hang on to, as their preference for warm buildings and relatively easy access to their preferred food makes them easy to please.

* TheLostWoods: As a result of the Blightstorm, the world is constantly changing every 30-40 years, and as a result, settlements are always located in an unexplored region of the vast forests that cover the kingdom. The people ''know'' that there's plenty of resources out there, but they ''don't know'' what they are, where they might be, or more importantly, how dangerous it is to get them. The only way to find out is to venture into the unknown...

* RefiningResources: A core part of the game, your villagers can collect basic foods and resources from resource nodes but these need to be refined or cooked to provide better foods, building materials, service consumables and trade goods.
** Also notable is that every building can refine three or four resources, but they're not all ''good'' at it. Buildings can refine at a one, two, or three star rating: the better the rating, the faster the building refines it, and the fewer resources it uses. This results in things like the Kiln, which is used to make coal from wood (three star rating), also being able to produce Skewers of meat (one star rating) in a pinch. Three star ratings are ideal, but usually only available to specialized buildings, which have one star ratings in other production possibilities. Two star rating buildings usually have two stars across all their production lines. The absolute ''worst'' rating, however, is "Wasteful", which is a red circle: these buildings have terrible production speeds and generally use ''twice or more'' as many resources to make the same productions as a proper production building, but they're labeled as "Essential" and therefore always available, while specialized buildings are randomly available.
* {{Roguelike}}: Unlike most city builders, you are not expected to spend a long period of time on a particular settlement - rather, a chain of numerous smaller settlements - and your options are almost always randomized. You start with a few "essential" buildings and resources, and additional buildings are provided when you gain Reputation points or complete some glade events or orders, but they are randomly provided from a list of three or four possible buildings, and you can only choose one. Cornerstones, the modifiers that affect your entire settlement, are provided once a year, and you have to choose one from a list of three or four. New settlers also show up about once a year, and are a random assortment of three-out-of-five species for that settlement, which makes it difficult to settle into any particular strategy. In particular, Coats are almost always worth making, as three of the five available species have great Resolve benefits from having coats - however, Coats usually require at least three particular buildings to make, and require a source of plant fiber or reeds. Missing ''any'' of those means you're not going to making Coats yourself, and you'll have to adapt.
** In addition, completing settlements successfully gives you food provisions, machinery and artifacts, which are used back at the Smoldering Citadel to unlock new options for future settlements. Nearly all of them give a minor bonus, such as -2% speed to Queen's Impatience gain, but they also unlock new buildings for the random shuffle, new species, new options for your embarkation choices, increasing the amount of stuff and people you take with you to new settlements, and even guaranteed resources. While this makes things easier, settlements generally get ''harder'' to build as time progresses.
* SealedEvilInACan: The world map not only has unknown events to encourage wider exploration, but also large, glowing seals that may or may not be connected to the Blightstorm Cycle, which also hold "The Sealed Ones" at bay (only seen as a single large, moving eye in each physical seal). Legend says that the seals would last forever, yet various 'seal fragments' found in expeditions have brought doubt to this claim in-universe; it's up to the player to try and plan a chain of settlements toward these seals, and attempt to fix them by the time they arrive each cycle.
* ThePhoenix: The Smoldering City and its Queen are highly associated with them, especially fire as the counterpoint to the constant rain. [[spoiler:The cutscene at the end of the Queen's Hand trial reveals the Queen is a phoenix BeastMan herself.]]

** It's possible to start your settlement next to "world modifiers", which give some benefit or drawback, while promising greater rewards as a result. Most are fairly simple - "start with 50 hostility", "no fertile land", etc - but the Fishmen Ritual Ground changes the entire game: envoys refuse to go near the area, and as a result, ''you get no orders''. Orders are the primary way of getting difficult-to-obtain resources, Reputation points, and new villagers, and so ''not'' having access to them makes the game considerably more difficult: the only way to increase Reputation is by getting high Resolve (difficult to do until you've expanded into several glades) and Glade Events (difficult to do as they require resources you might not have easy access to).
** Settlements next to Seals still play like normal, but filling the Reputation bar doesn't win the game. You need to both find the seal itself - with every glade containing a marker pointing toward its general direction - and reassemble four parts for an Ancient Guardian that'll finish the job.

* BlackAndGreyMorality: The Scorched Queen is a ruthless, expansionist politician, though in all fairness every bit of the City's support network is completely destroyed every few years and the land regenerates thanks to the Blightstorm. She is also resolutely opposed to [[EldritchAbomination Sealed Ones]] and will help you directly when fixing their Seals.

* GodSaveUsFromTheQueen: The Scorched Queen is the only person (and that term is used loosely) that's able to protect anyone from the horrifying power of the Blightstorm. That does ''not'' mean that she is benign and benevolent: each map has you in a race against time to make your settlement self-sufficient before the Queen's patience runs out. If she runs out of patience, the settlement ''immediately'' fails, with the implication that the Queen either killed everyone or let the forest claim them. And while the forest ''hates'' your settlement, it ''fears'' the Queen's impatience, which is one of the only things that can lower Forest Hostility.

* AttackOfThe50FootWhatever: Threats lurking in forbidden glades include the Drainage Mole and the Giant Stormbird, among others.

[[quoteright:350:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/againstthestorm.jpg]]

* FungusHumongous: The Marshlands biome is covered in mushroom trees that still give "wood". There's also a chance for a Forbidden Glade in certain biomes to contain a massive mushroom that can be harvested functionally forever.

* OurHumansAreDifferent: Humans are one of the villager species, they specialize in [[CaringGardener agriculture]] and enjoy [[AllBeerIsAle brewing]].

* AttackOfThe50FootWhatever: [[spoiler: Threats lurking in forbidden glades include the Drainage Mole and the Giant Stormbird.]]

* SealedEvilInACan: The world map not only has unknown events to encourage wider exploration, but also large, glowing seals that may or may not be connected to the Blightstorm Cycle, which also supposedly hold "The Sealed Ones" at bay. Legend says that the seals would last forever, yet various 'seal fragments' found in expeditions have brought doubt to this claim in-universe; it's up to the player to try and plan a 'chain' of settlements toward these seals, and attempt to fix them by the time they arrive each cycle.

* UnexpectedGameplayChange: It's possible to start your settlement next to "world modifiers", which give some benefit or drawback, while promising greater rewards as a result. Most are fairly simple - "start with 50 hostility", "no fertile land", etc - but the Fishmen Ritual Ground changes the entire game: envoys refuse to go near the area, and as a result, ''you get no orders''. Orders are the primary way of getting difficult-to-obtain resources, Reputation points, and new villagers, and so ''not'' having access to them makes the game considerably more difficult: the only way to increase Reputation is by getting high Resolve (difficult to do until you've expanded into several glades) and Glade Events (difficult to do as they require resources you might not have easy access to).

* {{Roguelike}}: Unlike most city builders, you are not expected to spend a long period of time on a particular settlement, and your options are almost always randomized. You start with a few "essential" buildings and resources, and additional buildings are provided when you gain Reputation points or complete some glade events or orders, but they are randomly provided from a list of three or four possible buildings, and you can only choose one. Cornerstones, the modifiers that affect your entire settlement, are provided once a year, and you have to choose one from a list of three or four. New settlers show up about once a year, and are a random assortment. This makes it difficult to settle into a particular strategy. For example, Coats are almost always worth making, as all three of the five available species benefit greatly from having coats. But Coats usually require at least three particular buildings to make, and require a source of plant fiber or reeds. Missing ''any'' of those means you're not going to making Coats yourself, and you'll have to adapt.

* ThisIsGonnaSuck: There are many Glade Events that increase Hostility or reduce Resolve while they are being cleared, and the game doesn't hide that fact. It may let you prepare yourself somewhat, but getting +220 Hostility while clearing a Merchant Shipwreck, for example, isn't going to be fun no matter how informed you are in advance.

** Most glade events have a timer attached to them and failing to complete the event before the timer runs out will result in something bad happening. Averted with Benevolent Ghosts and Treasure Stags, where the timer running out just means you miss out on their bonuses.

* {{Roguelike}}: Unlike most city builders, you are not expected to spend a long period of time on a particular settlement, and your options are almost always randomized. You start with a few "essential" buildings and resources, and additional buildings are provided when you gain Reputation points or complete some glade events or orders, but they are randomly provided from a list of three or four possible buildings, and you can only choose one. Cornerstones, the modifiers that affect your entire settlement, are provided once a year, and you have to choose one from a list of three or four. New settlers show up about once a year, and are a random assortment. This makes it difficult to settle into a particular strategy. For example, Coats are almost always worth making, as three of the five available species benefit greatly from having coats. But Coats usually require at least three particular buildings to make, and require a source of plant fiber or reeds. Missing ''any'' of those means you're not getting Coats, and you'll have to adapt.

* FoxFolk: The final species unlocked, Foxes specialize in Scouting to complete Glade Events more quickly, and are enjoy working with Rainwater. They have the lowest base Resolve of any species, and are the hardest to please, as Rainwater buildings are difficult to build[[note]]The buildings are Essential, meaning they're always available to build, but Rainwater only boosts ''other'' buildings without contributing anything directly[[/note]], and their preferences generally require more infrastructure that you just might not have[[note]]Foxes like complex baked goods, requiring farms, mills and bakery type buildings, Brawling, which requires difficult-to-produce Training Weapons and the appropriate service building, and Treatment, which requires expensive Tea and the appropriate service building. They are notably ''not'' affected by Clothing like the Harpies, or warm buildings like the Lizards, making them incredibly fickle[[/note]]. They also are massively susceptible to hunger, taking more Resolve penalties from it than any other species.

* UnexpectedGameplayChange: It's possible to start your settlement next to "world modifiers", which give some benefit or drawback, while promising greater rewards as a result. Most are fairly simple ("start with 50 hostility", "no fertile land", etc), but the Fishmen Ritual Ground changes the entire game: envoys refuse to go near the area, and as a result, ''you get no orders''. As orders are the primary way of getting difficult-to-obtain resources, Reputation points, and new villagers, ''not'' having access to them makes the game vastly more difficult: the only way to increase Reputation is by getting high Resolve (difficult to do until you've expanded into several glades) and Glade Events (difficult to do as they require resources you might not have easy access to).

* GeniusLoci: The forest is at least semi-intelligent, always watching and aware of your settlements, in particular hating woodcutters and [[FirePurifies the fire burning in hearths]]. The longer a settlement lasts, the more its hostility grows and the worse the storm gets on settlers as a result.

** Species-specific housing provides an extra boost to Resolve for the species, which combined with standard housing in-settlement will nearly double the Resolve gain, but the species-specific houses generally require a lot of advanced resources[[note]]Beaver houses are the cheapest at ''only'' 8 Wooden Planks, but a Big House - which holds 3 times as many people - merely costs ''4'' Wooden Planks[[/note]], and only hold ''two'' people, while even the most basic shelter costs a pittance of lumber and holds ''three''.

* UnexpectedGameplayChange: It's possible to start your settlement next to "world modifiers", which give some benefit or drawback, while promising greater rewards as a result. Most are fairly simple ("start with 50 hostility", "no fertile land", etc), but the Fishmen Ritual Ground changes the entire game: envoys refuse to go near the area, and as a result, ''you get no orders''. As orders are the primary way of getting difficult-to-obtain resources, Reputation points, and new villagers, ''not'' having access to them makes the game vastly more difficult: the only way to increase Reputation is by getting high Resolve (difficult to do until you've expanded into several glades) and Glade Events (difficult to do as they require resources you might not have easy access to). As of the time of this writing, less than 4% of players have successfully completed a Fishmen Ritual Ground map.

* TheLostWoods: As a result of the Blightstorm, the world is constantly changing every 30-40 years, and as a result, settlements are always located in an unexplored region of the vast forests that cover the kingdom. The people ''know'' that there's plenty of resources out there, but they ''don't know'' what it is, where it might be, or more importantly, how dangerous it is to get them. The only way to find out is to venture into the unknown...

* TheLostWoods: As a result of the Blightstorm, the world is constantly changing every 30-40 years, and as a result, settlements are always located in an unexplored region of the vast forests that cover the kingdom. The people ''know'' that there's plenty of resources out there, but they ''don't know'' what it is, where it might be, or more importantly, how dangerous it is. The only way to find out is to venture into the unknown...

* GeniusLoci: The forest is at least semi-intelligent, always watching and aware of your settlements, in particular hating woodcutters and the [[FirePurifies fire]] burning in hearths. The longer a settlement lasts, the more its hostility grows and the worse the storm gets as a result.

* ThisIsGonnaSuck: There are many Glade Events that increase Hostility or reduce Resolve while they are being cleared. The game doesn't hide that fact, letting you prepare, but getting +220 Hostility while clearing a Merchant Shipwreck, for example, isn't going to be fun no matter how informed you are in advance.