Against the Storm

I guess I didn't understand the degree to which Against the Storm is designed around roguelite progression. It's a fun colony sim that screeches to a halt every minute and a half so you can choose some minuscule resource production boost or an uninspiring 2% stat increase. Maybe this implies that I've enjoyed my time with the game less than I have, but what else can I say? It is very much what it is. Obviously a colony sim organized around missions with specific objectives isn't a bad idea. We knew that long before every game had to be run-based--as soon as the RTS became a thing, city-builders started borrowing from that thing. Caesar III had a whole campaign in 1998. And based on all that, if you told me to imagine a run-based city-builder, I'd imagine Dwarf Fortress a game that gives you a large and consistent toolset and challenges you with variability in the maps. Much like the traditional roguelikes, the ones that are like Rogue, the difficulty curve in a city-builder is all…