This is my favorite game of the past year!

It takes the city-builder genre in a whole new direction. The introduction tutorial is good, but in the beginning you might still be confused on how to play the game consistently, considering the random blueprints that you get in each run and different biomes and resources available. The good news is that the first difficulty level is VERY forgiving, and basically your first run will help you better understand the basics of the game. Then you up the difficulty, and start learning how to optimize a bit more on your second run. Then you up the difficulty again and start learning how to deal with penalties and forbidden glades, and now you already have some ideas on how to plan your blueprint picks, and adjust the strategy. Then finally you go for the fourth, and final difficulty level on your fourth run and you learn how to keep your citizens happy and and earn a win through that pathway - and now you've actually mastered all the *basics* of the game, as you realize that all of this has just been one long tutorial for the rest of the game and 20 new difficulty levels you've just unlocked.

Masterfully done dev team! 'Slow clap' from me.

The great thing about this is that those four runs on the first 4 difficulty settings have been FUN! Enjoyable! Really good! And all the while you're unlocking stuff in 'citadel' earning meta-progression resources and new blueprints, helping you take on ever greater challenges.

Many people have already mused on the fact that this game takes the best and most interesting aspect of city builders which is the very beginning and combines it with rouge-lite mechanics to make for a really unique experience. But even that is selling it short of it's full glory. I feel like there are so many elements of this games design that are purely brilliant, and the dev team works hard to smooth out any kinks and make the game the best that it can be. So much passion and care has been poured out in this game and it really shows.

Another thing I want to mention, is that I've been reading Bret Deveraux's blog a lot (also thoroughly recommended for history nerds), an in one of his posts he reflects on old City-Builder games and how they treat citizens as pure resource or cogs in the machine and asks what mechanics of the game tell us on the purpose of the city itself (https://acoup.blog/2024/02/02/fireside-friday-february-2-2024-on-city-building-games/).
In contrast Against The Storm puts citizens and their happiness firmly above everything else. While in the beginning you don't worry too much about their satisfaction, the higher the difficulty goes the more essential keeping your citizens needs satisfied and morale high becomes essential for the victory.

I also need to mention that this is one of the very few games where I couldn't wait to finish the run and up the difficulty! If you knew me, you'd know how weird that is. I'm perfectly content to play every game on 'default' difficulty and in some cases even switch to 'easy' if I find it too frustrating. But here, higher difficulty just pushes you to get deeper into the game and find new ways to tackle the problems. I never had a single loss during my first 4 difficulty levels, and I do recommend starting from the easiest one and working your way up.
And finally, I'm not one of the people that sees 'rougelike' and immediately jumps from joy. I've actually been burned by games that seemed like something I might like but frustrated me due to their rougelike mechanics and procedural generation and the randomness it brings.But if it's done well it can be so good. This is the case with Against the Storm. Don't skip on this one if you're not fan of rougelikes. It's a gem. It's brilliant. It's one of the best games ever made.