TL;DR - Surviving the Aftermath is a city-builder simulation game set in the apocalypse. Despite a few resource bottlenecks that can cause headaches, the game's satisfying progression and clever intermingling of the gameplay and atmosphere make for an enjoyable and engaging journey as you rebuild civilization amidst disaster.
Review:
Surviving the Aftermath took me by surprise. I've never played a city-building resource management style game before, but none of the games I've been working through were hitting the spot for me. So, I found myself scrolling through my library in the mood for something relaxed but engaging enough to stimulate my brain. Thankfully, Surviving the Aftermath turned out to be an excellent representative of its genre and an accessible introduction for newcomers, and it completely consumed my attention for several days and just under 30 hours of playtime.
The core of Surviving the Aftermath's gameplay loop entails building a colony by sending your colonists out into the world to gather the resources necessary to construct new buildings. On a more fundamental level, this is a game about making the numbers go up. As your resources increase, you can support a larger population which, in turn, allows you to harvest even more resources. The features that set this game apart from its peers are the disasters and catastrophes that frequently hinder your progress and require quick thinking and adaptation to endure without losing a large chunk of your population. Nuclear fallout, ice storms, heat waves, and pandemics are a few of the obstacles you can expect to see. In addition, certain colonists (known as specialists) can be sent to an overworld map to scavenge locations for resources, build outposts for permanent resource boosts, and discover new settlements to trade with. As your colony grows, you can spend Research Points to invest in new buildings and technology to improve your colonist's happiness and optimize your resource generation. The game handles its tutorialization well - I never felt overwhelmed or confused with how to interact with its systems or menus. The progression systems in place are so satisfying, to the point that I'd tell myself to stay up for "just 10 more minutes" to unlock the upgrade that would push my colony to the next level.
The story of Surviving the Aftermath didn't really do anything for me. Told primarily through still screens with a bit of art, a text block, and a solid voice performance, the story, unfortunately, wasn't interesting enough to keep me engaged, and I skipped through most of it. The art direction is simple but evocative of other post-apocalyptic settings. The music does a good job of establishing tone but doesn't do anything special to stand out. Ultimately, all those little details that make or break a gaming experience do just enough in this game to support the gameplay and systems. They are simply good enough, and I think that's okay.
I only have two complaints about my playing experience. The first has to do with the way the game notifies you that a colonist is sick or afflicted in some way. Anytime a colonist catches a disease, becomes irradiated, or is injured, an alert sounds, and a small banner appears in the corner of the screen. While your population is low, this isn't a problem. However, as I entered the later stages of the campaign and the colony's numbers entered the triple digits, this alert sounded nearly every second. I built enough hospitals to comfortably care for my sick colonists, but there wasn't a way to completely prevent the illnesses from occurring as far as I could tell. Instead, I was forced to listen to the same annoying alarm for hours. It was unbearable, and I couldn't locate a setting to turn off the alert, so I resorted to playing without sound.
My other complaint has to do with some frustrating resource bottlenecking that occurs in the latter stages of the game. The limited availability of some of the rarer resources combined with the slow crafting time to create new components slowed my progress down to a halt and, at one point, caused the death of over 50% of my colony because I wasn't able to build enough structures to support my ballooning population. I'll also add that the advanced resource-gathering technology I unlocked didn't feel any faster or more efficient than just sending out my colonists to gather instead. Instead of continuing to upgrade and improve my colony, I had to sit back and wait, which isn't exactly the definition of fun gameplay. Thankfully, this isn't the case for most of the game, and once I overcame this bottleneck, my experience became as enjoyable as it had been at the beginning.
Surviving the Aftermath does a lot right. It's taken full advantage of its setting to create diverse and dynamic challenges that make it unique in the genre. Its progression systems are accessible, well-paced, and impactful to the experience. It isn't perfect, but the imperfections weren't significant enough to peel me away from an otherwise addicting loop. Surviving the Aftermath has opened me up to a new genre of video games, and I'm excited to explore more of what the genre has to offer.
Review:
Surviving the Aftermath took me by surprise. I've never played a city-building resource management style game before, but none of the games I've been working through were hitting the spot for me. So, I found myself scrolling through my library in the mood for something relaxed but engaging enough to stimulate my brain. Thankfully, Surviving the Aftermath turned out to be an excellent representative of its genre and an accessible introduction for newcomers, and it completely consumed my attention for several days and just under 30 hours of playtime.
The core of Surviving the Aftermath's gameplay loop entails building a colony by sending your colonists out into the world to gather the resources necessary to construct new buildings. On a more fundamental level, this is a game about making the numbers go up. As your resources increase, you can support a larger population which, in turn, allows you to harvest even more resources. The features that set this game apart from its peers are the disasters and catastrophes that frequently hinder your progress and require quick thinking and adaptation to endure without losing a large chunk of your population. Nuclear fallout, ice storms, heat waves, and pandemics are a few of the obstacles you can expect to see. In addition, certain colonists (known as specialists) can be sent to an overworld map to scavenge locations for resources, build outposts for permanent resource boosts, and discover new settlements to trade with. As your colony grows, you can spend Research Points to invest in new buildings and technology to improve your colonist's happiness and optimize your resource generation. The game handles its tutorialization well - I never felt overwhelmed or confused with how to interact with its systems or menus. The progression systems in place are so satisfying, to the point that I'd tell myself to stay up for "just 10 more minutes" to unlock the upgrade that would push my colony to the next level.
The story of Surviving the Aftermath didn't really do anything for me. Told primarily through still screens with a bit of art, a text block, and a solid voice performance, the story, unfortunately, wasn't interesting enough to keep me engaged, and I skipped through most of it. The art direction is simple but evocative of other post-apocalyptic settings. The music does a good job of establishing tone but doesn't do anything special to stand out. Ultimately, all those little details that make or break a gaming experience do just enough in this game to support the gameplay and systems. They are simply good enough, and I think that's okay.
I only have two complaints about my playing experience. The first has to do with the way the game notifies you that a colonist is sick or afflicted in some way. Anytime a colonist catches a disease, becomes irradiated, or is injured, an alert sounds, and a small banner appears in the corner of the screen. While your population is low, this isn't a problem. However, as I entered the later stages of the campaign and the colony's numbers entered the triple digits, this alert sounded nearly every second. I built enough hospitals to comfortably care for my sick colonists, but there wasn't a way to completely prevent the illnesses from occurring as far as I could tell. Instead, I was forced to listen to the same annoying alarm for hours. It was unbearable, and I couldn't locate a setting to turn off the alert, so I resorted to playing without sound.
My other complaint has to do with some frustrating resource bottlenecking that occurs in the latter stages of the game. The limited availability of some of the rarer resources combined with the slow crafting time to create new components slowed my progress down to a halt and, at one point, caused the death of over 50% of my colony because I wasn't able to build enough structures to support my ballooning population. I'll also add that the advanced resource-gathering technology I unlocked didn't feel any faster or more efficient than just sending out my colonists to gather instead. Instead of continuing to upgrade and improve my colony, I had to sit back and wait, which isn't exactly the definition of fun gameplay. Thankfully, this isn't the case for most of the game, and once I overcame this bottleneck, my experience became as enjoyable as it had been at the beginning.
Surviving the Aftermath does a lot right. It's taken full advantage of its setting to create diverse and dynamic challenges that make it unique in the genre. Its progression systems are accessible, well-paced, and impactful to the experience. It isn't perfect, but the imperfections weren't significant enough to peel me away from an otherwise addicting loop. Surviving the Aftermath has opened me up to a new genre of video games, and I'm excited to explore more of what the genre has to offer.