Greetings!
We present to you a new issue of Dev Diary - our irregular series of news from the Against the Storm universe.
This time, we recap recent events related to Against the Storm, and share insights into our work on the survival game. We've included some concept art and conducted a fun interview with our graphic designer, Damian. Enjoy!
New Against the Storm players, welcome!
We want to thank all the players who gave Against the Storm a try during the Steam Free Weekend. We've seen a great increase in the number of concurrent players during that time, peaking at 6,313 - the highest count since September 2024.
We hope you’ve enjoyed the time spent with the game and we’re particularly grateful to all of you who decided to continue playing past the Free Weekend. With so many of you discovering the game, Against the Storm reached a mind-blowing milestone: 2 million copies sold. From the bottom of our hearts: thank you!
If you've missed your chance to play Against the Storm during the Free Weekend, you can still try the demo. Your progress will carry over to the full version.
Update 1.10 Recap
Last month, we’ve also released Over-Haulers Update (1.10) which introduced:
3 new World Map Modifiers
Hauler system overhaul
Option to play with 4 species in Training Expeditions
Fishing Hut panel improvements
And more!
Learn more
We hope you had a great time with the new content and we appreciate all the support we received. In the coming weeks, we plan to dedicate some time to another small Update for Against the Storm.
New project appreciation
We also want to thank everyone for all the heart-warming and touching comments under the recent Dev Diary in which we revealed that we’re working on a survival game set in the Against the Storm universe. Your words of encouragement filled us with new doses of excitement and enthusiasm.
We’ve been exchanging ideas about the new game for years now. We knew we didn’t want to jump straight to Against the Storm's successor. Sequels to indie games are hit-or-miss. From what we observed, it’s too often the latter, especially among those that rely heavily on gameplay mechanics and systems, rather than story.
We've also been working on different types of strategy games for more than 10 years now and felt it was time to try something new.
We first teased that we might be working on a new project in the Against the Storm artbook that we added to the Supporter Pack in July 2025.
Since then, we worked on four different prototypes, all with more direct control over the character, in either first or third person. We’ve found the survival game prototype the most exciting.
Our aim is to build a world to which you’ll want to come back for another adventure. And for us, one of the first steps to building an immersive Against the Storm world is creating faithful forests.
Designing trees
To give you a more authentic look inside our work, I decided to sit down with Damian Ziomek for an interview. Damian is our graphic designer, who was responsible for creating the vast majority of visual assets for Against the Storm. From concept art, 2D portraits, and UI, to 3D models, textures, animations, and VFX. He steers the art style of our games and I wanted to learn more about his current experiences with the early stages of the survival project.
We’ve discussed trees, his progress on the survival game, and why a stag's antlers might just be the key to designing a tree.
Screenshot of the Royal Woodlands trees from the survival game prototype. Work in progress, all assets subject to change and do not represent the final quality.
Let's start with a difficult question. Is it true that, so far, you've spent more time working on trees than any other assets in the game?
Well… yes. Yes.
Can you tell how long exactly?
Oh, no, no, no. I should have… But I haven't counted.
(sighing) Four months. We're talking about four months.
But after-hours! (laughing)
Alright, have it your way, you weren't working on them every single day. Let's not dwell on it, then. Survival games are quite large projects with an extensive amount of graphic work - your work. There are so many things to create: tools, enemies, house components, etc. Why did you decide to prioritize trees at this early stage of development?
There are two main reasons. First, we’ve decided that the game's leading protagonist would be the world itself. We wanted it to be more than a lifeless surface you just run through, but a living entity, with its own character and quirks - something you feel interested to learn more about, and curious about what's further ahead.
Royal Woodlands trees concept art for the survival game.
And the second reason for focusing on the woods is more personal, even selfish: I spent my 35 years of "childhood" being raised on animated films with beautifully painted backgrounds. Among those backgrounds, forests charmed me particularly. The way those artists designed and painted marvelous trees and woods makes those locations look timeless. They feel alive, and they make the world appear massive, even though it's just a small piece of it. The forest from Sleeping Beauty stands out in particular.
Moving from a city builder with a high-angle camera to a third-person survival game is quite a change of perspective. How did it affect your work? What changed from working on trees and forests in Against the Storm?
There's a great difference between these games. In Against the Storm, there were hundreds of small trees, viewed from above, and now we have hundreds of trees, small and large, that you see both up close and from afar. They have to look good from every angle. It's a fun kind of immersion, honestly, to stand among giant trees and feel so, so small. Suddenly the world feels bigger.
Everyone knows what a forest is, but not everyone can capture its atmosphere in a game. In your opinion, what makes a virtual forest feel authentic? Which elements are key?
I think it's worth discovering what a forest actually is. Even though I've read plenty of scientific definitions, I don't remember a thing from them. But there's something that remains in your head, and those are emotions. What emotions do you feel when you're in a forest? Is it relaxation, because you're surrounded by something natural? Is it curiosity, because you want to know what's behind this tree, and then another tree, until you just want to get lost in the woods? It can be a place of solace, but what if you hear a rustle? Then you feel unease, maybe even fear. There's a whole range of emotions that are worth noticing, discovering, and understanding, why you feel that way. It would be amazing to achieve that in the game.
Trees concept art for the survival game. Experiments with moss covering the tree crown.
I think I get what you mean. In some games where the forest doesn't play a significant part, it's often treated as just a couple of trees spread here and there, serving a solely mechanical purpose, without conveying any real emotion.
You can look at it that way: every tree is different. Each has its own personality. Suddenly, it's not enough to just create a brown pillar with green spheres for leaves. You need to aim for more.
I really liked your experiments with giving trees unique character, especially the one where you painted the tree bark with patterns resembling ripples from raindrops on a lake's surface. For such an early stage of development, the trees already look distinctive. Is there anything in them you're particularly happy with?
The water ripples effect on the tree texture. In animated films and fairy tale illustrations you can find spiral and ornamental patterns on trees. Here, we’re using a similar trick, but also allude to rainwater.
It's hard for me to say yet, since the work is still in progress. But there's one thing I'm pleased with: the concept and sculpture of trees whose branches resemble stag antlers. I really like it when you take two distinct things and search for what they have in common, their shared motif. That's when the little imagination wheels start spinning, and you get some nice results. Take this question, for example: how would a stag look if it were a tree? A strange question with an even stranger answer, one that turns out to be quite satisfying. And suddenly you get something simple, but fresh. I really like that, it turns work into fun.
Concept art for the survival game of a tree with antlers-like branches.
The path from idea to final product is winding, and as you've mentioned, we're only at the beginning of this path. What does your workflow look like? What are the biggest challenges in creating a forest?
(laughing) Well… I'd like to know myself. Unfortunately, the workflow is… well… I'm still searching for a plan on how to create something from beginning to end. For now, it's still a hodgepodge. Should I focus on painting textures first? Or maybe I should sculpt a model, then bake it, and paint based on normal maps? But then again, it's convenient for me to just paint. This is so… well, there are so many things we don't know yet. I try to discover how others do it, and to understand why people way more talented than me don't always achieve the best results. For some reason, some renowned studios make games that have this… plastic look, you know? I'm trying to learn how to avoid that, but also how to do it without wearing myself out.
Sculpting tree bark with custom-made brushes.
Painting textures from normal maps.
Sounds complicated. What tools are you using?
Mainly Photoshop and Blender.
Quite a typical graphic toolset, especially for indie game developers. Gotcha. Now, aside from new graphic assets, you also share with us a lot of photos from your travels and mountain hikes. Do those experiences help you create environments for our games?
In short, yes. There's a colossal difference between discovering nature from internet references and experiencing it yourself, among the wilderness. Think about it: when was the last time you observed a tree for more than a couple of seconds? Or when was the last time you approached and touched a tree? Suddenly, the simplest thing in the world becomes something new. It's funny, you know, you come close and see, well, "a tree." But look at the amazing patterns it has, ones you'd never have thought of. You touch it, and it's so rough and hard. You suspected that, but such small things can still surprise you. And when it comes to graphic design, you realize that textures differ from each other - metal, wood, plastic. You start to consider how to present them in the game.
I totally get what you mean. Now, we started with a difficult question, so let's end with one as well. Which forest from Against the Storm is your favorite? Which child is the favorite one? (chuckling)
I'm tempted to say Marshlands, but it's probably the Royal Woodlands. The classic one that started it all. A regular forest, but with a melancholic atmosphere. It's slightly grim, but at the same time, there's some veiled beauty in those grey and green woods. I'm glad I can return to it now and work for it again for the survival game.
This concludes the interview. Let us know if you'd like us to do more interviews like this in the future, and if so, feel free to suggest topics for the conversations.
Staying up to date
We're not putting up a Steam page for the survival game yet. It’s way too early for that.
If you're telling your friends, viewers, or readers about the project, please share our Steam developer page:
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You can follow us there to get news and notifications about our upcoming releases.
Community Corner
Lastly, we want to put some spotlight on the amazing creations from our fantastic community. We encourage you to show your support and upvote them or present them with Steam Awards.
Source: u/The_Squirrel_Wizard/ on Reddit
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