After the Storm

IftU banner
Abbreviation
AtS
Project codenames
After the Storm (E1S1 - E2S11)
Untitled AtS Sequel (Episode 3)
Flesh and Steel (E3S8A)
Development time
4+ years (1,753 days) to v0.9
Campaign length
13×3 scenarios
Programming languages
WML, Lua

After the Emperor of Chaos was defeated, the free civilizations of the Great Continent hoped that his followers would abandon the ongoing war. Meanwhile, Galas and his unlikely band of heroes head back to the northern lands to request aid for their next journey.

Later, the Chaos Empire still manages to make a stand against its enemies. While the Grand Council is preoccupied with more pressing matters, the fragile alliance of the peoples of the Far North is threatened by a new, mysterious leader who seeks to invade their defenseless lands.

Summary

After the Storm is a direct sequel to Invasion from the Unknown, following Galas, Mal Keshar and Elynia on their quest to put a definite stop to the Chaos Empire and Uria’s invasion of Irdya.

Unlike IftU, AtS has a more episodic approach including three separate playable campaigns in a single package. It makes use of more advanced Wesnoth engine features than the previous campaign. The player controls primarily undead and faerie units, as well as outlaws in episodes II and III.

Development history

While production of After the Storm nominally commenced not too long after the release of IftU version 1.0 in March 2008, it got stranded in Development Hell for years due to a general lack of motivation on my part, as well as general concerns about whether writing, coding and pixel art skills were up to the task or not. After the first few story drafts I ended up stuck with ideas carried over from IftU which — in hindsight — did neither make much sense nor provide an engaging experience.

Mid 2011, I came to the realization that my only option left at that point — short of officially ceasing development of the campaign — was to embrace both the good and the bad in IftU and just “roll with it”. I also realized that instead of seeking perfection where none could be found, I ought to have fun throughout the development process. And thus, version 0.4.0 of After the Storm was released on September 25 2011.

Less than two years later, the first feature-complete release of After the Storm, version 0.9.0, was released.

Milestones

  • 2008-05-17: Development begins
  • 2009-02-06: Version 0.1.0 — E1S1 – E1S3 released
  • 2011-10-16: Version 0.5.0 — Episode I completed with 13 scenarios
  • 2011-12-09: Version 0.6.0 — E2S1 – E2S3 released
  • 2012-01-17: Version 0.7.0 — Episode II completed with 13 scenarios
    First complete version before Episode III becomes a goal for 1.0.0.
  • 2012-05-17: Version 0.8.0 — E3S1 – E3S3 released
  • 2012-07-01: Version 0.8.1 — E3S4 – E3S5 released, new scenarios stop landing and parallel development of the finale (E3S6 through E3S13) outside of version control begins
  • 2013-02-23: Version 0.8.90 — E3S6 through E3S12 land in production
    The Big Merge.
  • 2013-03-05: Version 0.9.0 — E3S13 (bonus epilogue) released
    First finished version.
  • 2020-06-20: Version 0.10.0 — Port to Wesnoth 1.14.
  • 2020-08-25: Version 0.10.11 — Port to Wesnoth 1.16.
  • TBD: Version 1.0.0

Downloads

After the Storm can be found on the official Wesnoth add-ons server for Wesnoth 1.16.

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