In Frostpunk, we are expanding our city and must take care of it. However, this is not a nice, serene game in which the main issues are employee strikes or traffic bottlenecks. We have to continually struggle against a lack of raw resources, fatal frost, starvation, and infections here, which draws us to the monitor.
The stakes are high since the objective is to survive in a post-apocalyptic world, not just construct a prosperous society. We are the head of a gang that sets out from London north to retrieve an abandoned prototype generator following a natural calamity. It is the city’s beating heart. At first, we simply have personnel that need to be assigned to certain tasks. These include gathering coal and wood, as well as working in specified facilities such as sawmills, hunters’ cottages, and medical stations. More and more positions must be filled over time, but the workforce does not appear out of nowhere, which might be troublesome.
It is not enough to build houses here and expect new residents to fall from the skies. We are typically the ones that have to try to locate people who will join our society in a post-apocalyptic, icy planet. As a result, one of the initial objectives is to send scouts outside the city – we show them different areas on the map, and in the target places, we can locate raw resources or other survivors, which we bring back to the city. Of course, more people means higher food consumption, as well as the need to insulate additional places. As a result, we must continually monitor all potential resources, since if even one goes missing, we will be unaware, and problems will mount. Will there be a coal shortage? As a result of the low temperatures, several structures may halt production; an example of one of the most typical issues. Management is tough here, but in a good manner. Stress stimulates and drives us to concentrate in order to thoroughly prepare each decision. Furthermore, we respond to numerous forms of random occurrences; our actions impact the condition of two indicators: resident displeasure and hope. We must ensure that none of them hits their limit. Fortunately, the game constantly displays how our decisions will effect other people’s attitudes. Building a hole for dead instead of a cemetery would limit hope, but we will avert an epidemic. Extending working hours can enhance bad emotions but will be beneficial in times of crisis. We have numerous valuable edicts at our disposal, but the most essential thing is to correctly balance the attitude of the residents.
Normal difficulty provides a decent challenge – few players will likely be able to finish the first scenario without having to restart at least once. To ensure improved development efficiency in the following try, you must first understand specific procedures from your own blunders. Of course, it doesn’t get better over time since other difficulties arise, such as a group of citizens planning to leave the city, refugees, or, eventually, the worst conceivable frost. There’s always something to be concerned about. Various moral alternatives are presented in an innovative way, but they do not leave much of an impact. Everything is for the purpose of perspective. We’re not close to the inhabitants, and they’re simply people to us. As a result, it is impossible to generate the real feelings elicited by specific scenarios in the studio’s prior game. However, the dreary mood and pessimism remain. That’s why Frostpunk seems like a cross between SimCity and This War of Mine. There’s also a hint of the autonomous strategy Banished here, where we dealt with survival in a town-building game.
We obtain access to two more scenarios after finishing the basic scenario, which may take 4-5 hours. So there’s roughly 12 hours of fun here if we don’t want to tackle the tasks again. The main menu indicates that further stories will be launched after the game’s release. However, we don’t get the sensation that the game provides too little.
The visuals are fantastic. The creators didn’t have to pay attention to details because we see the city from above, but they did. We can see some extremely nice structures as we zoom in on the camera. Hunters carrying weapons return from the hunt, and the final employee makes minor modifications while standing on a ladder at the entrance.