Frostpunk

I hadn't even heard of this game until I saw Cohh play it last week on Twitch. Wow. Let me start off with the good things: 1 - Graphics are great 2 - The music is awesome and engaging 3 - The gameplay is challenging, rewarding, unique and frustrating at times, very well done I think this game takes all of the great elements from other base building/4x style games/choose your own adventure books and combines them into one (without the combat!) - which is super hard to pull off. You have the top down ISO view combined with the base building and economy aspects from RTS games, along with the exploratory aspect of 4x games and the permanent decision making outcomes from a choose your own adventure book. The addition of the heat map and the generator centric unique mechanic is so cool. I honestly found myself apologizing out loud to my computer when I had to amputate people's legs and force them to work 24 hours shifts to keep the generator running. I know people talk about immersion alot these days, but with headphones on and you'll feel like you are really part of the group you are trying to save. I saw some previous reviews about how this game was too easy...not sure when they were written but I found the learning curve decently steep. I mean I spent hours on the first mission only to come down the end and die with a few hours left. At first I was kind of pissed, but then I realized I just get to start it over again! Yes there are currently only 4 or 5 built scenarios along with Endless mode, but I find myself wanting to go back and improve as I learn how to play. This game is great. I really hope they continue to release future scenarios as the storyline for this game could go on for quite some time.

As in title - the premise, setting and the mechanics of the game are well made and would potentially have led to a great survival strategy game with endless hours of enjoyment. Unfortunately, the game just feels unfinished and more like a demo than a full fledged game. The entire campaign consists of four missions (which for some reason are called "campaigns themselves", but I would give the developers the benefit of the doubt and put this down to a missed translation rather than deliberate attempt to mislead the player), and you get "endless mode" which is exactly as it sounds - build your survival city without time limits or a 'win' condition. Now while chances are you will likely fail each mission a few times if you have just picked up the game, it still doesn't change the sheer lack of content of the game. This would normally not be an issue - especially when you consider the unfortunate state of 'early access' norm and the state of the gaming industry compared to a decade or so ago - but rather than improving, or even sticking to status quo, Frostpunk is only further lowering the bar in seeing how much more gamers can take. To clarify my point - take 'They are Billions' as a comparison - which is another steam-punky strategy city building survival game. Same four missions with the "sandbox" mode, then the game included a map editor which provided hundreds of hours of workshop content in the form of campaigns, minigames and completely altered scenario concepts, then they released a campaign - which arguably could have been done better - is solid 30-40 hours worth of gameplay at least. And that in itself is pretty light for a game when compared to anything in the genre released half a decade ago. Frostpunk on the other hand, is already attempting to pass another mission as "DLC" despite falling miserably short of what could be considered a full product. It's fun, it's a good game, but it's just not worth the money for how little you get.

This is a great game. Period. Why? It's simply not one of those build sims and improve on it. Yes, it has that but it has a lot more. It has social and political decisions to be made. And they make a difference! You run against the cold, time, cold, waves of people looking for shelter, more cold, lack of resources, disasters, dissent, social revolts, dillemas and more cold. You will need to mantain society united for you to survive and there's plenty of dissent. Each person has a background. Really, they have a name, age, preferences and professional background! Have you looked around you and thought that the politicians should do have done this or that? In this game, the citizens disagree with your policies or agree with what you decide. It has a ethics social decision-making system that makes this game incredible. And this is what I love the most in this game. Should you put children to work or not? The city needs coal (lot's of it) to survive but the cold is harming hydraulics system in the coal mines and threaten to collapse the tunnels. . What do you do? Send volunters knowing that probably some or all will die? Or abandon the lower tunnels, knowing that alot of coal will stop being mined and endanger the city? The atmosphere is fantanstic and the soundtrack too, but it's the scale of decision making that really makes the game really great. Take it from an old veteran gamer tired of nonsense resource collecting & building & fighting games. There's no army in this game, they would be little more than worthless. The scouts and decisions you make about them are spetacular and could be a bit improved. They are an asset that is decisive for the survival of the city, but imo they deserve more attention. Don't know if developers will see this or not, but if you could add a more personal feeling to them, it would be great!! This is my 1st review of a game I have ever written, sorry for being long but I just wrote it because this game is really fantastic. TY

Frost Punk has a great concept and fun game play, but a lot of flaws. The premise is fun and it has an interesting story and background, developed in part by exploration. It also has an interesting technology tree to develop. The graphic are good for what the game is, and the music and sound affects add ambiance. The game has difficult choices, and unlike many games, it is not just good and evil, because there are effects on hope and discontent. The game is also the most relentless game without combat I have played - the pressure stays on (if you like that in a game). But the game is relatively short, meaning you cannot really explore everything and/or develop everything. Also, there are no instructions. And the in game instructions only arise after something happens or is built - sometimes a little late. There does not seem to be much replayability to the game either, although there are other scenarios. The game takes forever to load. It took 5-10 minutes to load my saves on a pretty good computer. And the game does not start paused, so you cannot load and forget until latter. And to top it off, it is hard to minimize and do anything else while loading. I got so frustrated I eventually gave up without completing the game. If you have more patience then then the game might be more for you.

First of all: If you have a bad eyesight like me you will have problems with the SMALL FONTS in many game elements. Even after lots of new (partially free) content and many requests, the font size is still not scaleable. It also does not get bigger if you use a smaller resolution, oh no my friend: you get even tinier blurry letters! On my slow laptop in 720P its not playable so the review is only for my PC with big screen and 1080P which i can move closer to read, if needed. Unlike "Dark Souly" hardcore frustration games that are proud to make you lose and restart the whole game if you made one randomly wrong decision, you can still go on and learn from it. Sometimes you can manage it, else you can curse and reload a savegame. The start is the hardest part, but also the fastest to repeat. The game lives from the harsh athmosphere. You will need to live with losses. In my experience this is the way the game feels best, to be part of that joyful town. Only play "easy" to get a feel for the game mechanics. Why? Else the game is short, not because the devs were lazy but because if you can do what you want and everyone is still warm, well fed and not on a rampage you will soon have built and researched everything and miss the whole point of an apocalyptic strategy game where living with limitations is a key element. If you consider this you get a nice game with a medium length, great story/feeling unlike Anno or Settlers. Graphics are nice but will require a real PC so dont consider this game for a business laptop with iGPU. The Winterholm scenario is exceptionally hard. Be advised. The Last Autumn Scenario had a bug with stuck expeditions which needed reloading an older savegame, but was great and with new game mechanics. So if you get all DLCs in a sale: Do it.