This game is both a thrilling and genuinely harrowing experience. As the leader of a fledgling community (perhaps the last community) in the wake of an apocalyptic event, you must do one thing and one thing alone: Survive. In a welcome change from many city-builders, Frostpunk forces you to think of the greater good at all times. The individual, despite all having names, families, hopes and dreams, must be viewed without sentiment and early on there is a lesson you MUST learn: You cannot save everybody. You can't keep everyone happy. You can't make an omelette without cracking a few eggs. The system of laws allow you to balance the Hope & Discontent of your community while adding various social aspects and buildings to the experience. You must find a way to keep the citizenry on your side and hopeful, but also ensure you are pragmatic about the needs of the many. Child labour is unpopular, but expands the workforce. Extra rations for the ill is popular and can speed recovery in your infirmaries, but will see your food reserved dwindle faster. Do you care for the gravely ill at all? or let them expire so as not to drain the community's already stretched resources. The decisions escalate in severity as the game progresses, to the point where a law can cause rioting and death, but the rewards may be even greater should you be able to maintain cohesion. The game looks stunning. The quality poured into every detail of the buildings and surrounding bleakness is beautiful to behold. The UI is sleek and simple to manage, and the building system is actually one of my favourite aspects. The generator is the heart & soul of your city and as such, everything expands from it, interconnected by optional streets which most buildings require. You will start by sending your tiny group out into the snow to manually gather resources, but this is very finite. You must adapt by researching extraction technologies to support your growing populace. As you progress, the option of scout teams and resource outposts give more opportunites to find survivors and other remnants of humanity you can use to survive maybe just one more day. I would recommend this to everyone with the patience to accept failure and the stomach to do what must be done.
