To me constant gameplay is not possible. Im on RX 580, recent driver. This game keeps crashing every 10 minutes or so. Sometimes its even refueses to load a savegame.
I was first weirded out by the gloomy atmosphere of the game, but then I fell in love with it, it's challenging, entertaining, and definitely fun. You can take a lot of different paths and strategies to survive.
What I loved the most was the fact that the enemy was the environment
Survival in a frozen wasteland is understandably brutal, but Frostpunk leaves no challenge unpresented. From the start you'll find yourself with no shelter, no heat, and a huddled masss of refugees with no direction. Make no mistake, if you're looking for an easy game this is not the one. However if you enjoy the struggle of overcoming seemingly insurmountable odds and leading people through their darkest times, this game has no equal.
The audio track is phenomenal, with every sound providing not just notices of activity but also pulling you further into the game. When you make decisions of life or death, they feel important and finite thanks in great part to the carefully planned and keyed sound layers. The game sounds appropriately cold and forboding when it should, and even when people are happy there is an air of melancholy.
The story (especially for the first scenario) feels somewhat short but it's also understandably that way for a reason. The game has serious replay value because the story is one of survival, and having taken multiple shots at winning just one time on normal I can see the replay value with even the minor variables applied.
Whomever balanced the tech tree in this game should consult for other companies. Everything matters, everything has a purpose, and if you intend to iron man this game with only one tree you can expect to lose. Even in the end game I'm still exploring new technologies and combinations because everything has a precise purpose and endless ways to combine them.
Overall idea is actually decent and interesting enough that it has kept me hooked for some hours. However, the more I play this game, the more frustrated I get that I absolutely have no way to play this game the way I want to. It has to be played the way the devs envisioned it and there is literally no way to customize the experience.
The entirey of this game revolves around racing against the weather by upgrading your buildings to be able to keep your citizens warm. That's the only "true" mode that this game has, you just get to pick the flavors.
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- [Mods]
This game has none, and it's because the game is a "closed" type that cannot be modified in any way without the use of external tools such as trainers. You cannot edit a config file to, say, increase the food production, reduce the coal consumption etc.
- [Maps / Map editor]
You can count the maps that this game has on one hand, two if you buy the DLCs. The maps are tiny and unimpressive, your crater is the only place you'll look at for the rest of the game. No map editor whatsoever.
- [Customization]
In a game that has so many systems like this one, you're allowed to customize 5 things, or 3, depending on game mode. You can only adjust how severe the weather is, how fast you gain resources, how "calm" your citizens are and how often they get sick. There is also a survival mode but that just disables saving and pausing the game.
- [Multiplayer modes]
There are none.
Overall, I'd give this game 3 out of 5 stars, but I rated it as 2 out of 5 because of the way in-game ads are implemented. The very first thing you see by starting this game is an advert for the sequel, Frostpunk 2. In the menus, the game will show you game modes that you can select and customize, but when you try to play, it will redirect you to a page that asks you to buy season pass or DLCs. Left a bad taste in my mouth, have to say.
It's a good enough game with nice visuals and sound, but the need for constant micromanagement plus a perfect start, combined with horrible UI(from over function) really drag this down.
It feels like a console port or "mobile game".
Way too few keybinding options, especially missing for important tasks, and every UI interaction leads to annoying animation delays.
The UI is also too big, obviously designed for a TV or phone screen situation.