During the final week of frostpunk's main campaign, a blizzard that plummets temperature to degrees so unprecedentedly cold workers can no longer leave their homes blows through. You - as leader - are told that the coal mines are at danger of collapsing. You are faced with a choice. Either coal production - which creates coal to drive your most vital resource: heat - halts to 30% efficiency or you must send workers to a sure death repairing the mines.
Unless your reservoirs of coal can last a few more days (they probably can't) this isn't an option. You have to sacrifice your workers because you need the coal to last through this final scenario. This is the key issue with frostpunk, a game that presents you with these hard moral decisions that are actually easy to solve because they come down to: make the better moral choice or have a chance of succeeding at the game.
There are some great mechanics at work here. There's a tech tree with equally great options that it's tough to decide where to begin. Every resource is strained enough that you're constantly maneuvering between upping and lowering production. But, this isnt an open ended game. By the end most of your tech tree will be filled out. You will have chosen fascism or flirted with it to see major degree, whether it's a theocracy or dictatorship. It's a narrative, and not the strongest one, but is interesting at it's attempt to tell it through a city building game.
The end asks you "was it worth it?" (this might depend on some of your decisions and this might not always show up I'm not sure?) And, I'm no fatalist, I think half people dead is better than full extinction? Thematically there are ties to climate change, but in frostpunk the ice age is caused by volcanoes erupting and blocking out the sun. Obviously the politics are dicey for a game of this budget, but it would have been more resonant to place this amidst our current politics. An AC generator to tie into global warming? Not sure. What we got feels half assed politically more set dressing than the screed I wanted.
The presentation is lovely. The edges of the screen are icy, music gets more ominous as the situation worsens. This review is mostly negative, but I'm still rating it pretty good because the core mechanics and systemic interplay is really great even when it's a mostly linear affair.
Unless your reservoirs of coal can last a few more days (they probably can't) this isn't an option. You have to sacrifice your workers because you need the coal to last through this final scenario. This is the key issue with frostpunk, a game that presents you with these hard moral decisions that are actually easy to solve because they come down to: make the better moral choice or have a chance of succeeding at the game.
There are some great mechanics at work here. There's a tech tree with equally great options that it's tough to decide where to begin. Every resource is strained enough that you're constantly maneuvering between upping and lowering production. But, this isnt an open ended game. By the end most of your tech tree will be filled out. You will have chosen fascism or flirted with it to see major degree, whether it's a theocracy or dictatorship. It's a narrative, and not the strongest one, but is interesting at it's attempt to tell it through a city building game.
The end asks you "was it worth it?" (this might depend on some of your decisions and this might not always show up I'm not sure?) And, I'm no fatalist, I think half people dead is better than full extinction? Thematically there are ties to climate change, but in frostpunk the ice age is caused by volcanoes erupting and blocking out the sun. Obviously the politics are dicey for a game of this budget, but it would have been more resonant to place this amidst our current politics. An AC generator to tie into global warming? Not sure. What we got feels half assed politically more set dressing than the screed I wanted.
The presentation is lovely. The edges of the screen are icy, music gets more ominous as the situation worsens. This review is mostly negative, but I'm still rating it pretty good because the core mechanics and systemic interplay is really great even when it's a mostly linear affair.