Frostpunk - ice age city builder from This War Of Mine devs

[Alienman]

Damn, 5 hours... I expected at least 10.

 

[fantadomat]

Damn, 5 hours... I expected at least 10.

There is a third scenario,but don't know what it is because i deleted the game already. It could be long enough to make it 10 hours cumulative. But i doubt it,most likely it will be around 2 hours.

 

[Saark]

I wouldn''t consider someone using cheats to get past the hardest part of the game (at least in the seed-scenario since resources = automatons, having endless supply basically becomes god-mode at this point) as a good indicator of how much gametime there is to the game. You have to stockpile 8k coal and maintain supply lines while constantly losing automatons by day 25. Doing both is not at all easy to accomplish.

I does appear, however, that the scenarios are fairly easy and shortlived with little to no replay-value besides upping the difficulty sliders. I have yet to try out how much harder the game actually becomes.

 

[Nutria]

There is a third scenario,but don't know what it is because i deleted the game already.

Is disk space so scarce in Bulgaria that you really have to do this?

Anyway, before I buy leave this on my wishlist and buy someday, I want to hear if anyone believes this game actually is replayable beyond a few hours.

 

[cvv]

There is a third scenario,but don't know what it is because i deleted the game already.

Is disk space so scarce in Bulgaria that you really have to do this?

Anyway, before I buy leave this on my wishlist and buy someday, I want to hear if anyone believes this game actually is replayable beyond a few hours.

I think you can have fun playing the game 4 times - the main campaign, main campaign on Hard and the 2 other scenarios. Beyond that no, not really. It's not Civilization. It's not even TWoM, not even close.

 

[fantadomat]

There is a third scenario,but don't know what it is because i deleted the game already.

Is disk space so scarce in Bulgaria that you really have to do this?

Anyway, before I buy leave this on my wishlist and buy someday, I want to hear if anyone believes this game actually is replayable beyond a few hours.

I think you can have fun playing the game 4 times - the main campaign, main campaign on Hard and the 2 other scenarios. Beyond that no, not really. It's not Civilization. It's not even TWoM, not even close.

Two games managed to get my fill. It is a good game but it lacks content.
Nutria i have a lot of shit on my pc mate,also i got tiered of it fast. I saw what it offers and decided to move on after it. As replayability,well it depends on the person,i am easily bored. It have 3 scenarios with around 10 hours gameplay,not much of reason to replay them once you have beaten them. They will play out the same and replaying them only gives you a min-maxing bonus.

I wouldn''t consider someone using cheats to get past the hardest part of the game (at least in the seed-scenario since resources = automatons, having endless supply basically becomes god-mode at this point) as a good indicator of how much gametime there is to the game. You have to stockpile 8k coal and maintain supply lines while constantly losing automatons by day 25. Doing both is not at all easy to accomplish.

I does appear, however, that the scenarios are fairly easy and shortlived with little to no replay-value besides upping the difficulty sliders. I have yet to try out how much harder the game actually becomes.

Gameplay time is not affected much by cheats. The game is about advancing trough linear timeline,the difference is on what speed you do it. Also i never saw an automaton get damaged,only had to stop the infirmary once because it got stuck in it.

 

[you know what time it is]

I wouldn't call the game bad or anything, but it's very limited in scope and mechanics. Tbh it would play and feel better if it had more random aspects to it and better utilization of resources (people in particular).

 

[cvv]

It's all pretty subjective anyway, TWoM wasn't exactly bursting with content either and most people were done with it in 20-30 hours. I played all scenarios and got all achievements, got 100+ hours in the game and I'd still play more.

Sometimes a game grabs you like that and you keep playing even tho you've squeezed every last ounce of the content out of it. TWoM did it for me, Frostpunk doesn't. But I did have fun on my first playthrough and I plan at least two more.

 

[waterdeep]

So it's a city builder with a static map and the game ends once the story is over? Christ. You can tell this game was made by the TWoM devs.

 

[cvv]

It's clear they wanted to make a riff on TWoM, only instead of individual survival it's the survival of the society. Just like in TWoM there are temperature drops, criminal and other events, you scavenge various location, some of them with a risk-reward catch.

Problem is this old schtick works only partially in a game like Frostpunk. The real meat of TWoM gameplay were the realtime action oriented locations - dark, dangerous and tense. Frostpunk is not exactly boring but the meat of its gameplay is watching numbers go up and down on your status bar. That's fine in true city builders like SimCity or Skylines because they are sandboxes with much broader freedom and infinitely more options but not here.

Story-based city builders fundamentally just don't work. It's a testament to 11bit talent and skill they still managed to turn Frostpunk into modestly fun game.

 

[cvv]

Achievements are the only buggy part of the game I've found. It said I'd completed the game with noone dying from sickness, cold, hunger or overwork when I know for fact people were dropping like flies in the first week, especially from sickness and overwork. Also some of the achievements I got showed as "Legendary" earlier today and now they list as "Uncommon" lol.

 

[MadMaxHellfire]

i didn't like it. i didn't feel like i was playing, toying, moving stuff around to find balance or such, i felt only i was fighting the clock because i still didn't know the ideal build order. the interface didn't help much and some mechanics are obscure, hard do decypher. i didn't even feel like giving it a second chance, 35 days seemed enough to see what the game had to offer, i doubt i'm ever looking back.

 

[Jaedar]

I've been playing for about 4-5 hours. Haven't finished first playthrough yet, but I think the ending is pretty close.

Agree the game is too easy. Twom could be made sorta easy if you plundered/killed friendlies(but then you'd have to contend with depression), but even then it was harder than frostpunk. Apparently there's a hard option though, but it's not unlocked for the first game so...

It also kind of bothers me that you get all these options for making a terrible authoritarian society, but no real alternative except not making new laws(hence why for the last 3 in game weeks or so I've not touched the book of laws).

I think this game could have been a nice "hey, what will you do to survive?" Type deal, but I've made almost every 'liberal' decision offered and I'm not even struggling. The first 3-ish in game days felt like balancing on the knives edge, since then I've risen to every occasion with little difficulty.

That being said I am having fun with it, even to the point of sacrificing some sleep so I can play more

 

[you know what time it is]

A lot of it is counter-intuitive too. Like people getting butthurt about SAFE child labor, I mean even if it wasn't safe, what the fuck are you crying about if for all you know there's 80 people left alive and all of them are here, gotta work together if you want to survive. Besides, why can't you go the apprenticeship route after adopting SAFE child labor, little shits are absolutely useless past first 3 to 5 days because of that. Also the ORDER route is as subtle as a brick, which is absolutely unwarranted considering the context and scope. Why would you need a fucking PROPAGANDA CORP in 200 pop village. Or the whole Londoners thing, retards with a deathwish? explain to them in like 2 minutes why it's a suicide mission and if they still want to go, give them supplies and send them on their way, why drag the whole thing out for 2 weeks. People become absolutely useless past the 200 mark as well, they are just burning through coal and food without doing anything productive and the game gives you no options to make them useful in any way.

The more I think about the game the more annoyed I get tbh.

 

[ortucis]

This game is way better than "This War of Mine", but progress feels artificial. Bad things don't start happening until you trigger some specific quest/moment through scouting.

Overall, fun, but not really a sandbox game. Disappointing (considering I had it on wishlist on Steam for ages).

 

[cvv]

This game is way better than "This War of Mine", but progress feels artificial. Bad things don't start happening until you trigger some specific quest/moment through scouting.

Wrong on both counts.

Progress is strictly time-based, key events are triggered even if you just sit in your base all day.

 

[ortucis]

This game is way better than "This War of Mine", but progress feels artificial. Bad things don't start happening until you trigger some specific quest/moment through scouting.

Wrong on both counts.

Progress is strictly time-based, key events are triggered even if you just sit in your base all day.

No key event triggered for me until I started scouting. I was able to establish a proper settlement without any issues until the scouting missions triggered a specific event.

Also, even IF these events are time based triggers, then the game still is artificially forcing a progress. Time based events are lazy man's way to make the game look interesting cause there is nothing else to do for the player (when they're done upgrading). Reminds me of Banished.

 

[Jaedar]

Event triggers for me:

Spoiler

finding frosthome triggered choice between order/faith and londoners.
Resolving londoners triggered refugees, third refugee triggered storm warning.

 

[Raghar]

No key event triggered for me until I started scouting. I was able to establish a proper settlement without any issues until the scouting missions triggered a specific event.

If you take your time as cvv, a man would arrive half dead and say... And then everyone would panic as if you find it by scouting... (I scouted in opposite direction and safely escorted found people when I tried if my GFX card can handle it.)

 

[ortucis]

No key event triggered for me until I started scouting. I was able to establish a proper settlement without any issues until the scouting missions triggered a specific event.

If you take your time as cvv, a man would arrive half dead and say... And then everyone would panic as if you find it by scouting... (I scouted in opposite direction and safely escorted found people when I tried if my GFX card can handle it.)

OK, so that man arrives no matter what.

Started a new game to check and yup, without scouting, he still shows up. So no matter how well you're doing, game artificially creates a condition of riots/discontent, which would be a problem if you hadn't already played the game and knew it was about to happen.

So basically, you can plan out every structure and upgrade from start the next time since every event happens at same interval in same sequence (like a man refusing amputation). Your choice of unlocking upgrades might move the events a bit (not sure). Either way, game reminds me of "This is the Police". Fake events, linear gameplay, boring. Meh!

 

[Nutria]

So basically, you can plan out every structure and upgrade from start the next time since every event happens at same interval in same sequence

Lame. I was hoping this would be more like King of Dragon Pass, but if the events are that predictable, it won't have any replayability. Thanks for the warning.

 

[cvv]

I'm actually having more fun on my 4th "challenge" playthrough - the Arc scenario trying to save New Manchester. The standard diff without any optional "quests" is way too trivial.

 

[oneself]

I finished two games,one as refugee and another as seed ark. In the first one i hit three time the no hope almost end because of getting 100 sick,but i managed to save the day with my Jesus power in the church. Almost died because i fucked up the coal collecting and had to drop the generator range. The game is pretty easy and it is hard to totally fuck it up.

I played my second game with cheatengine resources because i couldn't be bothered. You start with 45 engineers and have to build automaton industry. By the middle of the game you encounter another city and have to make a choice,between saving the city or saving the seeds And kind of felt meh,because the game just fuck you over even if you have the resources to do both. This game was a lot shorter than the first scenario,couldn't finish half the research even with 6 tech labs and endless resources.

I think that after around 5 hours of gameplay i am done with it and will be happy to delete it.

The storm never hits. Scenario ends as soon as you deliver all goods to New Manchester and gather enough to fulfill your own objectives. In the end I have about 21 automatons running plus the 6 delivered to New Manchester with 5 days to spare. The objective is fairly lax, given that I can complete it with 5 days to spare with a surplus coal capacity of 3k.

I am not sure we are playing the same game.

 

[Dickie]

I've been playing this game, but I was kind of wondering how the events are handled and whether time matters. I played the first scenario twice (on normal and hard) and it ended around day 40 both times. Some guy on Steam forums said he can finish it in 19 days by triggering everything as fast as you can, but I haven't tried that. He also claims to have almost beaten it in 18 days, but his last person died an hour before the storm ended.

Spoiler

https://steamcommunity.com/app/323190/discussions/0/1696045708644007963/

If you bee-line your scouts for Whitehaven, you can trigger the society change within a week. Pick Order then Immediately build a prison and arrest 10 people 3 days in a row, this will end that in 3 days. Then the storm will come within another week. Overall you can win by day 19.

 

[ortucis]

I've been playing this game, but I was kind of wondering how the events are handled and whether time matters. I played the first scenario twice (on normal and hard) and it ended around day 40 both times. Some guy on Steam forums said he can finish it in 19 days by triggering everything as fast as you can, but I haven't tried that. He also claims to have almost beaten it in 18 days, but his last person died an hour before the storm ended.

Spoiler

https://steamcommunity.com/app/323190/discussions/0/1696045708644007963/

If you bee-line your scouts for Whitehaven, you can trigger the society change within a week. Pick Order then Immediately build a prison and arrest 10 people 3 days in a row, this will end that in 3 days. Then the storm will come within another week. Overall you can win by day 19.

From what I can tell (I haven't really touched the game since yesterday tbh), events occur no matter what you do depending on days that have passed (like 18th day the one guy shows up).

Look, the game has basically a big fake progression system designed by the developers to mask the fact that it isn't a sandbox environment. Events are triggered to force things to happen, no matter how well you're doing. And it's possible that they basically decide to trigger those events even earlier, depending on how well you're doing.

So yeah, fake events, fake progression. I got instantly turned off and haven't bothered playing it again. Luckily, so far my play time has been under 2 hrs.