Starker on 13/5/2018 at 10:30
I've been playing this cool little city builder from the devs that made This War of Mine and so far it's definitely one of those "one more turn" games. I thought I'd give it a try for a couple of hours the other day and suddenly it was 5 in the morning.
The gameplay is divided between city management, policy making, research, and outdoor exploration, with the city building taking up the bulk of the time. In the city screen, you plunk down buildings, assign workers, and manage heating. You also need to pay attention to the time of day, as your workers only work 10 hour days at the start, those lazy slackers. Policy making is where the game really hammers home the harsh decisions you have to make in a situation like this. For example, one of the first things you have to decide on is child labour and there's plenty to follow. In times of need, what do you do with the gravely ill? What do you do with the dead? And yes, the game goes there. Research is pretty straighforward -- building types, efficiency upgrades, heating upgrades, etc. Finally, the outdoor map is where the background story gets delivered. You send out scouts to explore points of interest where you might have to make a decision, depending on what you find.
I've seen people compare the game to Banished and They are Billions and there are definitely some similarities, but what it really reminds me of are city builders like Caesar, Pharaoh, Zeus, and Emperor. The difference is that it's perhaps a little less complex, but also much more difficult right from the start. I'm playing it on the medium/default difficulty and it has been one small disaster after another. People getting sick, resources running out, labour shortages etc. Always scrambling for one thing or another and there is not a whole lot of room for mistakes. It's the type of game where you need to play it once to really know how to play it or maybe even fail once. Once you get in the groove, though, it's a pretty chill game.
The story is quite intriguing as well. In a Victorian steampunk world plunged into an ice age, the only inhabitable places left are in the north where animals have adapted to the climate and where coal reserves and generators have been prepared for just this eventuality. You're managing a band of survivors who makes a journey to one such generator and has to build a city from scratch while the situation is steadily getting worse.
I'd say that if city building games don't leave you cold and if you like steampunk at all, it's pretty much a must buy. Anyway, here's a trailer/intro for the whole thing:
[video=youtube;qqEpSOFDXGA]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qqEpSOFDXGA[/video]
demagogue on 13/5/2018 at 10:44
I thought this was going to be this game, which I saw the trailer of recently:
[video=youtube;id5tSGifopg]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=id5tSGifopg[/video]
But that would be Cliff Empire. I'd say it's a hell of a coincidence that two "scifi/steampunk city building in the mountains and snow" games would come out in April, but I guess some ideas just have their moments. Edit: Correction, Cliff Empire just released the trailer and the game is just an early alpha, whereas it looks like FrostPunk has been released outright.
Both look pretty good. Looks like FrostPunk has a lot more narrative substance, more 4X, more steampunk, and Cliff Empire looks to be just pure city building and it's scifi.
Starker on 13/5/2018 at 11:11
One more trailer; these are pretty cool:
[video=youtube;YPCgltNJoHI]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YPCgltNJoHI[/video]
Oh my goodness gracious let me tell you the news
My head's been wet with the midnight dew
I've been down on my bended knees
talkin' to the man from Galilee
He spoke to me in the voice so sweet
I thought I heard the shuffle of the angels' feet
He called my name and my heart stood still
When he said, "Man go do my will!"
Go tell that long tongue liar
Go and tell that midnight rider
Tell the rambler,
The gambler,
The back biter
Tell 'em that God's gonna cut 'em down
Tell 'em that God's gonna cut 'em down
You can run on for a long time
Run on for a long time
Run on for a long time
Sooner or later God'll cut you down
Sooner or later God'll cut you down
You can throw your rock and hide your hand
Workin' in the dark against your fellow man
But as sure as God made black and white
What's down in the dark will be brought to the light
You can run on for a long time
Run on for a long time
Run on for a long time
Sooner or later God'll cut you down
Sooner or later God'll cut you down
driver on 13/5/2018 at 12:07
Quote Posted by Starker
I'd say that if city building games don't leave you cold
HO HO HO.
henke on 20/11/2020 at 15:11
Since The Long Dark ain't getting a new episode I figured I'd get my chilly winter-gaming-kicks from this one.
I, uh, love it, but also is this game FUCKING RIGGED? I just had an objective to keep my houses heated for a couple days, but no matter what I did I failed it, causing Hope to sink to nearly zero. I reloaded and replayed that bit several times and as far as I can tell, all the houses WERE fucking heated! But the game still failed me on that objective. Eventually I just said fuck it and played on, shortly afterwards a story event happens(we find out Winterhome is lost) and hope is driven down to zero, at which point new gameplay options open up. Kinda makes me think it was gonna hit zero no matter what I did, which is kinda fucking infuriating.
edit: OH. GREAT. Now guess what? I've been banished. GOOD. Fuck these ungrateful bastards.
henke on 20/11/2020 at 16:38
Ok, started a new game and I'm already doing better.
My problem the first time around was forgetting that children are our future. I just had them sitting around all day, no more of that. Also there's far too much SLEEPING going on in this camp. We'll have less of that, I think. Implementing 24 hour workshifts.
Nameless Voice on 20/11/2020 at 16:50
Failing the "heat homes" objective usually happens if your furnace runs out of coal and everything powers down. I never saw it happen outside of that - though maybe you hit some kind of bug.
Children are very useful, even if you only let them do the safe jobs and research. You can actually get away with being a benevolent ruler and still survive, it's just a bit more challenging.
Starker on 20/11/2020 at 19:44
The game definitely has a bit of a learning curve in how to juggle all the different needs and how to best plan out and expand the city. It's not an easy game even on normal and when things start going wrong, it can snowball into a full-blown crisis very quickly.
Al_B on 20/11/2020 at 21:36
Been a while since I played it but the overall impression I got was that it required you to make the "right" choice at every step and there was very little margin for recovery if you weren't doing everything as the developers intended. I love the aesthetics and it's one that I will go back to - it just put me off a little.
henke on 21/11/2020 at 02:15
Yeah I kinda get that feeling too. On my second playthrough I'm learning from the mistakes of my first run, but I get the sense I'm gonna be making all new mistakes once I get further in, meaning I'll need to learn from the mistakes of my second run on my third run, etc.
Quote Posted by Nameless Voice
Failing the "heat homes" objective usually happens if your furnace runs out of coal and everything powers down.
I definitely wasn't powering down, but in retrospect I think it might've been that my homes were still too cold, despite being within range of the furnace.