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

[Preben]

For fucks sake, why are all games fucking shit these days???

They were always shit, but people:
1) tend to remember only those few gems rather than of that whole sea of shit,
2) give mediocre game a pass due to nostalgia.

 

[oldbonebrown]

I had great fun for the 12 hours it ook me to finish the New Home scenario.
Pretty early on I was convinced that I had screwed myself, but since the game reminded me of Dwarf Fortress I decided to keep going because losing is fun. The game was very good at keeping up the pressure, making it feel like I was constantly on the brink of catastrophe. I'm actually a little disappointed that I ended up not losing, it would have seemed a more fitting end for an inexperienced player like me fumbling around. Perhaps there aren't enough options in the game to really go wrong.
Compared to Dwarf Fortress I had absolutely no problem picking this game up and learning as I went. The tutorial was not intrusive and throughout the game my citizens clearly signalled what I needed to be doing most of the time. When something went wrong it was almost always my fault or seemed right within the context of the game. For example I believe I lost my scout party to rng at the tesla factory, but that seemed reasonable for the risk I took investigating it.
The only thing that I thought was seriously unfair was that it seems I could not check my situation when I was asked to make promises to my citizens, in one situation I was asked to stockpile 940 wood but I had absolutely no idea how much wood I already had - and I don't see why I shouldn't be able to check this before making that descision. Aside from this I don't think that there is a reason for the game to allow you to save and load as you please, allowing yourself to roll back descisions during your first attempt must undermine the experience completely.

Very pleasing visually, everything felt right for what it was, except for the very luciferian cross they picked for the religion. I really would have liked some different options for what religion I went with, I don't think whatever version of christianity that was was a good choice for the circumstance.

I think that I'm going to thoroughly enjoy playing it at least one more time to optimize my game as best as I can with what I learned from my first playthrough, but I don't know that there is enough in there to keep the game fun after that.

 

[lady_in_white]

Nice idea, a good system of choices, realism and favorite genre - the game had all I usually appreciate in apps. It's only minus was a short playtime. Two days of playing (it took from 13 to 14 hours for me) - and that is all. Do I want to try again? No, maybe 1-2 months later, but not now. And that is a very disappointing thing about Frostpunk.

 

[dextermorgan]

Nice idea, a good system of choices, realism and favorite genre - the game had all I usually appreciate in apps. It's only minus was a short playtime. Two days of playing (it took from 13 to 14 hours for me) - and that is all. Do I want to try again? No, maybe 1-2 months later, but not now. And that is a very disappointing thing about Frostpunk.

So not really worth the current 30€ price tag?

 

[lady_in_white]

Nice idea, a good system of choices, realism and favorite genre - the game had all I usually appreciate in apps. It's only minus was a short playtime. Two days of playing (it took from 13 to 14 hours for me) - and that is all. Do I want to try again? No, maybe 1-2 months later, but not now. And that is a very disappointing thing about Frostpunk.

So not really worth the current 30€ price tag?

If I were you I'd better wait till sales. But if you really like all the things I named - you may try it now.

 

[Infinitron]

http://www.frostpunkgame.com/fp_consoles_announcement/

Frostpunk is making its way to Xbox One and PlayStation 4!


Greetings, Citizens!

Our community asked and we have listened. We are very excited to confirm that Frostpunk, the first of its kind in strategic gaming is officially coming to consoles. A gritty simulation of society survival in a frozen post-apocalypse, the Bafta-nominated Frostpunk was a bestseller of 2018 and multiple award winner in its genre. Frostpunk: Console Edition is a finely tuned adaptation of the PC hit that will be making its way to Xbox One and PlayStation 4 later this year.

Offering players a complex strategic challenge alongside a rich narrative featuring an alternative take on the 19th-century industrial revolution, Frostpunk weaves a story of how our planet mysteriously freezes, putting an end to civilization as we know it and forcing the human race to adapt to the harsh conditions. As the leader of possibly the last civilized society on Earth, you’re going to build the city your survivors live in, discover new technologies, explore frozen wastelands and most importantly, manage and rule society to prepare it for life in an unforgiving world. Whether you’re an enlightened ruler or an iron-fisted tyrant, you’ll discover choices in this world aren’t as easy as they seem, and that holding power over people has a cost as heavy as the responsibility you feel in caring for them.

Focusing on a smooth transition to consoles, great efforts are being taken to re-design the game and adjust its mechanics for the Xbox One and PlayStation 4, especially when it comes to controls. 11 bit studios still have some work to do but are close to the finish line, creating an intuitive interface allowing gameplay to feel natural even when playing with a controller. “We don’t want to reveal the exact release date yet, but I can say that the game should be out in the summer,” says lead designer Kuba Stokalski.

About Frostpunk: Console Edition

Frostpunk is a society survival game where heat means life and every decision comes at a price. Presenting complex strategic gameplay, demanding challenges and rich story, Frostpunk extends its unmatched survival experience to consoles. Adapted for consoles with revised controls and adjusted mechanics, Frostpunk: Console Edition allows you to fully test your tactical prowess on the frozen wastelands.

KEY FEATURES:

• MAINTAIN HOPE
  Survival is about hope and the will to live. Your ability to spark and maintain these two in your people will be a determinant factor for success.
• MAKE THE LAW
  Society is a group of people abiding by the same rules and sharing similar beliefs. Establishing laws and customs will be a crucial factor in shaping your society.
• WEIGH YOUR CHOICES
  Will you allow child-labor? How will you treat the sick and wounded? Frostpunk challenges tactical skills while questioning your morality.
• EXPLORE
  Expeditions, while risky, can bring you valuable intel, precious supplies and grow your society’s population. There may be people out there, and their fate lies solely in your hands.
• PLAY ENDLESSLY
  Endless Mode offers new maps, game modes, mechanics, and allows you to dive into the Frostpunk experience deeper than ever before.

Frostpunk: Console Edition contains all the previous free updates from the PC version, including The Fall of Winterhome scenario, additional customization options, difficulty settings, and balance tweaks. Furthermore, additional content updates are planned for the future.

 

[Hellraiser]

Calling it a simulation is an overstatement.

 

[Dickie]

This game sure was a success.

https://steamcommunity.com/games/323190/announcements/detail/1631902387966571266

 

[MadMaxHellfire]

and the world still doesn't know why.

 

[Hellraiser]

and the world still doesn't know why.

Appearances are deceiving.

 

[Infinitron]

The good news: RPG!
The bad news: Proudly consolized.

https://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/2019-05-09-11-bit-studios-expanding-the-horizons-of-frostpunk

11 bit Studios: Expanding the horizons of Frostpunk
Marketing director Patryk Grzeszczuk on building a bigger audience on consoles, and taking the Frostpunk universe beyond the strategy genre

Frostpunk has performed beyond 11 bit Studios' expectations since it launched on PC a year ago, and the Polish developer is now ready to build on that success to explore new horizons -- both a shift toward console platforms for the company as a whole, and the possible expansion of the Frostpunk universe beyond the strategy genre.

11 bit's distinctive strategy game sold 250,000 units in less than three days when it launched last April, and it went on to sell more than 1.4 million in its first year. Given that Frostpunk is still only available on PC, that figure represents a major step forward for the company as both a developer and a publisher, and it has now set its sights on the console market.

Speaking to GamesIndustry.biz at Reboot Develop last month, marketing director Patryk Grzeszczuk acknowledged that strategy games have never been an obvious fit on consoles. For the most part, this has been down to the difficulty of condensing the complexity afforded by PC, mouse and keyboard into a system that can be navigated by a controller.

In that sense, he said, 11 bit Studios has few doubts that the console version of Frostpunk will surpass expectations.

"It is the same game," he said, booting up a build of the game, Xbox pad in hand. "We have changed the UI, we have changed the controls dramatically, and we have rebalanced the game just a little bit, to be more in line with the expectations of console players. It isn't any easier, but the momentum is a bit different."

The 11 bit Studios' team played "each and every strategy game available for console" to find the right approach, but having seen the new version in action, it's clear that the biggest influence is Frostpunk itself. One of the aspects that makes the game unique is the map being the base of a vast crater, with a generator at its central point -- a vital source of heat in the bitter quest for survival.


Patryk Grzeszczuk

The city the player creates spirals out from that central point, a structure that proved to be a neat fit for the field of motion allowed by a controller's analogue sticks. Through a context-based system of radial menus, Grzeszczuk proudly stated, every part of Frostpunk's PC UI is accessible to the console user within two button presses.

"Most of what you see here is our own invention," he continued. "The good part about Frostpunk -- and we've been talking about this since its initial release on PC -- is that it's a radial city, and so it's a perfect fit for the sticks. The whole game is about the generator and those rings around it, so the menus should be like that; everything should be in line with that so we can maintain the cohesion of the game.

"It actually works, but it took us a while. We had at least three iterations: the first was not very good; the second was a bit better, but it still lacked something; and we are very happy with this one."

11 bit believes that this is the first of two key factors in attracting a substantial audience for Frostpunk in the console space. For the most part, Grzeszczuk said, strategy games have faltered on console because, "they are not usually on par with their PC equivalents." With its elegant, intuitive solution for the game's controls, however, Grzeszczuk believes that the superior version of the game is a matter of subjective taste.

"There is nothing objective that makes the PC version better," he added.

"The second thing -- and I'm not sure that this isn't the more important one -- Frostpunk is not your regular strategy game. It is a society survival game, and I think console players will be interested in that. There are strategy games -- you can find something in every genre on consoles -- but you won't find Frostpunk, and the moral decisions it asks you to make."

While it nominally belongs to the same genre as, for example, Cities Skylines, the detail and depth of the world in which Frostpunk is set gives it a distinct appeal. It is like the relationship between a game like Gone Home and a first-person shooter; they share some important DNA, but the message and the experience are entirely different, and that opens it up to new audiences.

"You don't have to be a fan of first-person games to admire Firewatch, and you don't have to be a fan of strategy games to be a fan of Frostpunk," Grzeszczuk said. "Although it is a strategy game, truly it is about something else: society and shaping society, making decisions and living with the consequences."


Frostpunk's structure makes it well suited to a console controller

Indeed, the world around Frostpunk is so important that, when 11 bit Studios thinks about how to build on its success, the first idea isn't necessarily a straight sequel. The game's free DLC, The Fall of Winterhome, is a narrative-driven continuation of the game's campaign, and the next major DLC will be driving in the same direction. Indeed, Grzeszczuk suggests that developing the lore and the world of Frostpunk is as essential to the future of the IP as making another strategy game.

"We've had that approach since day one," he said. "We were discussing Frostpunk as a universe. We wanted to create a world, and then fill that world with stories, with places, and then build connections between them.

"[The DLC] is expanding on the universe, it is adding new story, and explaining some things that might be hinted at in the past. This is what really drives us; the world of Frostpunk is growing, and we're thinking that, in the future we should think about, maybe not a sequel, but a spin-off -- an RPG set in the same universe."

Different game experiences set in the same, richly imagined universe; it is an ambitious notion, and a possibility that will be made "easier" if the console version of Frostpunk finds a similar level of success to what it enjoyed on PC. 11 bit Studios sold 4.5 million copies of This War of Mine across myriad different platforms, but PC and mobile were as important as Xbox and PlayStation -- if not more so. According to Grzeszczuk, that is about to change.

"Our strategy as a studio right now is to aim at those console platforms first and foremost, because up until now we were PC oriented company," he said. "But for our next project, we're thinking in terms of console first. We're already designing with the game-pad in mind, designing for that experience.

"It's going to be totally different to anything we've done in the past, but it's going to have that 11 bit flavour to it."

 

[Puteo]

1.4 million sales on PC but they still feel the need to build console-first garbage the next time around?

 

[thesheeep]

Well, another one bites the dust.
Meh.

 

[Hellraiser]

1.4 million sales on PC but they still feel the need to build console-first garbage the next time around?

Hipsterism and indie-itis are terrible afflictions indeed.

 

[Wulfric Pinewood]

That retarded beards and moustaches carried by all bunch of assholes just becouse of the current trends makes me just sad.
How easy people are mindfucked by fashion, if someone told these mindless peasants that beards and moustaches are passe tomorrow they will run fast as fuck to cut them down.
It so silly to see young maggots with beards like old treecutter in medieval Times , it's just silly as fuck compared they are just run to make some manicure after job and eat some vegan shit.
Go shave yourself you overpretentious fucks.

 

[Infinitron]

Project 8: https://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2019-06-04-whats-next-for-the-frostpunk-studio

What's next for the Frostpunk studio
"This one is not sad and depressing..."

There's a real sense of momentum about Polish game-maker 11 bit Studios. It might not be turning out blockbusters, in the biggest sense, but the games it makes are thought-provoking in ways which stay with you long after playing. In This War of Mine, we played as civilians trying to survive in a warzone; in Frostpunk we built a city and braced it for apocalyptic cold. Both games asked how far you were prepared to go to survive.

They reviewed well and they sold well. 11 bit announced recently Frostpunk had sold more than 1.4 million copies on PC, and there's a version coming to PS4 and Xbox One this summer (11 bit would like to do Switch, it tells me, but hasn't even begun exploring it yet. Edit: Frostpunk project lead Jakub Stokalski talked more on Twitter about the possibility of a Switch version after this article was published. It doesn't sound likely. "The demand for it would have to be overwhelming for us to consider it," he said.) 11 bit also helps other indie games as publisher. In other words, it's a company on the rise, and all that momentum is going into what's next: Project 8.

Project 8 will be the first game 11 bit has made with consoles in mind from the outset, the company's PR and marketing manager Karol Zajaczkowski tells me, at Digital Dragons 2019. The hope is a simultaneous PC and console launch - whatever those consoles happen to be at the time.

Right now, Project 8 is in the blurry area between pre-production and production, but it began life more than a year ago, after Frostpunk launched, in April 2018. The lead designer is Marta Fijak, who was responsible for dreaming up the Societies and the Book of Laws in Frostpunk - those systems which probed your soul. She also happens to be an experimental biologist and once, perhaps in-advisedly, made a free-to-play mobile game with permadeath, about free-diving.

This gives a good overview of what Frostpunk is about. It's coming to consoles this summer and there are paid story add-ons on their way.

Two things to know about Project 8 are: 11 bit is mechanically changing tack again, and the new game will have more of a celebratory tone than the dour games before it. But it will still unmistakably be 11 bit.

"People sometimes look at This War of Mine and Frostpunk and the common denominator for them is sadness, a kind of depression," Marta Fijak tells me at Digital Dragons, chuckling. "But for me, this is not true.

"The common denominator for those games is meaningful experience. One tells a pretty important story about what happens to civilians during war; the other says how far will you go to ensure survival. And the next story we are doing, it's also meaningful. It has that core, important question, which for me is important in my life.

"We don't," she adds, "live in a bubble."

If you're someone who thinks of 11 bit's games as sad and depressing, then, you're in for "a twist". "This one is not sad and depressing," Fijak says. "This is a celebration of one of the parts of our experience - celebrating that thing which, in my perspective, is really important for humans.

"Of course, we are a mature company so it's not like Peggle and happy and rainbows. There are takeaways, there are questions I hope you will ask yourself after playing the game, and it will show you a new perspective on life."

Marta Fijak tells me there are three development teams at 11 bit. One is obviously for Project 8 but another is for Frostpunk, and another - even a handful of years later - is for This War of Mine. There's still new content being made for the latter; it's great to see.

What the designers wanted Project 8 to say was decided early on, but how to say it was "a whooooooole different cup of tea", Fijak admits, and a lot of experimentation was done. 11 bit is confident about where it landed but the result is another mechanical shift, just as Frostpunk (a city-builder) shifted from This War of Mine (a base-building game about a handful of characters). All that matters, Fijak tells me, is the game's message; the mechanics will serve it.

"For the story we want to tell right now," she says, "those Frostpunk [city-building] mechanics aren't the best ones to express what we want to say and make you feel the things we want you to feel, so we changed it - more than slightly!"

Project 8 will be 11 bit's most ambitious project to date but the studio doesn't want to go toe-to-toe with blockbusters. It wants to occupy a different niche, provide an alternative - "not a huge 80-hour monstrosity that will be your new hobby". "We want to give you a thing you can experience and take something from," Fijak says.

'When?' is a question it's too early to publicly answer but I reckon 2021 is a good shout. Until then, 11 bit has plenty to keep it busy. Support for This War of Mine is ongoing five years later and there are two Scenario-like Story add-ons for Frostpunk due, one this autumn and another maybe before the end of the year - or early 2020 if it slips. And, of course, there's Frostpunk console.

For now, though, consider Project 8 under wraps. But if you like what 11 bit has done before, I don't expect you'll mind the wait.

 

[Infinitron]

DLCs on the way: https://store.steampowered.com/bundle/11780/Frostpunk_Season_Pass/

 

[Burning Bridges]

and the world still doesn't know why.

"We did not want to buy it but eventually we all did."

 

[cvv]

Almost missed it. They fumbled the marketing, there is only a base game sale notice on the GOG main page, nothing about new DLCs or a season pass. Fortunately the Kodex Kollective Konsciousness has my back.

EDIT: Checked it out, the first DLC is just a bunch of new Endless maps and a new, rather cosmetic, gameplay mechanic, nothing more. It's p. funny considering the previous free updates had WAY more content than this paid DLC. I kindda suspected they were giving away so much shit for free to build up good will, with the intention to cash in later. It's fine though, they deserve every dorra they can get their hands on.

 

[Hellraiser]

This game is too shallow and short of a major expansion pack or sequel significantly altering the gameplay I do not see myself interested in more Frostpunk.

 

[cvv]

This game is too shallow and short of a major expansion pack or sequel significantly altering the gameplay I do not see myself interested in more Frostpunk.

It's only "shallow" compared to city builders. But it's not a city builder, it's a story driven strategy survival. It's basically a scaled up This War of Mine and as such it's absolutely brilliant.

 

[Hellraiser]

If it looks like a deformed duck, it walks like a lame duck and it quacks like a retarded duck, it clearly is a duck although a very substandard specimen of a duck.

 

[anvi]

I agree with those who say it is shallow. I don't get how games like this can get so hyped and highly rated.

 

[Dickie]

DLCs on the way: https://store.steampowered.com/bundle/11780/Frostpunk_Season_Pass/

$5 for a new endless map and $17 for a new scenario seems a bit steep.

 

[toro]

DLCs on the way: https://store.steampowered.com/bundle/11780/Frostpunk_Season_Pass/

$5 for a new endless map and $17 for a new scenario seems a bit steep.

potato must flow