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

Infinitron

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http://www.frostpunkgame.com




https://af.gog.com/game/frostpunk?as=1649904300

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2...-this-war-of-mine-studios-new-game-industrial

More details about This War of Mine studio's new game Industrial

Industrial, the codenamed next game from This War of Mine team 11 bit Studios, will be officially revealed around PAX Prime in early September, and released second quarter 2017.

"That's the moment when we're going to announce that, finally, after months of being silent we will be ready to tell you what the game's about," Karol Zajaczkowski, RR & marketing manager, told me at Polish conference Digital Dragons 2016.

We haven't heard much about 11 bit's new game since I talked with Zajaczkowski a year ago. Back then he suggested we would hear more in autumn 2015 but we obviously did not.

11 bit is still cautious revealing too much information about Industrial but I learned what I could. The key things to know are that Industrial represents a step up in terms of ambition from This War of Mine, and that it is not This War of Mine 2.

A year ago there were 40 people at 11 bit and 10-15 were working on Industrial, but now nearly the entire 60-person workforce is beavering away on it. "This War of Mine was still an indie project," said Zajaczkowski, "but right now we are playing in a different league. It's not triple-A yet but I would say our next game is somewhere in-between."

He added: "Just like you said: it's not This War of Mine 2 - we are not planning to make a game like this at the moment. But what both of those games have in common is there will be a lot of serious topics. It's not some simple game you can enjoy playing on the couch. There is something that requires emotional involvement when playing."

Incidentally, on the topic of a possible TWOM2, he said: "We are seeing that people are willing to stay in touch with TWOM and it would be a shame to waste that. But again we don't want to go the easiest route, just to make TWOM2, because that's not how we do it."

We were joined by Jakub Stokaloski, lead designer of Industrial, who had more to say about the new game.

"With the next game we're not really trying to go all out on some super-serious real-world problems," he said. "We're building a game for gamers. But at the same time we really believe in meaningful experiences. We don't want to build stuff that is frivolous, stuff you can play around with for an hour and forget about.

"Ideally we want to build experiences that will stay with you and make you ask questions about yourself, about society in general, and the dynamic we currently see today in the world. Not a social or political commentary game but a meaningful and serious game nonetheless."

This War of Mine's unexpected success set an expectation for the sort of games 11 bit Studios should now produce - because, as Stokaloski put it, "After TWOM, there is no way we can go and build some match-three mobile stuff."

But within those expectations there is now more room to manoeuvre, because This War of Mine showed there was an appetite - a profitable appetite - for that kind of game. It means with Industrial 11 bit Studios can push the boundaries even further.

"Today maybe some things with TWOM would be different, but four years ago when we started doing that game, no one actually knew it was going to catch," said Zajaczkowski. "Who'd expect that a game that's about suffering, about the emotional toll, would be so popular?"

"Today we know that people are ready for such games and we know we can push some borders even further. Taking that experience: that's what we're going to put in Industrial, because we know people are ready for serious gaming, for experiencing stuff that's pretty hard for them."

He added: "We want people to quit the game and stare at the wall and think about stuff like, 'Wow, did that just happen? I killed that guy?' That's what we want to happen. Not like you play the game and power-off the console and go to the shop. No - you have to think about it. And right now we know that some borders can move even further.

"For our next game you can expect that we're going to cross some lines that weren't crossed [in TWOM]."

Industrial won't be set around a real-world topic but it will be about things real people experience. "In this sense it will be based in reality," said Stokaloski. "It will be a fictional subject about some very real things that we see and hear."

"You play 100 survival games and This War of Mine is different," said Zajaczkowski, "and this will happen again here. When you think about a genre it can be 'ah, ah, it's this type of game' - and then you will play it and it will strike you with a lot of different things that haven't been used in that genre ever before."

Industrial is currently only being developed for PC "and we'll see".

11 bit Studios' most recent release was This War of Mine: The Little Ones on console, which I reviewed and Recommended. Nevertheless I thought it could have been grittier and more daring, so it's nice to hear 11 bit is thinking along these lines with Industrial.

11 bit is also publishing games now too - games from smaller teams that otherwise may not make it to market. The first of these games is Beat Cop, a pixelated, side-scrolling, '80s-inspired game.
 
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Endemic

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60 man indie teams

U damn pollakcs

He flat-out said they're between indie and AAA, though.

"This War of Mine was still an indie project," said Zajaczkowski, "but right now we are playing in a different league. It's not triple-A yet but I would say our next game is somewhere in-between."

Not to mention the lower costs of operating/hiring those people.
 

Infinitron

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Turns out Industrial was just a codename:



http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2...dev-unveils-deeply-serious-new-game-frostpunk

This War of Mine dev unveils "deeply serious" new game Frostpunk
"We're putting human nature under a microscope."

11 bit Studios, creator of This War of Mine, has finally unveiled the game it has been whispering about for a year: Frostpunk. This is the studio's big new game, its biggest ever -the 11 bit game I wrote about recently using its codename Industrial.

Still the details are thin but we know Frostpunk will be about humans surviving on a frozen world using steam-powered technology (AKA steampunk, hence Frostpunk). What lengths will they go to? What lengths will you go to? Sounds a bit like This War of Mine.

Frostpunk is based in strategy and management but uses empathy and decision making as the core mechanics rather than resource management and optimisation. It isn't clear how this works.

The press release mentions a "distinctive visual style" but there's no screenshot evidence of it. The first trailer is a CGI teaser.

11 bit's creative director Michal Drozdowski said: "This is a deeply serious game created for a mature gamer.

"Looking back at This War of Mine, we're pushing boundaries even further, but we're not pointing at reality in the same fashion. We're putting human nature under a microscope to ask about what happens when people need to stay alive."

Frostpunk is a PC-only game for the time being, with a release date of Q2 2017.

OwNathan Problem?
 

Jimmious

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Steve gets a Kidney but I don't even get a tag.
This War of Mine was a fantastic game so I'm very interested in what these guys will create next
 

Burning Bridges

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Wake me up when there is information, this "article" was a complete waste of time.

Ed123 great stuff, sounds almost Lovecraftian.
 

Infinitron

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http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2...-city-builder-that-will-tear-your-heart-apart

This War of Mine dev's Frostpunk is a city-builder that will "tear your heart apart"

11 bit studios, creator of This War of Mine, has finally revealed what kind of game Frostpunk, it's next title, will be. Whereas in This War of Mine you controlled a shelter of four or five people, in Frostpunk you will govern the last city on Earth.

In very simple terms, Frostpunk is a city-builder. You build and expand a city using the endless expanse of ice around you to turn into steam to power your machines. An example of the kind of city you can build can be seen in the new CGI trailer.

But describing mechanics barely covers half of it, for Frostpunk is a game about the lengths you will go to in order to ensure humanity survives on a frozen world. Just as This War of Mine tested your morality with impossible decisions, so too will Frostpunk - only this time on a societal scale. What will you sacrifice for the greater good?

Or, as senior lead designer Jakub Stokalski said on the phone last week, "What are people capable of when they are pushed to the limits?

"If you look at references for survival in extreme environments, things like Amazon expeditions and crashes of planes in deep mountains where people didn't have anything to eat and they have to eat something... It gets pretty grim.

"We don't shy away from that."

If Frostpunk doesn't shy away from, presumably, cannibalism, where else dare it go? It adds up to a story and predicament marketing manager Karol Zajaczkowski believes "will tear your heart apart".

"Frostpunk is not one of those city-builder games like SimCity where you have problem with crime and you build three police stations and that solves your problem," he said. "No, that won't happen in Frostpunk. You have to make decisions and deal with the consequences. We don't want people to face very simple tasks."

Story won't be laid on thick as in an role-playing game but eeked out from clues as your horizons expand. And as they do, so too will the dangers you face.

"When you think that the weather is the only thing that can harm you in Frostpunk: it's not," he said. "There are different layers, there are different elements of the game. Weather is like the first player on that screen but there are others and you have to be cautious about all of them."

Tonally Frostpunk will be similar to This War of Mine, then - a serious game exploring morality in extreme circumstances. But in terms of scope, "it's a much bigger game". This War of Mine was built by 12 people; Frostpunk is being worked on by 60.

11 bit plans to show Frostpunk in action around E3 time, in June, and the plan is to release the game in the second-half of the year. On PC. Whether consoles will follow is a decision for later.
 

LESS T_T

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Codex 2014
Screenshots:

frostpunk_screenshot_04.jpg


frostpunk_screenshot_01.jpg


frostpunk_screenshot_02.jpg


frostpunk_screenshot_03.jpg


frostpunk_screenshot_05.jpg


frostpunk_screenshot_06.jpg

What people are capable of when pushed to the limits?

In an ultimately frozen world, people develop steam-powered technology to oppose the overwhelming cold. The city ruler has to manage both the inhabitants and the infrastracture the citizens live in. Leader’s tactical skills face challenges, frequently questioning morality and the basic foundation of what we consider an organized society. Here optimization and resource management often clash with empathy and thoughtful decision-making. While city and society management consume most of the ruler’s time, at some point exploration of outside world is necessary to understand its history and present state.

Frostpunk is the first game of society survival. The sub-genre created by 11 bit fulfills the need to underline unusual mixture of city builder, survival and society simulation.

More info soon. Coming in second half of 2017.

 

Mustawd

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So this is like ICY but with an actual budget and non retarded title? Got it.
 

orcinator

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"steampunk"

1407902088232.png



Maybe they'll avoid the faggery daggery doo aspects of steampunk, though I'm still not expecting much since TWOM was very shallow and not all that effective as an anti-war statement or whatever people hailed it as.
 

Jaedar

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Project: Eternity Shadorwun: Hong Kong Divinity: Original Sin 2 Pathfinder: Kingmaker
"steampunk"

1407902088232.png



Maybe they'll avoid the faggery daggery doo aspects of steampunk, though I'm still not expecting much since TWOM was very shallow and not all that effective as an anti-war statement or whatever people hailed it as.
I'll give TWOM credit for one thing though, it did manage to make me care enough to not rob innocents (preferring to raid dangerous places). It also works pretty well as a resource management game, but it gets too easy once you learn the ropes.

I'll believe this could be a cool game, although the strategy trappings may make it way easier to sacrifice people, that's what units are for after all.
 

Infinitron

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https://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2017/06/26/frostpunk-preview-survival/

Frostpunk asks why we survive, not just how
Adam Smith on June 26th, 2017 at 9:00 pm.

frostpunkheader.jpg


In the first week, we put the children to work. They weren’t forced into dangerous jobs, so we told ourselves, but when you’re living on the brink of extinction, what work is truly safe? One afternoon, a man collecting coal complained of numbness in his arm. Frostbite had taken hold. We could have left him to die but instead we opted for an experimental treatment.

He lost the arm and he’s no longer capable of contributing to our dying society. One more mouth to feed with no body of work beneath it. What should we do?

Frostpunk [official site] is a city-building survival sim from the studio that brought us This War of Mine and it is beautifully bleak.

Though it’s a science fiction story, set in a frozen future barely capable of sustaining human life, it shares some of that previous title’s contemporary concerns. Climate change is the obvious one, this being a world undone by a dramatic temperature shift, but as you dig into the details, there are questions about equality, labour and the scarcity of natural resources that make the crater-town of Frostpunk an unhappy microcosm of just about every society you might choose to name.

frostpunk1.jpg


It’s also an icy cocktail of cinematic and real world inspirations: the crash of Uruguayan Air Force Flight 571 (filmed as Alive), Aron Ralston’s Utahmputation (filmed as 127 Hours) and Captain America and the railway children (filmed as Snowpiercer), among many others. There’s also a rich vein of Victoriana, but not simply in the [Blank]Punk sense; here there are shadows of the workhouse and Blake’s ‘weeping chimneysweep.’ The beating hea(r)t of the generator that keeps these people alive is also the new birth of an industrial age, and the factories and mines operate on blood and sweat.

Your job is not just to plan, it’s to inspire, or at least to ensure that hope doesn’t die out. It’s as vital to survival as the flames of the generator and how unusual it is to see Discontent and Hope listed as gauges of success. There are more conventional resources as well, particularly coal in the early stages, but you’re trying to support life rather than mere existence.

frostpunk2.jpg


That means you’ll have to be careful not to make promises you can’t keep. I’m the kind of person who will always try to do right, as I see it, where a game gives me the choice. Frostpunk certainly gives choices, but sometimes there are no good options, or presenting a manifesto of unattainable optimism will simply lead you down a path where the epitaph reads: “It’s the hope that kills you”. Or, to be more precise: “It’s the false hope that made them kill you.”

I’m not sure if a possible endgame has the survivors turning against their leader (you) and casting them out into the cold, or stringing them from one of the generator’s girders, but breaking promises will see hope crumble and discontent rise. Early on, your people might ask for tents to protect them from the cold, to provide at least a thin layer of protection. That should be an easy promise to fulfill, but when they start asking for changes to the laws of your new society, or for construction that would require sacrifice or postponement of other plans, you should think long and hard about whether to make those promises.

frostpunk3.jpg


All of this goes back to the game’s own initial promise, that this is a game about finding reasons to survive rather than just the means to go on living. And that’s why you might decide that giving food to people who can no longer work is important, because a society must look after its own, but it’s also why you might have to reverse that policy if injuries pile up or the weather deteriorates. In an RPG where moral choices spring into a dialogue tree, I only ever pick the nasty options if I’m roleplaying a nasty character. By framing these choices in a citybuilder, where management of resources is key, 11bit are aiming to create genuine dilemmas. There’s a very real chance that playing my way, trying to do the right thing, will create a chain reaction that leads to death and ruin down the line.

And that’s why you might end up clicking a button that legalises, and actively encourages, cannibalism. Not because you’re the edgelord of Coldsville and want to call your people The Eaters of the Dead, but to save the lives of those who haven’t already become meat. It’s why you might marvel at the trails your workers cut through the snow as they trudge to work at the fringes of the crater on day one, but will shrug when they fall in the deep white and stop moving by week three.

frostpunk4.jpg


It’s important to note that even without the complexities of moral choices and policy-making, Frostpunk makes the most of its setting. The crater that contains the generator, right at the centre, allows for construction that treats the layout as spokes on a wheel rather than lines on a grid. Buildings snap to the generator and then to each other, creating circular layers that suit the setting perfectly. The form fits the theme, naturally creating a shantytown sensibility as tents and medical centres cluster and huddle around the warmth of the generator.

Frostpunk is a difficult game. Not in terms of the challenge it presents but in the way it is marrying two distinct genres and forcing bleak decision-making that is tied to its systems rather than its narrative. There is a story to uncover, which will presumably tell us something about how the world came to be as it is, and whether anything like a happy ending is possible. You can learn a little about the world beyond your crater by sending out expeditions, and through balloon-related observation, but the generator is home. And home is where the heart breaks.

Frostpunk is scheduled for release this year.
 
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Jimmious

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Nice preview but I don't get at all how the game is actually "played". Do you see everything in a SimCity kind of way? Do you even see anything moving etc or just static images?
 

Hobo Elf

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Nice preview but I don't get at all how the game is actually "played". Do you see everything in a SimCity kind of way? Do you even see anything moving etc or just static images?

All very good questions, but for now you just need to know that the game will tear your heart apart.
 

Metro

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I was surprised to see the 'sim city' style gameplay when they announced it with some massive CGI cinematic.
 

LESS T_T

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Steam page:



In an ultimately frozen world, people develop steam-powered technology to oppose the overwhelming cold. The city ruler has to manage both the inhabitants and the infrastracture the citizens live in. Leader’s tactical skills face challenges, frequently questioning morality and the basic foundation of what we consider an organized society. Here optimization and resource management often clash with empathy and thoughtful decision-making. While city and society management consume most of the ruler’s time, at some point exploration of outside world is necessary to understand its history and present state.

What decisions will you make so the society can survive? What will you do when pushed to the limits? And...

...who will you become in the process?


THE CITY MUST SURVIVE
Frostpunk is a city-survival game where heat means life and every decision comes with a cost.

MAINTAIN THE HOPE
Survival is about hope and 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 the same rules and sharing similar beliefs. Establishing laws and customs will be a crucial factor shaping your society.

WEIGHT YOUR CHOICES
Will you allow child-labour? How will you treat the sick and wounded? Frostpunk challenges a player’s tactical skills, while questioning one’s morality.

EXPLORE
The world covers not only bits of the past but also the potential means to secure the future of your people.
 

J1M

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In 1999 I might have believed such a title was possible, but today we all know that any non-PC, non-SJW choices will have some massive and illogical drawback that make this game primarily about guessing the social stances of the designers that created it.
 

Infinitron

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