Frostpunk: The Board Game Tried Out: Expert Co-op Survival – Out Now!
Update from 01/30: Manufacturer Frosted Games originally hoped to get Frostpunk: The Board Game out in time for Christmas sales. However, due to delivery delays, that didn’t work out. Now the board game implementation of the popular strategy game from 11 bit Studios is finally available! Among other things, you can buy the board game on Amazon or at Pegasus games, the official partner of Frosted Games. In the following you can read our game impressions from a test game in November with a finished sample version of the board game.
Board game adaptations of popular PC and console games have been on the rise for a number of years. And why not, after all, video games often provide a lot as a template for mechanically interesting and fun board games for a cozy get-together at the living room table at home. Especially in the segment of strategy and building games, some big names have already found their way into the retail board game department. From anno 1800via Civilization to Cities: Skylines you can already experience some top-class strategy players away from the screen. Thanks to a very successful Kickstarter campaign (almost 2.5 million euros collected) will soon be joined by Frostpunk: The Board Game. We were able to try out the board game adaptation of the successful construction hit in a game lasting several hours and tell you what the cooperative expert game has to offer.
Fight for survival after environmental disaster
As in the PC equivalent, in Frostpunk: The Board Game you control the fortunes of a colony fighting for survival in an end-time scenario. With a radical drop in temperatures and constant snowstorms, the world as we know it has fallen victim to perpetual ice and snow. Only a few have survived this catastrophe and are ganging up in craters around a heat-giving generator. The temperatures are low, resources are constantly scarce, the inhabitants are often plagued by diseases and the problems never end. Your task is to lead the colony through these hard times without failing any of the loss conditions. And there are many! In this way, the colonists must not lose all hope, nor must dissatisfaction get out of hand. Even if there are too many sick, starving or dead, there is a shift in the shaft and if the generator overheats too often, that’s how it was. In order to win you have to fulfill the main goal of the respective scenario – either as a solo player or in cooperation with up to three other players.
All relevant game materials for the base game set up.
Source: PC Games
High complexity and game depth
This is played out with landscape and building tiles, various status boards including markers, raw material blocks and a large number of cards. Frostpunk has earned its place in the expert game category. When everything is set up that is required for a game, a standard living room table is already full. The 44-page rule book is correspondingly extensive, which not only explains the many game mechanics, but also uses clear examples to explain the rules. Frostpunk isn’t a game for a casual hour of shallow family fun, we’re talking a board game that combines the complexity of a Settlers of Catan or Kingdom Builder significantly exceeds. Just the fact that a round in the game is divided into nine phases should intimidate casual gamers. But on the other hand, it also offers a lot of depth and replay value.
A few example law cards
Source: Frosted Games
This depth of play is shown particularly well by the different ways of tackling challenges. For example, if there are more hungry mouths to feed than food in storage, you have several options for dealing with the situation. Of course, the most obvious solution would be to bring in more food – for example, by allocating workers to hunting lodges or hothouses. If you have built such before and they have not yet been used in the current round. Or you pass the “additives” law, which, analogous to the variant in the PC game, allows the cooks to mix sawdust into the meals. This makes them more satiating, and once per turn you can eliminate ten hunger tokens with just two foods. But of course that has consequences, after all, sawdust in food is anything but healthy. This behavior earns you greed – one of the various dissatisfaction markers. Having too many of these is never a good thing, as it can leave you with worse consequences on event cards. If you have even accumulated six of them, the game is completely lost, since the colonists lose their belief in your leadership abilities. The same applies, by the way, if the last hope marker disappears, which means that all hope of survival among the residents is lost.
balancing act between cold and hunger
Playing a game of Frostpunk is therefore equal parts cautious colony expansion and constant crisis management. Is there enough coal to fire the generator sufficiently to protect all relevant buildings from the cold? Is it worth sending scouts to the Ice Waste to get valuable resources? For which tasks are the fundamentally too few teams of workers, engineers and (if previously permitted by law) children divided? Is it time to clear new segments around the generator from the snow to possibly uncover raw materials there and get new building sites? You always make all these and many other decisions together. If no compromise is reached, the ultimate decision is made by the leader – a role that rotates clockwise each round. The beauty of Frostpunk is that there is no “right” or “wrong” choice. It’s more about what the group feels most comfortable with in the current situation. Especially since you only feel some of the consequences of event cards later and cannot necessarily assess them until you know all the cards by heart. However, this should take a few games with 135 event cards, 44 scenario cards, 40 expedition cards and more.
Generator Dice Tower and Extensions
We particularly liked the haptic aspect of the game during the audition. The game material included in the basic version of the game (which will cost around 100 euros, by the way) is well made and, in addition to the usual tiles and wooden blocks, also offers a 3D model of the generator made of robust plastic, which is used as a dice tower. Because every time we burn pieces of coal, we throw them in at the top and they fall past the struts inside into a collecting container. Or, with a bit of luck, they get stuck! In this case, the load on the generator is temporarily lower.
The generator serves as a cube tower for coal consumption. You can also place it away from the colony for a better overview.
Source: PC Games
Since Frostpunk: The Board Game is a Kickstarter success, as mentioned at the beginning, there were also corresponding additional goals, which resulted in various extensions that can be used to make the gaming experience even more noble. Various sets can be purchased for a surcharge of 40 to 90 euros each, with which the cardboard plates can be replaced with other 3D models made of wood or plastic. Also a playmat for 40 euros will be available directly for a better gaming experience at the shop from Frosted Games – but it was out of stock at the time of publication. The board game itself, on the other hand, is available on Amazon, among other places or at Pegasus Games available.
The information panels provide an overview of important things in the colony, such as the number of workers, hunger, sickness levels, etc.
Source: PC Games
Who is the game for?
Those familiar with the digital game will surely notice that the board game is roughly based on the template. As on the PC, the colony is always at the limit, you have to make exciting decisions again and again and weigh up resource management, expansion, exploration, research, laws and other aspects. Anyone who already knows the PC game and is trying out the board game for the first time (or vice versa) will recognize various elements immediately. But previous knowledge is not necessary. Rather, you should have a basic willingness to play complex and longer board games if you want to fight the cold. The playing time is given as 90 to 160 minutes for a game, although we expect even longer games in the case of four players. However, if you are passionate about this type of expert play and are looking for an interesting, varied cooperative play experience for your board game group, you should keep Frostpunk: The Board Game in mind.
who through Frostpunk: The Board Game If you’ve got a taste for it or are just looking for a good building game, you should consider Frostpunk on the PC or on consoles. Even more than four years after its release, it still offers good game depth and a pleasantly crisp challenge. The development game from 11 bit Studios is also not lacking in success, which is why a sequel is already in development, for which there is no release date yet. Let us know in the comments which board game adaptations of digital games you have played so far and how you liked them.
Reference-www.pcgames.de