I’ve reviewed a lot of board recreation diversifications of video video games on this web site, and with good purpose: it’s essentially the most intimate intersection of our board recreation and online game protection. In practically each case, the important thing consideration has been how does the board recreation really feel in comparison with the unique. What sort of concessions have been made, how does it differ, does it match the online game when it comes to vibes, if not actual mechanics.
Frostpunk is completely different. It’s a hulking large board recreation that seeks, in virtually each significant approach, to not adapt the online game to the tabletop, however to carry it wholesale, warts and all. It’s an formidable endeavor if nothing else, however I’m additionally not fairly positive if it’s price all the trouble.
And it’s an effort. After I went to play the sport for the primary time I used to be at the very least half-hour into setting it up once I began to get the sweats. I had spent half an hour painstakingly punching playing cards, studying the handbook and putting tokens on the desk and it seemed like I’d barely begun. Was I doing one thing improper? Was I only a very sluggish man? After studying this Dicebreaker story known as “I spent an hour failing to arrange a board recreation and it made me query every part” it seems no, fortunately I’m advantageous, it’s the sport that’s sluggish.
Frostpunk is among the most advanced board video games I’ve ever performed, not to mention arrange (and that’s not simply me speaking, it has a 4.32/5 “weight” score on BoardGameGeek, which could be very excessive). There are a seemingly countless array of tokens, a number of decks of playing cards that look the identical however aren’t and a great deal of completely different guidelines that bend and sway for every participant. Most maddeningly, there are eight boards you must hold monitor of.
Eight. Boards. That’s too many boards.
If you happen to’re questioning why the board recreation model of a (comparatively) easy city-builder must be so difficult, it’s as a result of this version of the sport, for no matter purpose, didn’t wish to vaguely recreate the spirit of taking part in Frostpunk. It needs to recreate the entire rattling factor, substituting tabletop parts for mouse clicks. Almost every part you are able to do within the online game, from the politics to the useful resource gathering to the search expeditions to city-building is right here, and it really works a lot the identical approach it does on PC.
It’s, in some ways, a staggering achievement. When you (ultimately) get on prime of the sport’s huge array of parts, boards and guidelines it actually does really feel such as you’re taking part in Frostpunk, the pressures and nagging tasks of the digital wasteland transplanted completely to the bodily world. Certainly a few of these pressures are even higher right here, as a result of Frostpunk is a co-op recreation, that means there may be 2-4 of you (there’s additionally a singleplayer mode, however I didn’t play that) taking over completely different jobs throughout the metropolis, working collectively whereas on the identical time arguing over each choice. If you happen to thought the social and political stuff was cool within the online game, it’s nice right here because you’re primarily performing out numerous these debates within the flesh.
But in different methods all of it feels a bit pointless? The board recreation cuts so near the online game’s material that at occasions you surprise why you’re bothering in any respect, because the online game does all this for you, with out the arduous setup time or fixed session with the principles. Certain, that’s a extra solitary expertise, however there’s a degree the place that trade-off may be price it, and for many individuals—myself included—that time can come whenever you’re hours right into a single recreation and discover you’re not even near ending it.
At the very least a few of that setup is price it. The sport ships with an unlimited plastic recreation of The Generator, which doesn’t simply look superb on the center of the desk however has precise gameplay use as effectively, since gamers have to drop coal into it virtually each flip as they play, an act that rivals Deep Rock Galactic’s robotic mining as one of the satisfying bodily actions in current board recreation historical past.
And, in a really uncommon incidence for these evaluations, I wish to give a shout out to the sport’s documentation. For no matter purpose most board recreation rulebooks in 2023 nonetheless suck, however Frostpunk, regardless of the sport’s complexity and scale, by no means allow us to down.
There’s a really particular kind of individual on the market for this recreation. Somebody who’s into Frostpunk however will get lonely taking part in it, or somebody who has by no means performed the online game however is intrigued by the density and politics on provide right here. Sadly I used to be neither of these individuals, I discovered its setup time and size simply an excessive amount of, however like I’ve mentioned I can at the very least recognize the exhaustive design effort that went into the method taken right here, if nothing else.
