I’ve reviewed a lot of board recreation variations of video video games on this web site, and with good purpose: it’s probably the most intimate intersection of our board recreation and online game protection. In almost 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 by way of vibes, if not actual mechanics.
Frostpunk is totally different. It’s a hulking enormous board recreation that seeks, in nearly each significant approach, to not adapt the online game to the tabletop, however to carry it wholesale, warts and all. It’s an formidable enterprise if nothing else, however I’m additionally not fairly positive if it’s value all the hassle.
And it’s an effort. After I went to play the sport for the primary time I used to be at the least half-hour into setting it up after I began to get the sweats. I had spent half an hour painstakingly punching playing cards, studying the handbook and inserting tokens on the desk and it appeared like I’d barely begun. Was I doing one thing fallacious? Was I only a very sluggish man? After studying this Dicebreaker story referred to as “I spent an hour failing to arrange a board recreation and it made me query every thing” it seems no, fortunately I’m superb, it’s the sport that’s sluggish.
Frostpunk is without doubt one of 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 is very excessive). There are a seemingly limitless array of tokens, a number of decks of playing cards that look the identical however aren’t and a great deal of totally different guidelines that bend and sway for every participant. Most maddeningly, there are eight boards it’s a must to hold monitor of.
Eight. Boards. That’s too many boards.
When you’re questioning why the board recreation model of a (comparatively) easy city-builder must be so sophisticated, it’s as a result of this version of the sport, for no matter purpose, didn’t need to vaguely recreate the spirit of taking part in Frostpunk. It desires to recreate the entire rattling factor, substituting tabletop elements for mouse clicks. Almost every thing 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 (finally) get on prime of the sport’s huge array of elements, boards and guidelines it actually does really feel such as you’re taking part in Frostpunk, the pressures and nagging duties 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, which means there will be 2-4 of you (there’s additionally a singleplayer mode, however I didn’t play that) taking over totally different jobs throughout the metropolis, working collectively whereas on the similar time arguing over each choice. When you thought the social and political stuff was cool within the online game, it’s nice right here because you’re basically 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 fabric that at occasions you marvel why you’re bothering in any respect, for the reason that online game does all this for you, with out the arduous setup time or fixed session with the principles. Positive, that’s a extra solitary expertise, however there’s a degree the place that trade-off will be value it, and for many individuals—myself included—that time can come if you’re hours right into a single recreation and discover you’re not even near ending it.
A minimum of a few of that setup is value it. The sport ships with an infinite 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 nearly 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 need 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 particular person 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 supply right here. Sadly I used to be neither of these folks, I discovered its setup time and size simply an excessive amount of, however like I’ve stated I can at the least recognize the exhaustive design effort that went into the strategy taken right here, if nothing else.