I’ve reviewed a lot of board sport variations of video video games on this web site, and with good motive: it’s essentially the most intimate intersection of our board sport and online game protection. In practically each case, the important thing consideration has been how does the board sport 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 precise mechanics.
Frostpunk is totally different. It’s a hulking large board sport that seeks, in virtually each significant means, to not adapt the online game to the tabletop, however to convey it wholesale, warts and all. It’s an formidable endeavor if nothing else, however I’m additionally not fairly certain 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 a minimum of 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 guide and inserting tokens on the desk and it regarded 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 sport and it made me query every part” it seems no, fortunately I’m fantastic, it’s the sport that’s sluggish.
Frostpunk is without doubt one of the most complicated 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” ranking on BoardGameGeek, which is 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 totally different guidelines that bend and sway for every participant. Most maddeningly, there are eight boards it’s a must to maintain observe of.
Eight. Boards. That’s too many boards.
If you happen to’re questioning why the board sport 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 motive, 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 part you are able to do within the online game, from the politics to the useful resource gathering to the hunt expeditions to city-building is right here, and it really works a lot the identical means it does on PC.
It’s, in some ways, a staggering achievement. When you (ultimately) get on high 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 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 sport, 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 inside the metropolis, working collectively whereas on the similar time arguing over each determination. 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 lots of these debates within the flesh.
But in different methods all of it feels a bit pointless? The board sport cuts so near the online game’s material that at occasions you marvel 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 some extent the place that trade-off will be price it, and for many individuals—myself included—that time can come once you’re hours right into a single sport and discover you’re not even near ending it.
Not less than 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 nicely, 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 crucial satisfying bodily actions in current board sport historical past.
And, in a really uncommon incidence for these opinions, I need to give a shout out to the sport’s documentation. For no matter motive most board sport 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 sort of individual on the market for this sport. 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 folks, I discovered its setup time and size simply an excessive amount of, however like I’ve stated I can a minimum of respect the exhaustive design effort that went into the method taken right here, if nothing else.
