this post was submitted on 02 Jul 2025
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Is Frost Punk fun? (hexbear.net)
submitted 2 days ago by Comrade_Mushroom@hexbear.net to c/games@hexbear.net
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Thinking about grabbing it during the summer sale.

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[–] LaGG_3@hexbear.net 13 points 1 day ago (1 children)

It's certainly a memorable experience - I tend to think of it whenever the weather starts getting cold.

I liked the DLC scenarios more than the main game - there's one where you are running a little outpost that gets its supplies cut off by the main city (and have to build relationships with other settlements to trade for supplies), and there's a prequel one where you're managing the construction of one of the huge power plant thingies. The prequel one has a crumb of class conflict that's a little interesting.

Like UmbraVivi mentioned, the main thrust of the game puts you in a sticky survival situation where it tries to get you to click more and more "bad things" buttons to get enough advantage to scrape by. Child labor is probably the most OP one lol. The moralizing is kinda silly because there's two paths to fascism and going far enough down either will get you a "you won, but at what cost?!" ending - even for something as mild as implementing state run media.

[–] KobaCumTribute@hexbear.net 12 points 1 day ago

"you won, but at what cost?!" ending - even for something as mild as implementing state run media.

This was really silly. I got through the main campaign with only scripted deaths: the poet who was just really upset about the town funding a newspaper for some reason, and some miners who volunteered to keep the mine running during the finale knowing that it would mean their deaths. Like everyone was happy, healthy, and alive, there were no hard choices or any sacrifices beyond a single unreasonable dissident and a single digit number of volunteers who willfully and knowingly sacrificed themselves to ensure everyone else's survival, this was literally the best result anyone could possibly hope for and the epilogue snarks about it.

[–] Blep@hexbear.net 5 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

I liked it

Honestly the most annoying bit mechanically is how the best strategy to just always be ahead of the curveball

[–] marx_mentat@hexbear.net 10 points 1 day ago

I view the game as a breaking bad simulator or moral endurance tester and refused to let the conditions of the world turn me into a bad guy. Every time it was like "do you want to eat children or starve" I took it as a challenge. It was difficult to get through but I made it to the end eventually.

[–] miz@hexbear.net 11 points 1 day ago

all I remember is I made a bunch of "good guy" choices and the game called me a stalinist

[–] Orcocracy@hexbear.net 18 points 2 days ago (1 children)

It’s a game that constantly gives you overwrought “tough choices” where the two options are either a) fascism or b) you are soft and naive and everyone will die.

[–] Comrade_Mushroom@hexbear.net 14 points 1 day ago (2 children)

I do not like that.

[–] UmbraVivi@hexbear.net 19 points 1 day ago (2 children)

That comment is misrepresenting it. Frostpunk is not a sandbox city builder, it is a much more linear game based on the question of "How much of your humanity are you willing to give up to survive?" Picking the fascist options does make the game objectively easier, but the game will effectively tell you that your victory is hollow at the end.

For example: There are 3 people outside your city, asking to be let in. Their limbs are frozen and need to amputated, so they can't work. They will purely be a drain on your limited food and medical supplies. Many of your people (though not all of them) will be against taking them in too. There is little to no in-game benefit to taking the 3 people in, it makes it more likely that you will run out of food and everyone will die, but the whole point is that you're supposed to take them in anyway because it's the right thing to do.

[–] Orcocracy@hexbear.net 4 points 1 day ago

Yes, it is certainly fair to take the reading that the point is to play the game by continually resisting the fascist options that are provided. However, I’m not sure if the “was it worth it” hollow victory screen at the very end forgives the many hours of fascist “hard times make strong men” scenarios that precede it. If anything, the “was it worth it” further underlines the “hardness” of those “hard choices” and therefore does not contest or critique the fascist frame. The fascist would proudly answer “yes” and the game would appear perfectly coherent to them.

It’s not that one needs to take a fascist reading of the game, but to borrow from Stuart Hall, the dominant reading of this game is clearly a fascist one. Yes, an antifascist reading is possible, but that reading is one built through a very careful process of negotiation with the text.

[–] JuanPosadas@hexbear.net 3 points 1 day ago (1 children)

linear game

does this mean a principled 4X-er will hate it? Or do you mean it's linear the way Pixel Dungeon, Civilization, and A Dark Room might (or might not) be called linear?

[–] UmbraVivi@hexbear.net 5 points 1 day ago

It's linear in the sense that you have a sequence of scenarios and the game is pretty much completed afterwards. You don't have different factions, randomized starting positions or random events to add variety to your campaigns. It's all pre-determined. Think of it as a story-driven singleplayer game which you play through once or twice and that's it, rather than a game like SimCity or Civ.

[–] Dort_Owl@hexbear.net 6 points 1 day ago

It's poo

[–] trompete@hexbear.net 14 points 1 day ago

Didn't finish it. The city building aspect is barebones, doesn't really feel like you have much creative freedom or strategic choice. They offer you narrative "choices" which I don't think really affect the narrative, though I only played the thing once.

[–] spectre@hexbear.net 4 points 1 day ago

I enjoyed it, I didn't really have anything to add to the other explanations here