I have checked A a lot of board game adjustments from video games At This website, and with good reason: it’s the most intimate intersection of our board game and video game coverage. In almost all cases, the main consideration was how the board game felt compared to the original. What concessions have been made, how is it different, does it fit in relation to the video game vibrationsif not exact mechanics.
Frostpunk is different. It’s a giant board game that tries in almost every way that makes sense not to adjust not bringing the video game to the tabletop, but bringing it wholesale, warts and all. Last but not least, it’s an ambitious undertaking, but I’m also not entirely sure if it’s worth all the effort.
And it is effort. When I first played the game I was at least 30 minutes setting it up when I started to sweat. I’d spent half an hour tediously punching cards, reading the manual, and putting chips on the table, and it looked like I’d just started. Did I do something wrong? Was I just a very slow guy? After reading this cube breaker story called “I spent an hour building a board game and it made me question everything” It turns out no, luckily I’m fine, it’s the game that’s slow.
Frostpunk is one of the most complex board games I’ve ever played let alone built (and I’m not just talking, It has a 4.32/5 weight rating BoardGameGeekwhich is very high). There is a seemingly endless array of tokens, multiple decks of cards that look the same but are not the same, and tons of different rules that bend and sway for each player. The craziest thing is that there are eight boards to keep track of.
Eight. Boards. That’s too many boards.
If you’re wondering why the board game version of a (relatively) uncomplicated city builder must be so complicated because this edition of the game, for whatever reason, didn’t want to vaguely emulate the spirit of gaming Frostpunk. It wants to rebuild the whole damn thing and replace mouse clicks with tabletop components. Nearly everything What you can do in the video game, from politics to resource gathering to the city-building quest expeditions, is here, and it works much like it does on PC.
It’s an amazing achievement in many ways. Once you (eventually) get to grips with the game’s massive array of components, boards, and rules, it really feels like you’re playing Frostpunk, the pressures and excruciating responsibilities of the digital wasteland have been perfectly transplanted into the physical world. In fact, some of those prints are even better here because Frostpunk is a co-op game, which means that 2-4 of you (there is also a single player mode, but I haven’t played that one) can take on different jobs around town, work together and at the same time argue about every decision. If you thought the social and political stuff in video games was cool, then it is Great here because you are essentially living out many of these debates.
Yet in another way it all feels a bit pointless? The board game is so close to the video game that you sometimes wonder why you even bother, as the video game does all of this for you without the tedious setup time or constant checking with the rules. Sure, this is a rather lonely experience, but there comes a point where that compromise can be worthwhile, and for many people – myself included – that point can come when you’re hours into a single game and realize you can’t quitt are about to end it.
At least part of this facility is worth it. The game comes with a giant plastic replica of The Generator which not only looks amazing in the center of the table but also has actual gameplay utility as players have to toss in coals almost every turn throughout the game. an act that rivals Deep Rock Galactics robot mining as one of the most satisfying physical actions in recent board game history.
And on a very rare occasion for these reviews, I want to highlight the game’s documentation. For some reason most board game rulebooks still suck in 2023, but Frostpunkdespite the complexity and scale of the game, has never let us down.
There’s a very specific type of person out there for this game. Someone who likes it Frostpunk but gets lonely while playing, or someone who has never played the video game but is intrigued by the density and politics on offer here. Unfortunately, I wasn’t one of those people, I found the setup time and length just too much, but like I said, I can at least appreciate the exhaustive design effort that went into the approach taken here, if nothing else.
