For developers, with respect to 11bit studios and them great past creations

[onlyforamicro]

STORY OF A LONELY PLAYER (sorry if is long)

in frostpunk 1 the game begins
- total freedom
- I clearly see a generator in the center of the city, I clearly see resources
- I have few people, I have nothing, I urgently need everything
- I have 100 wood, 100 metal, 0 coal
- I can see with well-defined colors the heat of each building

I have to manage the people who can work like a tightrope walker, I have to make them do overtime right away, maybe I will have to make the children work too or we risk not surviving, I will have to send people to work in the morning on one side, then on another during the same day if necessary, I urgently need everything and the night is approaching.

I have a building called laboratory already available for construction, I build it, I open the research menu, there are a few pages divided into categories, the pages have subcategories, CLEAR AND UNDERSTANDABLE, there is a sawmill, if I search for it, under the sawmill 2 other searches appear aimed at wood production, next to it in another column, there is a foundry, if I search for it they branch out under other searches related to the foundry, it's all very clear and tidy.

I initially have little research, but research is literally different game strategies, it is a world in itself, a unique and well-defined approach

if I research exploration RIGHT AWAY and manage resources well, before the evening of day 2 I will have explorers ready to leave, I will not be able to make houses for everyone and today everyone will fast, tomorrow people will point it out to me, they will be angry and will start to get sick, but my explorers will arrive 1 day early with many precious resources brought from outside that will give me a hand later, I will have to grit my teeth before the explorers return, but then I will have precious and VITAL help.

or I decide to increase the collection speed in research, I will not have any explorers, I will not have any bonuses in the first few days and later I will miss them, I will pay the consequences of having decided to focus on the inside of my village, but initially I will be able to give people a house and create a kitchen to make them eat, they will be warm and I will have fewer sick people.
etc....

It's been 30 minutes since I opened the game, I'm amazed, amazed, excited, captured, I'm sitting on my chair at home but I feel a blade in my throat and a biting cold in my bones.
I can do what I want, I'm free, I'm the leader of these desperate people looking for survival and I have full control of my means, if you give me 20 wood I can make 2 sawmills and make another 2000 wood, or I can make zero and run dry, I decide.
every little decision will have big impacts now, or in 1 hour, but it will certainly have them and I will bitterly regret it, or I will thank the heavens.

[Lunaire]

Originally posted by Alezul:

Waiting for heatstamps to do anything was the final straw for me. It felt like such an arbitrary restriction to add when you already have other resources.

You don't have to wait for the heat stamps. But as others have pointed out earlier: reading issue. You guys are basically complaining at this point that you wanted the game to be a roller coaster ride. Minimum interaction and minimum complexity.

[onlyforamicro]

Originally posted by Lunaire:

Originally posted by Alezul:

Waiting for heatstamps to do anything was the final straw for me. It felt like such an arbitrary restriction to add when you already have other resources.

You don't have to wait for the heat stamps. But as others have pointed out earlier: reading issue. You guys are basically complaining at this point that you wanted the game to be a roller coaster ride. Minimum interaction and minimum complexity.

the interaction in fp1 was maximized, more or the same, surely non less of fp2 and is a little more complicate and deep what i am talking about..

fp1 was the exemple how you can create a complex game with just a few elements, taking the few elements available and use them to the fullest, shaping them in many different ways, usually those are the most popular and ingenious games.

the most generic and forgettable games are (usually) a conglomeration of many things, all exploited in an inefficient or non charismatic way, fp2 is more in this direction.

However, I played for another few hours, I'm on chapter 4, having unlocked the new research I've seen what I can do, if I had to start again the game, I would feel more in control of my city, as if I finally knew in which direction I can go or how to optimize the times, my idea doesn't change, fp2 is not comparable to the first game (partialy subjective opinion).

If I have to express an opinion today on why fp2 hasn't achieved the success of the first one, I'd say that it's largely the HUD's fault.

each piece of information has one layer less than necessary (I mean all the information without exception)

the resources rather than having the total have these annoying - and +

status management have these initial circles of meaning that don't let me understand exactly how much squalor or criminality I really have, if at least they had put some arrows pointing up or down to indicate the trend of the city..

the same thing consequently applies to research and laws, there are these "increases" or "decreases" that always leave you confused, that have no meaning.

the search tree then remains messy.

all tied to the HUD! like drowning yourself in a glass of water!

because then the game itself is a frostpunk, it has some similar dynamics, it has some interesting ideas and has a playable base, with the exception of the construction system which remains poorly made and unsatisfactory.

the first frostpunk was 50% citybuilder and 50% management/political, we probably misunderstood, 11bit intended frostpunk as a management/political, leaving the citybuilder part to a marginal role.

I then begin to understand the complaints about the plot, I went from chapter 1 to 4 in a very short time and I was never directly involved in people's suffering, unlike fp1.

everything is obviously always subjective, I will finish the game and will hardly play it again, at most 1 more time to see if I can feel the control of the city as my own, in the end in a month I will have forgotten it, it will have left me nothing, while the first It left me with a lot on an emotional level.

[onlyforamicro]

At least I discovered that by pressing alt you can easily see where the buildings are, by getting used to pressing alt you understand, thanks to different colors, what type of district it is and what buildings are inside, delating part of the intial chaos that overwhelms you at the beginning.

even shorter comparison for my taste:

fp1 masterpiece, unique

fp2 just above average, there is better, quite unique

but it must be said that being unique is not a big problem for the strategic games, there is a big variety; then is not a big value, if i play maybe a shooter can think "i want something new" and if something original came out is a big plus.

[Braindead McRetard]

Omg nobody's forcing you to buy FP2, just keep playing FP1 or make a FP mod for another game.