My Thoughts on Frostpunk 2 (So Far)

[EJR]

Since this is the beta, my impressions, opinions, and thoughts will likely not matter in the grand scheme of things as features and mechanics are sure to change. I am also biased towards the original Frostpunk as it was one of my favorite games of the 2010s. I will be going through the pros (+) and cons (-) of what I have to say about this game; these don't necessarily have to be changed or addressed, only considered by the devs. I also know that spending only 47 minutes is not enough for a complete first impression but this is what I wanted to list and say so far.

+ The new city-building mechanic (Districts, buildings in districts, frostbreaking, etc) is a briefly and initially confusing and intimidating but easy to understand once I got my hands dirty with it.

- Continuing off that, the UI and text can be a bit jarring. I would like there to be an option to switch it to 'dark mode' or just have the overall UI be black like how it previously was in the original Frostpunk. Or at the least provide a setting to enlarge the text in certain windows ie the Council, the tutorial texts, Research window, the outliner at the top, etc.

+ I like the overall switch when it comes to maintaining the city's population and their relation towards you, from the original Frostpunk's more social aspect (Faith v. Order) to the more political element of running a city (the Council). I probably didn't see it as I wasn't focused on looking at the Council trees at the time, but I would like to see Faith and Order be implemented in it just as a nice callback and feel to the first game; I assume Order will have something to do with dealing with crime and Faith being related to one of the Communities that may pop up.

- Visual-wise, I don't like how the city is portrayed when it comes to the day-to-day life of its inhabitants. In the previous game, you see people just going through their lives on the streets. But in Frostpunk 2, you see them 'zooming' from one side of the city to the other as if you were watching the lights of cars in traffic move in the city. IMO it makes the city feel less alive, if it weren't for the lines of dialogue and what people had to say then the city would feel soulless. If you want to see what I meant on the "cars in traffic" line I said, here is a video on what I mean: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QNXtbsS633w

It's getting late so I will be playing the beta more tomorrow, and since there are things I didn't add because I didn't use them enough to have an opinion (ie scouts) I will be adding/changing my post tomorrow.

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April 16 2024 Edit: Alright, so I finished the beta this morning and got to experience more of the game than I did from the night before, and was able to absorb more of the game because I wasn't pushing myself to stay awake to do so.

- The harvesting and collecting and resources felt weird to me. I can clearly see that they are being collected and harvested, and I can see what it is used for when I move my cursor over their respective icons at the top of the UI. It is hard to explain, but it is like being supervisor of a warehouse and being given a report on your inventory and you clearly see it has increased/decreased and where and how it is happening, you just don't see it happening yourself. I don't know, maybe it is just me looking at it a certain way. I also noticed Frostpunk 2 does not have an "Economy" window like the original so maybe that plays into it. If someone knows what I am talking about or can explain to me what I am missing please do so, I plan on playing the beta again later this week to see if I can pinpoint the problem I have with it.

+/- The concept of Frostpunk 2's expedition system is IMO better than what was in Frostpunk 1 where you explore individual locations. In the sequel, however, you instead explore one small region then explore individual locations within said region. The downside however is that I don't know how to get more expedition teams as I couldn't do anything with the logistical district to recruit more and there was no building or anything to make me do it. Maybe this is related to how odd I felt with resources in general, I don't know but I wanted to bring it up.

+ This is just a personal nitpick but I wanted to say it anyway. I like the soundtrack and found it on par with the original's. Now I didn't hear the complete OST since it is the beta but I like how less climactic, or 'epic,' it sounded compared to Frostpunk 1, As the devs said in the latest video, Frostpunk 1 was all about trying to survive the apocalypse and we achieved that, Frostpunk 2 is trying to improve on the city that survived the "great blizzard" (As I call it) and is now simply trying to thrive and stay afloat. Not only does it do this in the gameplay (Council, districts) but also through the music as well. And I like that.

Also, in my original post I had this to say about how the game/beta taught you about the mechanics:

Originally posted by EJR:

I wish the way you learned the games features was not through a text dump with a clip/video as the text is sometimes too small and the white background makes it a bit jarring to me (Nothing wrong with my eyes, I just like 'dark mode' for everything) since I like to learn by doing. Perhaps put some hover text on the screen of the situation and have whatever button I am supposed to click to be flashing instead of having a small symbol on the button?

Having gotten enough sleep, allow me to explain this. I always believed that the worst way to each a player how to play a game is to be given a manual and be told to read it. Imagine yourself in an MMO, how would you preferred to be taught? Being given blocks of texts with the occasional picture on the game's UI and be told where to click, or to have the game give you step-by-step instructions as you play through the game itself so you get a fun and educational experience? I just wanted to elaborate on this. Some people actually learn more by reading and that's fine, I just felt Frostpunk 2 is the type of game where a player should learn by doing instead of being told what to do.

Final Thoughts

Overall, I rate the experience I got from Frostpunk 2 (So far) a 7/10.

As a sequel, it takes what was already present in the original and makes it better, like replacing individual buildings with districts. Frostpunk 2 also removes some aspects of the original gameplay to replace it with something to make it feel like a thriving city rather than a survival hub, such as having factions and a council for its people to make laws.

As a city builder, its gameplay - or rather, its concept - is neither overwhelming or underwhelming, in the best ways. Frostpunk 2 does not go to the extreme when it tries to complicate things when expanding on what was present in the original nor does it simplify too much to make it appeal to more people (Specifically outside the city builder genre).

I like what this game has added, improved, or removed and what they replaced it with. And despite the misgivings I have with the beta, Frostpunk 2 still remains one of my top 3 games to look forward to in 2024 and I hope to see more of it at release and after.

[timmonsisold66]

Agree,that is a soulless city in FP2 from what I've experienced. Not the feel city builders are to have imo.

[kylix999]

Thanks for impressions, this shows how much people valued f1 type of gameplay

[J_Lowe]

I really don't love the UI as it is currently. Everything is way too small, spread out and lacking harmony it feels like. Also, the white bars on the top and bottom of the screen kind of disconnect me from feeling immersed in the city. I feel like I am looking through a computer screen or a window and I personally don't like it. I know we are abstracting everything up a level, so that feeling of disconnection is somewhat of a stylistic choice, but there has to be a better solution if that was the intention.

To bring up Frostpunk 1 again, that UI accomplished everything it needed to. It looked good, added to the atmosphere (frost effect, temperature/day bar effects), and the most important stuff (temperature, resources, discontent/hope) was large and central yet didn't feel in the way. The UI in FP2 somehow feels like it is in the way despite being smaller. I also don't get an immediate impression of what is supposed to be important to me. The laws and ideas appear to be the most important aspects of the game, yet they are tiny buttons relegated to the corner. I feel like they should take some lessons of what they did so well in FP1 with the UIs and apply it to FP2. I am not saying they should copy what they did there, but I do think they should learn from their successes in the past.

Some suggestions in list form:
- Big law and idea buttons
- Sound effects to accompany cooldowns finishing (eg. FP1 scouts, laws, tech)
- Centralize important buttons and information.
- Consider changing the white bars to a more transparent UI to prevent the feeling I am looking through a picture frame.

[EJR]

Originally posted by J_Lowe:

...

Yeah, Frostpunk 1's UI design definitely helped in connecting the player to gameplay, and small audio and visual cues enhanced the experience with what changes happened like a law passing or the hazardous storm/blizzard bringing down the temperature to fatal degrees.

[EJR]

Originally posted by RandomNoun:

I'm not entirely sure why anyone would pay extra to provide free beta testing of an incomplete game to a game developer. They should be paying you is how I see it. At the very least charging you less for an unfinished game, not more.

Well in my case, I actually got it because of the artbook, soundtrack, and that novella. In fact, I wasn't really going to buy the deluxe version until I saw those three things offered in the deal, the beta was just a bonus so I decided to give it a try.

[linas.warrior]

Wait, so there are no NPCs walking around the city?

[timmonsisold66]

Originally posted by linas.warrior:

Wait, so there are no NPCs walking around the city?

If you get out your magnify glass and slow the game down to .001 speed you may see 1 or 2 people.

[kylix999]

Originally posted by linas.warrior:

Wait, so there are no NPCs walking around the city?

They are represent as yellow lines, they call them ghosts now...

[Spacesuit Spiff]

The timescale is in weeks instead of days now, so people zooming around like Barry Allen would've been weird. Probably still should've tried anyway.

[Xunzul]

My vote is 7/100

[kylix999]

Originally posted by Xunzul:

My vote is 7/100

Very generous

[linas.warrior]

Originally posted by Spacesuit Spiff:

The timescale is in weeks instead of days now, so people zooming around like Barry Allen would've been weird. Probably still should've tried anyway.

For real? So how fast time moves in the game now?

[DiegoDog68]

I am hoping that in the next three months, the studio makes the changes asked by the player base. I agree that this game is vastly different than the first one and that is not entirely a bad thing but too much of a new thing might be too bad for the players

[(Insert Insensitive Name)]

Originally posted by DiegoDog68:

I am hoping that in the next three months, the studio makes the changes asked by the player base. I agree that this game is vastly different than the first one and that is not entirely a bad thing but too much of a new thing might be too bad for the players

The release is 3 months away. There's no way they're going to make any meaningful changes. It's essentially finished, and this is what you're going to get. Maybe they'll tweak the visuals a bit.

To me it's pretty disappointing. It feels hollowed out to cater to more casual players. It's a real bummer when developers over engineer their game, and take all the fun tedium out of it, because people cry about having to actually manage a city... in a city management game.

At this point, someone should just make a city builder where:

When your computer starts, it just automatically runs the game.

The city epicenter is randomly chosen, on a randomly generated map.

And it automatically builds itself out to fill the entire map, so the player can just sit there and watch it unfold, while eating chips with an open mic on discord, while debating the important things, like bathtub streamers leaving twitch.

I would say give the ability for the drooling player to move the camera around, so they can look at things, but player would complain about how it isn't moving itself to the most visually interesting area on it's own, because it's taking away from them rolling their head across their sticky keyboards.

There's a single achievement called, "We're glad you *might* have sat through a level."

That's the 10/10 gameplay, the people are looking for that complained about FP1 being "too hard", and how we ended up with whatever this tile based phone game is supposed to be.