- The story of Frostpunk in mobile format
- Build a city, manage survivors and fulfill requests
- You will fall behind, so hurry to catch up
When it comes to adding a floating entry to a series, there are a few routes you can take. The standard is simply to do the same, but smaller and more casual. It seems that Frostpunk: Beyond the Ice has taken the interesting path of (more or less) recreating the first game but for the mobile platform thanks to the efforts of Com2uS.
As expected, this is a 3D city-building management experience that emphasizes survival. It's chilling to watch, which is strange given that mobile gaming is a pretty cozy activity, but it can be overlooked if it can keep up with its predecessors.
What is Frostpunk: Beyond the Ice?
Whenever you create a universe, you're free to write down stories that take place whenever and wherever you see fit for the story. In Frostpunk: Beyond the Ice, there may be some sort of parallel story. The setting is a version of the world in the late 19th century, when a second ice age suddenly struck and decimated the world.
Cities were closed and abandoned, many people froze to death, and the survivors banded together to seek safety. They lost many of their numbers as they wandered, but eventually came across a working coal generator.
With that, they decide to base their entire society around a piece of technology built in one of the most inconvenient places possible.
Frostpunk: Beyond the Ice is fantastic
Considering the massive scale of the first two in the Frostpunk series, it's pretty impressive how much Frostpunk: Beyond the Ice managed to translate to the mobile world. It maintains the tone and vibe of other titles while still feeling compact. Even with all the UI elements and pop-up icons, you feel the cold gravity of the situation. Things may be moving slowly, but you can't let your guard down or you'll suddenly find yourself out of fuel. It has some unnecessary elements, but it's very clear that you have to be a very proactive leader and manager.
That said, this always has something going for you. There will always be demands and resources will decrease, requiring you to harvest more or build more structures. Despite being a management simulator, the cold never stops, and while you collect what you need to build something you need to grow, people are starving.
There are places where automation can handle some tasks, but the important things don't happen unless you're directly involved. Collecting, harvesting, producing, giving away and signing are just some of the jobs you need to take care of if you want people to like you – oh, and if you want to survive.
The chilling side of Frostpunk: Beyond the Ice
It would be very easy to criticize and comment on it by comparing it to others in the series, but Frostpunk: Beyond the Ice should be judged on its own. The first verdict is how the mobile gameplay conflicts with the tone of the setting. This is a very serious scenario you find yourself in, but with all the icons that pop up and a nice, bright user interface, it tends to take you out of that. In a way, this is the nature of furniture, to be light and casual, but in this case the match may not be the best.
You know what else isn't great? People and their needs. Meeting the needs and demands of the people in your city is an important part of your job, but they appear almost too frequently. There's motivation to complete as many as possible to get the rewards, but it can quickly start to feel like you're constantly spinning plates on a rocking horse in a tornado. To top it off, if you are unable to meet their demands or need the resources they ask for to help the city, your approval rating drops.
Following the approval train of thought, he also likes to keep you in a “never good enough” state. It's the nature of simulators like this to make you feel like you're never ahead, but this is a mobile game.
This is something I want to open up for a few minutes and put aside now that I've made even a little progress. Every time you walk away, you come back only to realize that everything has sunk to new lows. Some things can be fixed pretty quickly, but most require you to build more stuff, and by the time you're done, things have gotten worse, so you have to build more.
Finding Frostpunk: Beyond the Ice
Frostpunk: Beyond the Ice is a 3D city building and management simulator that seeks to help people build and survive a brutal ice age. The atmosphere and visuals come across well on the mobile platform and keep you very active whenever you decide to pick up your city.
However, with everything expected of you and constantly being on the brink of ruin, it starts to feel more like work than play. But sometimes it's not all fun and, well, games: it's serious stuff about battling the cold, surviving and finding a way beyond the ice.