In a few months it will be 5 years since Survival City Builder frost punk was released, challenging players to build a functioning city in a post-apocalyptic world and carefully manage the society that has taken refuge within its boundaries.
And while we wait to hear when Frostpunk 2 It’s been interesting to see a city builder come out recently, a city builder inspired by Frostpunk’s amalgamation of story-driven management, social simulation, and survival systems.
We’re in a bit of a city-building boom these days, which is exciting. Fraser correctly pointed out that no one seemed to be aiming, Cities: Skylines Urban City Builder Crownwhich left plenty of room for every method different types of city buildersWe’re looking at city-building games that take place at the bottom of the ocean, in outer space, on the sides of mountains, on the backs of giant creatures, and even on top. Fantasy ring world with dice.
These games typically build clean cities, manage money and resources, and make sure civilians have more happy faces than frowns, but there’s something going on. system has received a lot of feedback and has been reflected in many modern city builders.
expedition
One of the earliest buildings you can unlock in Frostpunk is the Beacon. Beacons are tethered hot air balloons that can rise above the city and monitor locations of interest far beyond the central generator. Scouts can then go out into the world to explore new locations (often leading to the discovery of even more remote regions) and return using the beacon as a guide.
Often these expeditions offer not only additional resources, but also narrative choices, additional decisions, and a lot of tension while waiting to see how things unfold. It’s also great at making the city feel like just a small part of a much larger world that takes place off-screen.
We’re glad to see more city builders including a system similar to Frostpunk’s expeditions, allowing them to peer beyond their own borders. You can build your settlement on the back of the , and send scavengers out into the world as your mighty beast slowly stomp. Cleaning is not only fun and convenient, it is also very important. As your city moves, you may find yourself wandering into biomes that are deficient in certain resources, and gathering extra supplies is crucial to survival.
I haven’t played Ixion myself yet, but it’s set in outer space on a massive mobile space station. In addition to views of the station’s interior and exterior, there’s also a star system map, and once you’ve created your shuttle, you can send it out to survey and explore the solar system the station visits, collect supplies, and manage encounters.
It’s very similar to a Frostpunk expedition. Coming in January, underwater city builder Aquatico is also on the road. You can build a submarine and use it to explore the sea around your settlement. This could include new sources of important materials and undiscovered species of marine life.
real world politics and policy
Frostpunk isn’t just about building a functioning city, it’s also about managing a society within its boundaries. Keeping citizens happy is nothing new to city-building games—usually it’s the overarching goal or people will leave and cities will fail—but a society that can be passed in Frostpunk Administration and policy and law felt deeper and sometimes more troubling than the real thing. We explored systems such as child labor, propaganda, censorship, and authoritarianism. This is a far cry from determining what ads can be displayed on airships in Cities: Skylines.
We see more of these real-world policies in the November release of Survival City Builder Floodland. Floodland is set in a world devastated by climate change and includes options for enacting social policies that we’re all too familiar with after the COVID-19 pandemic. Citizens of Floodlands can contract airborne diseases, and policies such as mask wearing, social distancing and even lockdowns can be enacted to combat the spread.
Urban builder Urbek, which focuses on using natural resources instead of money as a way to build functioning cities, has other examples of social policies such as reducing labor hours. (Naturally, this makes people happier. The real world will take note) and produces better quality food. absolutely It doesn’t make people happy, but it’s still a viable solution to food shortages. )
make you a real person
One of the reasons I tend to shy away from strategy games like Civilization is because I’ve never felt connected to myself and what’s going on in the world. So one of the few strategy games that really got me hooked was Crusader Kings 2. Because it not only simulates a huge world full of countries, people and events, but it also simulates a more personal system. There are characters with all the personal drama (like when my son falls in love with his aunt and they plot an assassination against me).
I enjoy city building games like Cities: Skylines and have a bit of the same problem. I don’t want to be God making decisions out of the sky. I want to feel like I’m part of the city too. Resident. Frostpunk made me feel like I was there. Especially because if people got too unhappy they could simply pull me out of power and kick my butt in the snow. Ixion takes a similar approach, casting you as the space station’s temporary administrator until everything goes wrong and you’re forced into a key leadership position. As with Frostpunk, doing a poor enough job will get you removed from your position.
It’s a great way to feel connected to yourself and those you control.
from now on manor lord, had a great playable demo (and hope there’s another one soon) came up with a particularly fun way to make it feel more like a real person than a god sitting behind a keyboard Did: You could actually spawn in a village and walk around in third person mode. While you weren’t able to interact with anyone, it’s a great way to feel connected to yourself and the people you control.
It’s an exciting time for city-building fans, with many new games coming out, from blockbuster to blockbuster. very fewand it’s even more exciting to see them grow into an experience that’s more than just knocking down buildings and connecting them to roads. It’s great to see that they are still influential.
