I doubt that I would ever have bought this on my own but it had really good word of mouth on Broken Forum and just fantastic worldbuilding. It’s honestly more than a bit anachronistic since we’re currently worried about global warming yet this game is all about the world freezing to death. Yet it’s undeniably a great idea for a premise and all of the game’s mechanics are built around it.

Set in the late 19th century, the world is, for reasons that are unclear and not really relevant, slowly freezing to death. The main scenario deals with one last effort on the part of civilization to build the last human city around a coal-powered generator. So huddled around it for warmth, you build tents to house your population, gather coal to feed the generator, chop trees and mine iron for construction, research better technologies, gather food and so forth. At the same time, there are quest arcs as you send out explorers to search the frozen waste around you for more survivors and resources and your people will constantly bring problems or proposals to your attention. You’ll have to set policies and decide on trade-offs to keep your people contented and feeling hopeful.

So it’s a classic city builder game, except that the need for warmth informs everything that you do. The generator as the source of heat is the center of the city and so everything else is laid out around it in a radial grid. Citizens get sick and will eventually die if they are too cold so a huge part of this game is to figure out how to keep them warm efficiently. The heat zone around the central generator can be expanded through research and its running temperature increased, but this also greatly increases its coal consumption rate. You can also build steam hobs to create smaller heat zones or turn on heaters in individual work buildings and of course all this uses coal as well. Better buildings can have more insulation and so retain more heat passively but this too needs research and increased building costs in terms of wood and steel. It’s a constant battle for survival and the temperature in the main scenario will keep dropping to terrifyingly low levels.

The entire game oozes atmosphere and combined with the terrible choices one must choose between, creates a true sense of despair. For example, will you order all children to work by, say, gathering supplies out in the cold knowing that some will fall sick or keep them safe and warm in expensive, specially built shelters? The other scenarios add on even worse dilemmas. One of them has you controlling a ragged group of refugees but there are just seemingly endless waves of them to save, so many that it strains the capacity of your city to its limits. What do you do? At normal difficulty, the challenge is tuned perfectly to ensure that most players will make it through but not without losses and not without feeling terrible about it later.

In terms of production quality, I was a little disappointed that you can’t zoom in far enough to see each of the tiny people clearly especially once I realized each person is named. I also had difficulty identifying various buildings by sight. Still the visuals look more than good enough and the design emphasizes the oppressive atmosphere of the game. I especially like the illustrations that accompany story events that work wonderfully in bringing the text to life. Nowadays games insist so much on using multiple named characters and voice acting to convey story so it’s gratifying to have a game that is willing to rely on snippets of text and illustrations to carry the day.

Another great design choice is how the city is sized just right. Many city builder games like to boast of being able to build huge cities. The so-called city in this game is a minnow in comparison and there are only really a few variables to keep track of. Yet the simple, clean design is complex enough to support plenty of gameplay and easy to grasp enough that you feel that you have total control at all times and so anything that goes wrong is your fault. You choose whether or not to order a workplace to work extended hours, causing discontent to rise. You choose how many medical aid stations to build and heat, knowing that there might not be enough capacity to treat all currently sick people. The feedback on everything that you do is immediate.

The learning curve is a little steep as there’s no real tutorial. Plus the way that buildings have a resizing autofit ability triggers my OCD complex as I struggle to design the perfect city layout. I’d also argue that in the main scenario once you get the automatons the game is a little too easy on normal difficulty and there are no real jobs for your citizens left to do. But on balance I’d say this is fantastic game. It’s original, the scenarios put you under enough pressure that you feel something for your citizens and the gameplay mechanics all work together seamlessly. It’s honestly one of the best gaming experiences I’d had in recent years. Highly recommended.