A city-survival, cooperative game for 1-4 players where heat means life and every decision comes at a cost. From the designer of Nemesis and story creator for This War of Mine: TBG.
In Frostpunk: The Board Game you will take on the role of leaders of a small colony of survivors in a post-apocalyptic world that was hit by a severe ice age.
Build shelters and resource gathering facilities, explore the frostlands, research new technologies, and introduce new laws.
What decisions will you make to ensure your city's survival?
Latest Updates from Our Project:
So let us talk about the big thing you have unlocked today! The companion app for Frostpunk: The Board Game!
over 3 years ago
– Sun, Oct 25, 2020 at 05:20:59 AM
Greetings and salutations New Londoners!
Saturday is upon us, this means that today’s update will be a bit less meaty than usually. However we cannot allow ourselves not to address the progress of the campaign, especially that your ongoing support is obliterating any stretch goals we’ve set before you!
What can we say?! You have just blown our collective mind with the speed at which you broke through those Stretch Goals! Thank you all so much for being such a wonderful community! You are making our dreams come true, really! We plan to repay the favor 😉 when it comes to this game.
So let us talk about the App
Disclaimer: At Glass Cannon Unplugged, we strongly believe that every aspect of the game should be justified in its design, and the app is no exception.
Frostpunk: The Board Game is a 100% unplugged game, meaning that all you need in order to play it is a table, a chair, and a source of light (a few big candles will do if you want to take the unplugged aspect to the next level). This companion app will add to the gameplay but is neither critical for enjoying it nor is it enforced by us!
How does this influence the development of the board game? Are you sure you know what you are doing?
We have been preparing for this campaign for almost a year (in terms of board game design much longer) and we were ready for the worst case scenario and the best case scenario (often even more dangerous than the worst case scenario). Thanks to your support we are going with the best possible outcome! 😊 Since this campaign and this game is the sum of all our previous projects and experience - we are ready. We will be working with our trusted co-workers with whom we have over 4 commercial and 2 non-commercial projects completed. Timewise, we would aim to release the app 3-6 months after the Kickstarter versions of Frostpunk: The Board Game are delivered to backers, this gives us plenty of additional time to work on the app after we will have finished the board game development. It also makes sense to send the app to you after you’ve gotten a chance to acquaint yourselves with the game’s mechanics and completed some playthroughs.
The team involved in developing the app has also worked on the app for This War Of Mine: The Board Game, the app for UBOOT: THE BOARD GAME, developed JARS (a digital defense game currently in the publishing process by Mousetrap Games), and has cooperated on various freelance projects with Poland’s two finest software houses (The Knights Of Unity and Nomtek). Therefore, we are confident that we possess the necessary knowledge and experience to deliver what we are promising.
You are not alone!
We have a lot of content in mind and ideas waiting to burst into reality when the app is concerned but let us start with what we know will work and can promise. As we progress we will share more on the vision we have for the app and its features. For now we can assure you that the following modules will be included in the app:
The first one is the exchange market for resources between the logged in users.
Each group (or a solo player) that will be playing the game and using the app will be able to create their own virtual settlement, assign a name to it, chose an art for it and pick the location where it is situated. After these actions have been completed the settlement will be added to the shared exchange market for resources, where from the very beginning exchange offers will be present. So for example: as an action, you will be able to exchange X Wood for X Coal and a Steam Core. If a settlement accepts the offer and fulfills it you will be informed - the app will display it and a new offer will take its place. These new offers that will be added won’t be completely random, they will react to the supply and demand on the virtual market. These virtual settlements will increase the “prices” for resources that are currently on high demand and opposite. It can also happen that with the shipment you will receive something else… let’s say that the app might ask you to reveal what Laws are in play at your settlement and it will confront it with another virtual settlement. So as you are about to receive the shipment of goods your citizens might learn that these goods a fruit of child labor and depending on their morality and that of your settlement the consequences might influence your Hope or Discontent levels.
With this we want to draw a line between this app and the latest idea by the creators of Frostpunk, called On the Edge. Who knows what offers and possibilities for interaction lay hidden in the heads of our development team ;-). One thing is certain, some really exciting stuff is on their desks, being tested and prototyped!
The second aspect of the app will be the addition of challenges related to new Starting Conditions cards that will be added to the app on a regular basis for as long as we have the license for the tabletop adaptation of Frostpunk! We will be adding these new challenges on (at least) a quarterly basis.
And what about the next stretch goal? Many of you (practically all those who played the digital version) have asked about the soundtrack and environment sounds from the digital game, since they were so masterfully composed and added a lot to the theme of the digital game. If we can breach the 1.8 million Euro goal we will add the full soundtrack from the digital Frostpunk to the app, along with ambient sounds specially prepared for best possible immersion! Of course you will be able to turn it on and off as you wish and regulate the volume of the sound.
The sound of an approaching blizzard preceded by a gust of strong wind or the shouter announcing the introduction of a new law… These are all the sounds that we’ve come to love in the video game. Starting each new turn with the signal coming from the generator’s siren and a voice announcing the beginning of a new shift sounds good doesn’t it?
And now let us talk about the future and the vision...
We would like the app to provide you with the following experience:
Your copy of Frostpunk: The Board Game is your very own, unique settlement. Same thing is true for your friends/acquaintances etc. - their copies of the game are their settlements. What the app does is that it creates a communication link between the settlements (think a communication station like the Administration building in the On the Edge expansion for digital Frostpunk), allowing them to interact with each other directly. Request help, directly exchange resources or even influence each other’s Hope and Discontent.
This idea has been brewing among the members of our team for months, yet still we face unresolved issues and particular problems that we don’t know how to address (yet). The issues are: time - should it happen in real time... afterall the game is divided into rounds; each group/person has a different speed of progressing through the game; how to encourage the exchange between players - both parties must benefit from the exchange and yet it cannot disturb the balance of the core game. As the development of the app will progress we intend to focus on these issues and solve them so that Frostpunk: The Board Game will be the first co-operative game that will be playable simultaneously on more then one table with multiple groups and boards. For now we call it a dream but you know what? A month ago publishing this game in the intended form was also classified as a dream in our dictionary and look where we are now! So just like we did during this campaign - we will do our best and inform you about our progress! :-)
A few more things before we finish....
Spiel.Digital live Q&A material, courtesy of our German partners – Frosted Games (that name… it was destiny we work together 😉 ). Check out Adam Kwapiński – author of Frostpunk: The Board Game and Jakub Wiśniewski, our CEO answering the questions, hosted by Benjamin from Frosted Games.
Have a great weekend and see you on Monday!
Jakub and the team of Glass Cannon Unplugged
GCU’s Spotlight
PS 1
Today we’d like to draw your attention to an ongoing campaign by Awaken Realms Lite. Knockdown is a brilliant game by… Adam Kwapiński! We’ve had the chance to test the game some time ago, back when conventions were still possible and it was already a great, dynamic game - with mechanics reflecting its theme. We bet that the team of AR Lite was able to influence it for an even greater immersion.
Part 2
We have presented the campaign by Rathskellers for handmade board gaming tables in our update that featured the art of Jakub Różalski. Just to follow up on that topic and to show you that our recommendations are honest we’d like to confirm that a Rathskellers table will be standing in our office. We will use it to develop, test, present and simply play all our games!
Big thanks to Thanos and Milos for sending us a piece of sunny Greece in the package ;-). It also included the catalogue for choosing the color of wood and materials that will be used. Cheers!
Earth covered in permafrost? Snow apocalypse?! Steampunk technology keeping us alive?! Well, good sir, make some room in that dreadnought! I’m all in!
over 3 years ago
– Sat, Oct 24, 2020 at 04:02:09 AM
Greetings fine folk of New London!
Wow, where has all that time gone?! Since we have but a few days left before we reach the Generator, and can begin building the last city on Earth, it is time to fulfill the promise and add the special All-in pledge. For those of you who are new to Kickstarter (and there is a surprising and heart-warming number of you on this campaign!) we hurry to explain – the All-in pledge is a special bundle that includes every possible item (highest pledge level for the Deluxe edition and all add-ons) with additional benefits. So if it is something that you want - don’t hesitate, since the All-in pledges will greatly help us in reaching the final stretch goal we have left! There is also the matter of daily unlocks… we have some surprises up our sleeves 😉 if we reach this stretch goal before the campaign ends.
Oh and speaking about surprises, here is a MASSIVE one!
As many of you have requested, we’ve prepared the Dreadnought miniature! Oh boy, it is huge! Almost as big as the Generator! The Dreadnought miniature (hardly the right word for that monstrosity!) besides being an awesome collector’s piece, will be used in one of the setups and one of the scenarios (we won’t spoil anything to those of you who haven’t played the digital game) as an element that will increase the immersive aspect of the game even further! This is how it will look on your board:
The Dreadnought miniature is an add-on for this campaign; it is available for all backers as are other add-ons and its price is 20 EUR (no additional shipping cost required).
All-in!
You know what? If you are all-in, so are we! So what do you say for a free Dreadnought miniature as a bonus to those who decide to go all-in?! Fair enough?
Here are the 2 all-in pledge variants we’ve prepared. One is dedicated to those of you who focus on the gaming experience and the second to those who are absolute collectors with a knack for art:
Please bear in mind that all those sets include the play mat (and the poster in the Collector’s Edition) that cannot be folded or bended (only rolled) and placed in a protective packaging, so the price of the shipping for these packages will be 10 EURO higher than the shipping price for a normal pledge (Core or Deluxe) that does not include oblong items (play mat and poster).
Gathering of the precious little we have left in this world…
Since we began with spending resources, let’s talk about gathering some! Today we’d like to tell you a bit more about increasing the amount of resources in your city. We will also drop some hints about the shortage of resources… hunger mechanics.
As we all know in order to survive one needs resources. Wood will allow you to construct shelters and industrial structures. Coal will keep you warm. Steam cores will allow you to progress the technology, making your buildings more insulated against the cold, and to construct Automatons. Food will keep your people nourished and alive.
Wood, Coal and Steam cores can be gathered directly from the inside of the crater where your city lies, once you remove the initial layer of snow covering it of course. To collect the resources on the board you will be using the gather action or build Gathering Posts in the vicinity of the areas rich in resources. Once a Gathering Post depletes the resources in an area, you dismantle it and relocate where more can be found. There are two other sources of gathering Wood – Sawmills (the only way to use the frozen solid trees that can be found throughout the board) and the Wall Drill (that allows for gathering the wood that has been solidified into the walls of the crater). There are even more ways of obtaining Coal besides picking it up: Charcoal Kiln allows to turn Wood into Coal, Coal Thumpers lets your people tap into the coal that is underneath the frozen ground – the water pumped under pressure washes lumps of coal to the surface so it can be gathered by hand, last but not least is the Coal Mine that allows your people to gather coal from the underground deposits.
On the other hand there is Food that can be obtained in the following ways: by sending your people on the Hunter’s Hut action or to work at the Hothouse and thanks to the passive ability of your hunter’s, that are able to gather Food during the night (we described it in more detail when we wrote about the storms and the Weather cards).
Let us not forget that all those resources can also be obtained during the Explorations, especially if you send your scouts to the location that is known to possess resources (marked by the resource symbol on the Exploration card).
As you can see Frostpunk: The Board Game offers you various approaches to solve a given problem or overcome a challenge. This allows you to come up with numerous strategies and approaches. There are also plenty of factors that will influence your possibilities and most efficient path, for example the starting conditions, available technologies or even the way that the resources have been distributed on the board when you uncovered new tiles. A great example of an approach is the situation when there are a lot of trees gathered on the board (think frozen woods!) and the Sawmill Upgrade technology card is available from the beginning, the game kind of hints an optimal path, so maybe researching the Wall Drill isn’t the best course of action for this playthrough? You will have to find the answers for yourself. On the other hands if you decide that Child Labor law should be introduced it opens a way for mass production of Coal with the Coal Thumpers and Gathering Posts… if kids pick up the coal and the adults operate the machinery… but accidents happen… are you sure it is the best way? There are numerous combinations for “combos'' like the ones mentioned above and some other ones hidden even deeper in the layers of the game… courtesy of Adam Kwapiński and our development team with Rafał Pieczyński on the prow.
… and dealing with shortages.
You already know that building the last city on Earth will require tons of building materials and coal for keeping you and your citizens warm. But what about food? When and how much do the people need to eat… and how long can they take it if there isn’t any food to be had?! You will learn the answers for these questions in the Hunger Phase, often the hard way.
Each person needs to eat but the situation is so dire that you will have to keep your population on the edge of constant hunger if you want them to survive. This is why only each citizen eats 1/3 of the dosage of calories that they should. Translated into the language of board games it means that every type of citizen (children, workers, engineers) are being fed every 3 rounds. So if there are 8 children, 12 engineers and 24 workers in your settlement you will need 8 units of food on the 1st round, 12 on the 2nd and 24 on the 3rd. The Round track shows which group should be fed during a given round. But what happens if you don’t have enough food?
The hunger slowly creeps up on your settlement, a nemesis (😉) of your society. Each citizen who was not fed increases the level of the hunger by 1. Come the next round you will need to feed the hungry first, before you will be able to feed the group that should be getting their rations. If you cannot feed the hungry, the Discontent of the whole society will rise and the weakest among the hungry will perish, what will not only result in your workforce to dwindle but the loss of Hope among those who remain.
The hunger is terrifying, but as a group of people who survived so much, you and your people have means of fighting it. There are some things you have plenty of… besides the snow… sawdust being one. If you think that the situation requires it you can introduce the Food Additives law and by adding sawdust to the food you can fill more bellies… Of course such action will have consequences but you are doing it to save lives, right? There are many Laws and buildings in the game to deal with hunger or to use food in different ways then just nourishment – for example providing additional heated rations can eliminate the chance of your people getting sick after the snow removal action. The Hunger and Food mechanics have a lot to offer you both in terms of challenges and of ways to achieve optimal effectiveness.
Now, we’ve given you some knowledge of the game’s mechanics and it is time to talk about today’s daily unlock! Today we have a new board setup for you! And once again it is totally different to what you have seen before! What would happen if you weren’t restricted by any walls of a crater or a canyon…
On a flat, endless plain of snow.
This setup does not add any new components to the game, as it uses reverse sides of rim tiles, which will be illustrated and printed in a new and different way to show that there are no crater walls around us - don’t worry we are not getting greedy or cheap 😉 come Monday and the scenario for this setup and you will see its epic proportions.
The Flats setup will completely change the way you approach the core scenario - New Home – since there are no resources hidden in the walls (… because there are no walls!). This is why we mentioned alternative techniques of obtaining resources today 😉 – the previously obvious approaches will no longer be so obvious and the choice will be easy... adapt or perish. The open plains means that there is a lot of space for growth, removing snow will provide access to the outskirts of the plain where plenty of resources wait for the taking. Sending people or building Gathering Posts will be possible there. Technologies for upgrading the Gathering Posts’ insulation can greatly help you in this case as will any form of improving the efficiency of the action.
The Flats is the last alternative setup we’ve prepared for you for this campaign. On Monday we will present the last scenario and on Tuesday we will have a surprise for you, because such commitment and support cannot be left without some kind of a reward.
Thank you for being a part of this journey, a part of this game.
See you tomorrow!
Jakub & GCU Team
PS
Thank you for crossing 800% mark! All game boards that aren't double-layered will be increased to 2mm thickness. You are the best!
Hope Rises with an Artist’s Brushstroke and Discontent Falls with a Masterful Cut of a Chisel!
over 3 years ago
– Fri, Oct 23, 2020 at 01:02:23 AM
Good people of New London!
Barely two days have passed since we were all swept by the raw beauty of the art created by Jakub Różalski. Your reactions and that generous gesture of a world-famous artist gave us a boost of energy, so needed in these last 7 days of the campaign.
Some of you might remember that we said we will be continuing the direction of promoting top Polish artists along with our campaign – the first-ever Kickstarter launched from the territory of Poland.
Today we want to present you with a master artisan, an artist of world renown and accomplishment… Ścibor Teleszyński is a sculptor whose talent has been recognized by the largest companies and thousands of fans around the globe.
With great pride and unconcealable happiness, we would like to present you with the final artistic add-on for Frostpunk: The Board Game:
The Edge of Kinship
This early-stage sculpt already encapsulates so many emotions… and to some of you, it might look familiar - good thinking! This sculpt was inspired by the iconic scene from the eye-catching trailer for Frostpunk:
On the more down-to-earth side of things, this add-on will in no way increase your shipping cost if you already have a full pledge (Core or Deluxe) and it can be taken in a bundle with Jakub’s magnificent poster “Welcome To New London”, as an add-on. This miniature will also (like the poster) have a separate pledge for those of you who are less keen on board games (we don’t understand it but we respect it 😉).
As you might have seen during this campaign we are avid hobbyists and couldn’t settle for anything but the best for manufacturing these sculpts for you.
All of the miniatures will be manufactured in Poland by the company renowned for the top-quality resin components, under the watchful eye of Ścibor himself.
The materials used will be of the highest quality available on the market:
polyurethane resin, dedicated for production of high detail models;
for absolute opacity, to tease out every detail and skin facture, titanium dioxide of purest quality will be mixed with the resin (99.9% pure, meeting all standards, even for edibles should you choose to… for any reason… lick it);
to present the pedigree of this scene and its icy nature, the team of molders will use the most vivid of color pigments, broadly used by traditional painters. This translates into the miniature having a one of a kind color and texture. It will look beautiful without you even touching your paints;
patented molding technology based on machines of the company’s own design will ensure a purity of the mold heretofore unseen on this scale – no air fissures guarantee!
The model will be shipped to you in protective packaging. The model will require minimal assembly and will not be painted.
Options for painted versions (or other base colors) might be offered later via Pledge Manager depending on the number of orders.
The tides of people’s moods
We hope we managed to raise your Hopes and lower that Discontent with those collector’s must-haves. Since we touched on the topic of Frostpunk’s best known and most distinguishing mechanics… aren’t you a bit curious how it got translated into the language of board games? Okay, since you asked so nicely 😉 we’re more than happy to tell you! We don’t use these words often but we are very proud of this particular solution, mainly because it is strictly connected with what distinguishes Frostpunk: The Board Game from among other worker placement games… the meeples – representing your citizens – aren’t just mute pieces on the board. They possess morals, ethics, emotions and it is all affected by your style of governing the last city on Earth… their city and yours. This key mechanic is interconnected with many other little and bigger engines in the entire game.
The Hope and the Discontent of people if marked on the Hope & Discontent tracks. Should Discontent rise to a total of 6 tokens, you lose the game since the citizens will revolt against the rule of your council. Should Hope fall to 0 you will also lose the game – as people lose the motivation and faith that you have what it takes to see them survive the icy apocalypse. Both statistics are marked directly on the corresponding tracks.
Each and every piece representing Hope or Discontent comes in the form of a double-sided token that has an active side and an exhausted side. If the token is placed with the active side up it means that the given emotion represented on it is particularly strong among your people. This gives the potential for using it as a fuel for some action, both good and bad. And so an active Justice token on the Hope track will help us solve a conflict on an Event card without the need of sacrificing other tokens. Another example could be the Social Dispute card that will ‘ask’ you what Discontent tokens are currently active on your Discontent track and should the Anger be one such emotion it could cause an unwanted disturbance, like an act of home violence, and if Greed should be the dominating one then someone will decide to take what isn’t theirs…
This mechanic allows you to really partake in the shaping of the morality of your people. If for whatever reason the Hope rises (for example performing an action in the Cookhouse was taken and additional food was distributed) you chose which aspect of the social mood to stress out by activating the tokens present on your Hope track. Instead of choosing to activate a token on the track, you can also opt to draw a new one from the bag (more on that in a second) and place it as exhausted on the track, increasing the total value of Hope. It is important to keep Hope high and Discontent low because from time to time Social Dispute cards will either reward or punish you based on that. Managing this system throughout your playthrough is the key to mastering this game and poses a real challenge. It helps to see what Social Dispute card is about to be added into our Dusk deck, you can prepare what the game has in store for you! A good example is: when you see that the Social Dispute card will heavily punish you for high Discontent, you can choose to build a Fighting Pit and lower their Discontent before it backfires right at you! Sometimes it is wise to look back and know the history of this now-frozen world! Panem et circenses works even during a winter apocalypse!
Yesterday you smashed through that 1.5 million Euro Stretch Goal and the Hope & Discontent track is being upgraded to a double-layered one! Along with our thanks and gratitude for your support, we would like to send some more geeky love towards you! So we’re adding 18 wooden, silk-printed pieces to the Frostlander expansion, for you to track Hope and Discontent on that thick double-layered board! They will match the track and handling them should be pleasant and easy. So please remember to back the campaign with a full pledge (Core or Deluxe) before it ends so that you can receive the Frostlander expansion for free!
Wait!
This isn’t all. We mentioned bags but they aren’t on the components list. So now they are! After all, we all want this game to look awesome don’t we?! 2 cloth bags with printed hope and discontent symbols are added to the core game!
The light of the Beacon shines true but we still haven’t found all the lost souls!
We are almost there! Please keep on hitting those thumbs-ups and sharing the posts so that in the next update we will be able to congratulate you on sending the light of the Beacon to the harsh lands of Social Media! 😉
It seems we’ve reached the end… of this update! We certainly hope we were able to sway your moods towards the Justice and Motivation 😉 We hope to see you here tomorrow because we’d like to… okay no spoilers today!
Have a great day/evening!
Your humble host
Jakub & the wonderful team of Glass Cannon Unplugged
PS1
To wood or not to wood, that is the question!
We have noticed that some of you would like to get some visual upgrade for your games to give the buildings the 3rd dimension but not necessarily in form of miniatures per se. We managed to get a quote from our manufacturer for an upgrade we would call “Woode City”. But in order for us to add it to the campaign we must know roughly how many of you are actually interested in obtaining one, so please if this is something you care about fill out the survey below (it has only 1 question ;-) ):
This add-on would include 65 small buildings and 17 large buildings. They would have shapes similar to those of the miniatures and the same base sizes. The wood used would be 10 mm thick.
In addition, it would include 170 stickers for buildings and 75 stickers for Meeples (people and automatons). The stickers would not be pre-applied to the wooden components and they are available for both sides of the wooden component.
An example of a manufacturing technique that would be used (without the artwork - stickers will be separate):
The cost of this add-on would be 25 EUR for the campaign. The minimum quantity for manufacturing it at the price that will allow us to keep it at the 25Euro level is 500 sets. Please let us know ASAP if you are interested in this :-) Thanks!
PS 2
Steam-powered discount
Our friends from 11 bit studios wanted to help celebrate this campaign and have just started a massive sale for Frostpunk on Steam! You can get you at a 66% discount, wow! It might keep you… no warm is not the right word… occupied while you wait for us to manufacture the tabletop adaptation ;-) The sale lasts until the 26th of October.
A Light of Hope that Pierces the Snowy Horizon
over 3 years ago
– Thu, Oct 22, 2020 at 05:35:20 PM
Greetings citizens of New London!
The undeniable fact that your commitment, feedback, and support made it possible for us to add 53 new components yesterday doesn’t mean we will let the Generator go cold today! On the contrary. We mentioned before there are plenty more concepts in our heads that can become reality thanks to you. So it is time for another serving of a delicious portion of replayability. More mechanics inbound, let your inner polar bear hum with content!
Those of you who had the chance to play the digital Frostpunk must remember the Outpost Depots mechanic. It introduced remote areas full of resources where expeditions can be sent and outposts established in order to provide the city with regular deliveries. It is a really exciting mechanic that we were keen to introduce to the tabletop adaptation. It also adds a new layer to the Expeditions mechanic (more on that later). You will need those Outpost Depots since in this setup your city isn’t capable of sustaining itself on the resources that can be found within the Canyon.
What happens in the Canyon cannot stay in the Canyon
Generator 358 was built in a large crevasse sheltering it from bitter winds, but the area available for construction is limited. The city has to be planned carefully, as canyon walls constrain expansion.
Once again you will miss that Crater from the core scenario, after all, what are the chances that a meteor would strike so perfectly again 😉
The constraints that the Canyon imposes on you will be a challenge even to those of you who mastered the previous setups. It not only changes the city planning options but is not particularly rich when it comes to resources. The succor comes in the form of the ingenuity of your citizens!
This setup comes with a set of new Exploration cards that include some areas filled with resources and ready for our people to establish Outposts there. Once the scouts are back from such an Expedition you are ready to construct a new type of special building - Outpost Depot, it will allow you to maintain one Outpost on the location discovered through Exploration. Each Expedition card offers a different kind of resource and since you will be able to maintain a maximum of 2 Outpost Depots each time you play, it will create new challenges for you and new strategies will have to be developed to survive!
The components added to the game, directly connected with this setup:
2 new short Board Rim tiles
2 new medium Board Rim tiles
2 new Board Rim tiles
4 Outpost Depot buildings
2 Outpost Depot Miniatures for Deluxe Pledge backers
4 new Outpost Expedition Cards
4 new Outpost Dusk cards
Venturing beyond the snowy horizon
The Canyon puts a heavy emphasis on the Exploration mechanics. So let’s discuss how they work, shall we?
After you’ve constructed the Beacon you unlock the Exploration deck and place 2 cards on the dedicated board area near the outer rim of your settlement. From now on each following Weather phase will tell you how far your scouts were able to venture into the Frostlands. Once the meeple reaches the final slot on an Exploration you can turn that card to see what happens. And what could happen? Many, many interesting things! The exploration deck is where the narrative will often drop in to say hello, where new Dusk cards can appear, where you can discover some hidden facts about what happened to other people and maybe even meet them… if they had what it takes to survive out there that long.
The card that has already been explored more often than not will leave you with a choice regarding further travels. In most cases you will be able to either return to the settlement with what you have just uncovered (resources, people, artifacts of the previous age, etc.) or continue exploring – this is represented by adding a card marked with a letter B (your starting card bears the letter A), and should you venture really far, even the letter C. If you choose to return to the city only to get back on the snowy trail later on you will see that the distance will be longer (this represents the time and effort to return and start again) and you will start the journey from the 1st slot on the A card. The rest of the A card slots will be covered by the further range card. It isn’t a much longer route but can often make a difference between reaching a place in 1 round or more. This turns the question of whether to return or not into a decision, not an automatic choice. The Expeditions provide you with a great opportunity to find much-needed workforce, often carrying some morally challenging decisions connected to it… these decisions can influence the lives of all the citizens in your city.
We need your help in sending out the light of the Beacon to find more survivors!
An expedition is serious business. It needs the whole community to put forth a little effort to make it successful. We want to send out a group of our best scouts – you! Out into the vast, ice-covered land of Social Media to help us gather some of those lost souls still wandering there without the knowledge of our caravan! Solidarity and support are the values that can save us even after we establish the last city on Earth. With your help, we want to organize this expedition! This is our first community stretch goal.
It is a dangerous task, we realize, and we want to offer you a rather unique reward for participation and hopefully reaching our goal! What say you for an upgrade of the Beacon miniature? To make it even more iconic, reminiscent of the one from all the beautiful artwork where the hot air balloon flies high over the city? We say let’s make it fly!
Dear ones, if you can help us to gather a total of 1000 likes, hearts, shares, retweets, and such, we will upgrade the Beacon miniature into a 2 part model where the balloon part can be detached and a transparent rod can be installed between it and the base, to create the impression that the balloon is floating in the air. Let’s make it easier for your scouts to actually find their way home!
Please use one or all of the social media links provided below to share the information about our shared journey:
Hey, we are really grateful! Thank you. We will share the information about the results in the upcoming updates.
Live Questions & Answers
We would also like to warmly invite you to visit the Q&A live stream that will be a part of the Spiel Digital! It will be a dedicated segment of virtual space and time for you to meet us and ask any questions you might have about the game! Come on and join us, the more the merrier especially in these troubled times when we can’t meet in person and share the passion for our beloved hobby.
This Q&A session is being organized thanks to the hospitality and dedication of our German partner - Frosted Games. Thank you! <3
We wish all of you a great day or evening depending on where on this globe you are. Please remember about our social media expedition and stay tuned!
Jakub & GCU Team
A feast in the Last City on Earth. With Citizens & Leaders and wolves howling at the moon!
over 3 years ago
– Wed, Oct 21, 2020 at 02:13:07 AM
Dear ones,
We dare to address you so openly today, first of all because we are shaking with excitement as we write this update, and second - because we’ve covered some distance together on this wonderful journey.
Today we have a guest. A guest that deserves a place of honor at the table, so even though the news regarding the mechanics we have for you today are as big as they get, our guest star is bigger yet.
But before we serve the main course and the dessert, let us pour you some fine spirits and an entrée.
Some of you might be aware that this campaign was the very first Kickstarter campaign to begin a new chapter for this amazing platform and our home country – Poland. We’ve had the honor of being the spearhead of Kickstarter’s event for opening to Polish, Greek and Slovenian creators.
To honor this recognition we decided to put an artistic emphasis on the whole campaign. We call ourselves lucky to have such a globally recognized artist and our countryman on board.
The main course
We had to send scouts to the Western Carpathians, many have not returned, and those who did told strange stories of wolves and witches haunting the frozen ranges… but we succeeded and the result is for you to not only witness, but enjoy in all of its qualities.
Jakub Różalski’s take on the world of Frostpunk:
Jakub Różalski, also known as Mr. Werewolf, is an independent concept artist, storyteller & illustrator, creator of the “1920+” setting. Jakub is a Polish visual artist, born in 1981, in Koszalin. He has worked professionally as a concept artist, illustrator & designer since 2002. Best known as the creator of the World of 1920+ (Scythe, Iron Harvest), as well as for dark, richly narrative and very evocative paintings. He is most inspired by history, folktales, myths, the countryside, and wild nature. He works both traditionally and digitally. Since 2014 he has focused and works exclusively on personal projects.
This beautiful A2 sized poster will be available as an add-on exclusively to our backers at a reduced price (25 EUR) and to late pledgers at a normal price. It will not be sold elsewhere and has been created solely for the purpose of this campaign, a true must-have in the collection of any fan of Frostpunk, Jakub’s art or both 😊.
The poster will be printed in Poland, using top quality materials and with utmost attention to packaging and shipment safety of the contents. Due to the size of the protective tube, the poster will be shipped in a separate parcel. This will increase your shipping cost by 10-20 EUR depending on your location, unless you have taken the Playing Mat add-on. If so, the Mat and Poster will be shipped to you in a single parcel, and the poster itself won’t increase your shipping cost.
We have also introduced a separate pledge for the Poster itself, for all who would like to get this exclusive piece of art but aren't keen on playing board games. It will be possible to receive this item before we ship the game, as manufacturing of these items isn’t interconnected. For backers who take the board game but would like to get the Poster faster, we will add a separate shipping option for this item in the Pledge Manager.
Please be advised that we do intend to add an all-in pledge with reduced price in the last days of this campaign.
The dessert
As a team and as individuals we feel that when you pledge your hard-earned money and support to us, we owe you a pledge as well. A pledge of quality and dedication. Having an author like Adam Kwapiński with us on this campaign gives us the luxury and ability to present you with something that many, many of you have expressed your concerns over – the player roles.
They were meant as a form of easing the onboarding process for less experienced players and creating the possibility for a group of players to cooperate in managing the city’s various needs and demands – from different perspectives. You wanted more. You wanted them to feel more personal, you wanted to be able to sink your teeth deeper into the marrow of the theme and taste the cold yourselves. We’ve answered the call. We are adding the expansion called Leaders and Citizens (52 new cards) to the game, free of charge!
This immense expansion of the player roles will vary in how it is used depending on the number of players present at the table. Before the game each player will be given a number of Citizen cards and one or two Leader cards (depending on the number of players).
Leaders
Each Leader will possess a unique passive ability, connected to his or her background. This ability will influence the actions of the player throughout the turn in which it was activated by that player.
At the beginning of each Round (Dawn Phase), Players decide which one of them will be the leader for the upcoming Round. The leader can only be chosen from among those players who possess a Leader card in their hand. The chosen player puts the Leader card in front of themselves and claims the Leader token (this will allow that player to have the final say in disputes that concern the given turn, and it will also determine who performs the first action during the Action Phase, with remaining actions taken clockwise). For this round, that player can use the chosen Leader card. All other players (those among you who do not hold the Leader token) are allowed to play up to one Citizen card this Round. Citizen cards are discarded from the game after they’ve been played. The Leader card remains in front of the player who played it. At the beginning of next Round, those players who still have their Leader cards in hand can choose a new Leader from amongst themselves. If at the beginning of a new Round all Leader cards have been placed in front of all the players, the cards are returned to the players and they begin the cycle anew, choosing a leader from amongst their ranks.
Citizens
The Citizen Cards will be distributed among the players at the beginning of the game and will be usable once with a specific type of Meeple. After being used, the Citizen card is to be discarded.
Playing with Citizens and Leaders will have some cost at the beginning of the game. Each player has to pay a starting cost for one chosen Citizen. This will worsen your starting conditions to balance the profit gained due to the Citizen cards’ abilities.
Both Leaders and Citizen cards give players a wide array of optimization with plenty of new decisions to be made! Now, the player roles are even more marked in the game, and thanks to the special abilities of Citizen cards held in the hand of every player, the cooperation between players is placed on a completely new level! But still...
…all men must die.
Adam wouldn’t be Adam if he didn’t improve something else in addition to improving a given area of the game. This time he approached things with typical dark humor. He improved the mechanics of death among citizens. From now on, the bodies will not be stored in the form of tokens but as cards - with personalized names, images and abilities. The loss of such a citizen won’t be anonymous, when it comes. And it will definitely come.
Each Citizen, besides their special ability, will have information regarding what happens should he or she perish. Upon such an unfortunate event, the players stand before a choice - they can either discard one Citizen card (of a matching type) from their hand and lose the possibility of activating its special ability, or they can choose to draw a card from the top of the Citizens deck and should the type of citizen match the one that passed away, they resolve the epitaph on the card. However if the type doesn’t match, the player will face more severe consequences, losing 1-2 Hope (depending on whether the deceased was an adult or a child). So you can either choose a known consequence or risk an unknown one by drawing a card from the deck which may result in a bigger loss of Hope. Will you lose one of your closest helpers, losing his ability forever, or will you decide to sacrifice another citizen, risking a greater loss of Hope? The decision, as always, will be yours - with all its consequences.
The components added to the game with this free of charge daily unlock are as follows:
We hope we’ve fed you well, on this feast of art and content. Do not fear, we are Slavs, our cellars are still full of fine drinks for the soul and delicious food for the mind! In the coming days we intend to place choices before you you won’t like… but there might be a way that you get to taste every cake in the pantry!
Your chef and host,
Jakub Wiśniewski and the team of Glass Cannon Unplugged
GCU’s Spotlight - Sunnygeeks by Rathskellers
These amazing renders are a courtesy of our Greek friends from Rathskellers, creators of the magnificent Sunnygeeks board gaming tables.
Rathskellers is a family business run by the Milos brothers whom we’ve had the pleasure of meeting during the Kickstarter launch event held for Polish, Greek and Slovenian creators. As we were the first to launch from Poland, they were the opening campaign for Greece and looking at their work it is no wonder!
If these visualizations moved your inner interior designer, please head over to their ongoing Kickstarter and treat yourself with a handmade table tailored to your needs and budget!
We aren’t just mentioning them to be nice. ;-) We actually ordered a table from them for our office and from now on, all our games will be tested, played and presented on one such fine piece of furniture!
We are happy to announce another language version that joins us during this campaign! Big thanks to Sergey and the whole crew of HobbyWorld.ru thanks to whom Frostpunk: The Board Game will be localized to Russian language. Russian backers can pledge on this campaign to receive the free bonuses but the game will also be published for the retail market.
PS2
We meant to mention the mechanics for hunger in more detail today, but after what we’ve just served it seems… unfitting. So we will move it to another, less filling update 😉
