Card games are fun. From the traditional games you can play with a deck of 52, to stuff like Yu-Gi-Oh!, I'll give any of them a chance. Today, I gave another card game a chance, but the twist is that it's on a game console. BACKGROUND: I saw the game on sale for a hefty markdown on the Switch eShop. I thought it looked interesting, so I bought it with the extra Gold Points I had on my account. Other than that, I don't know shit about this game. PLOT: The game is set in a wasteland constantly ravaged by the Frost, an unstoppable snowstorm. People have learned to adapt to the harsh environment, but their end goal is to reach the Refuge, a promised land where the Frost is said to never go. There's nothing else in terms of story aside from the setting, which mostly exists to add context to what you're playing. You do get a few characters here and there who have a smidge of personality, but there isn't really much to go on to really endear you to them. PRESENTATION: The first thing that struck my fancy with this game was its art style. It's sort of this rough sketch style with minimal use of color, against a snowy white background. It's no Sistine Chapel, but there's a certain charm and beauty to the conservative style. You won't get in the much of music other than ambient tracks and eerie sound effects. The reserved soundtrack helps hammer in the loneliness (and the terror) of the wastelands you're navigating. Now, you may be thinking that this game would be unpleasant to play at night with its bright-ass background. Worry not, there's a night mode that inverts the colors so your eyes aren't incinerated when you're playing it in bed. GAMEPLAY: If my opening paragraph doesn't already give it away, Frost is a card game. More specifically, it's a deck-building card game. As the name implies, the key to success is, well, building your deck. "But Derryck", you may ask, "don't most card games already have decks set up before the game?" That, curious reader, is the key difference: in deck-building card games, constructing your deck is something you do during the game, not before it. I recognize that this distinction may not make sense, but I'll do my best to explain it. Also, if I've piqued your interest in deck-building card games, I've written a bonus section at the end to help you get your journey started. Anyway, let's continue. As established in the premise, the goal of the game is to escape the Frost and reach the Refuge. To help accomplish this goal, you'll have access to an assortment of cards that'll aid you in your journey. Like any deck-building card game, the most important cards at the beginning are the resource cards. These are divided into Food, Materials (I call it wood because the symbol is a log), and Survivors. You have a starting deck with a few of these resources to get your game started, and if you want to survive, you'll have to, well, build your deck and acquire more resource cards. The primary function of the resource cards is to get you past Regions. Every turn, you'll arrive at a Region, and to progress to the next one, you must meet the resource requirements to get out of said Region. For example, you may need to play 2 Food, 3 Materials, and 1 Survivor cards to exit the first Region. Getting past Regions is the key to winning the game; there's a counter labeled "Distance Left" on the left side of the screen, which is essentially the number of Regions remaining before you reach the Refuge. Get that counter to zero and you'll have completed a run of the game. As I said, you only have a limited amount of cards to start with, so what happens if you don't have enough resources to make it past a Region? That's where the Survivor cards come in. While their primary purpose is that of a resource, Survivors have the added ability to scavenge for resources; scavenging allows you to acquire more resource cards to expand your deck. Be wary, however; scavenging won't always end in success. Sometimes, you'll get a Fatigue card, which is completely useless and only serves to limit your options if you have them in your hand. Worse, your Survivor may straight up die, which means you're one Survivor short. In addition to progressing the game, resources can be used to buy Idea cards. Idea cards are like the special action cards of this game, and they allow you to perform all sorts of unique actions (e.g. draw x amount of cards, x% chance of acquiring this resource if played, etc.). While some Idea cards can be played right out of your hand, others require an activation cost. What this means is that you have to spend a resource (on top of what you paid to put the card in your deck) in order to actually perform the card's action. There are even some cards that do different things whether or not you pay the activation cost. It may be tempting to hoard all the resources, but these Idea cards may spell the difference between life or death for you in a game, so it's not a bad idea to take these cards into consideration. You have a choice of two Idea cards each time you enter a new Region, and this count is added by one for each turn you spend in said Region (up to a maximum of five). In addition to Idea cards, there are also Event cards, which are events that occur every time you enter a new Region. Some of these events are good, like Events that allow you to trade for resources. Others are bad, like wolves or cannibals, and you need to pay certain resources to get past them. If you don't handle these bad events, you will either take damage (and if you take enough hits, it's game over), or you'll have to sacrifice one of your Survivors. The game will not show you mercy if you've gotten your ass beat by back-to-back shitty events, so you'll have to factor in potential dangers in future turns when playing cards or spending resources. Bad Event cards aren't the only threat you'll encounter in the game. You also have to worry about the eponymous Frost, which is a constant danger that you need to outrun. There's a Frost counter in the corner of the screen, functioning like a countdown timer that tells you how close the end is. Progressing through Regions pushes that counter up by one, giving you some time to breathe. However, if you aren't able to play enough resources to move past your current Region, you'll have to end your turn, and that counter goes down one tick. You better hope you get the cards you need on your next draw, because if you hit zero, you'll meet a chilling end. Unlike Event card threats or resource droughts, there is no stopping the Frost. There's no Swords of Revealing Light to slow it down, or a Mirror Force to send it back. It is the one threat above all that you need to escape, and there's no card to stop it. You'll often find yourself in do-or-die situations where the Frost is one turn away from reaching you, and you have to make a hard choice of, say, playing your last Food card to escape the danger. There are also other mechanics to take into account, like the Rest option (skip a turn and discard your cards in order to get rid of Fatigue cards), Terror cards (a special type of Fatigue card that instantly kills you if you get three of them), special resources (like weapons, which allow you to kill hostile Events), and temperature (each Region has a certain "temperature", which affects how many cards you have in your hand while in that Region). Does all this seem like a lot? It does, doesn't it? Despite this overwhelming amount of information, the game has an effective tutorial, uses intuitive symbols and card layouts to communicate stuff like cost or function, and you can always view card information on the fly, so even if the game throws something at you that you've never seen before, you can probably figure it out in a matter of seconds. You have access to a variety of difficulties: Easy, Medium, and Hard. Easy comes with a nifty resource counter that helps you manage your resources, but you don't have access to this in higher difficulties. I haven't unlocked Hard mode yet, but it's probably safe to assume that it would take longer to beat (i.e. you need to travel a greater distance than easier difficulties). In addition to these, there's also an Endless mode, which is mostly for high score runs. In addition to the regular game, you can also play Scenarios. Scenarios are the same game, but with slightly altered rulesets. For example, the Meditator scenario gets rid of the Frost mechanic, and the objective is to merely get past 50 Regions. Not only do these Scenarios feature unique, challenging gameplay rules that make an already engaging game even more interesting, they also feature different character abilities based on whose Scenario you're playing. To use the same example, the Meditator character has access to an ability which allows you to get rid of Fatigue cards in exchange for food. Beating these Scenarios unlocks the character in the regular game, which means you can use their abilities for normal runs. VERDICT: Though decidedly minimalist when it comes to sounds and visuals, Frost's depth is found in its challenging card-based gameplay. There are a plethora of cards and mechanics to figure out, and I was completely engrossed with exploring turn-by-turn tactics and overall strategies. The replay value is fantastic, between the variety of difficulty options, a selection of clever alternate rulesets, and the innate randomness that all card games provide. I don't think I'm gonna be quitting this game anytime soon. Frost is available on every current-gen console, but you can also pick it up in the following: DECK-BUILDING CARD GAMES:
Frost isn't the first deck-building card game I've played. That honor goes to Dominion, the game that is credited for starting the genre. My uncle owned a box set (with a couple of expansions to boot), and I had a blast playing it with him and my brother. I haven't seen one in stores yet, but it's probably a safe bet to say they're sold wherever trading cards and/or board games are sold. I'm thinking of picking up a set of my own. If you want to get into deck-building card games, what better place to start than the progenitor of the genre? So Frost isn't my first game, but is it my second? Nope. The second deck-building card game I ever played was Ascension: Chronicle of the Godslayer. I discovered it shortly after my uncle introduced me to Dominion, which is a testament to how quickly and effectively the idea of deck builders captivated me. My search to find a game similar to Dominion led me to Ascension, and boy did I play the shit out of it. I even got a friend to play it, and he was hooked. Unlike Dominion, Ascension is a little easier to get a hold of. It's free to play on mobile, and it's a little easier to figure out. Go play if you want to have a proper understanding of how a deck-building card game. Who knows, maybe you'll enjoy it as much as I did? Here are links to download Ascension: Chronicle of the Godslayer based on your platform: - end -
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June 2024
Derryck
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