Recent reviews by worker

This is an actually excellent match-3 arcade puzzler that more people should try out. Unfortunately, it's not made for PC. Controls can't be changed on keyboard, your only way to exit is ALT+F4. The CPU sometimes has dubious AI, making some victories seem like it's purely based on luck.

Endless mode is very fun. Nothing bad to say about it. Figuring out how to properly chain jars beyond 20 combo is going to take a lot of time and practice, as will surviving long enough to get every block type.

However, if you can get a game going, the PVP is really interesting. As opposed to its cousins in the same genre, you're able to directly steal blocks from the opponent's side and convert it to your own attack, giving it a intense strategic layer beyond the speed and chains you're going for. The reason for this is that I think they're having an eating contest and you're eating the opponent's pieces alongside your own, which I find to be an incredibly funny detail beyond just being a gimmick.

Recommended ONLY for arcade game enthusiasts and if you have a controller. Avoid otherwise.

To make it easy for PC players, here are the controls:

Placement: WASD
Confirm: H
Back: G
Open Attack: T
Pause: B / V
Cotton 7 / 4 block type: R / Y

Have a good one.

Before I talk about Frostpunk 2, it's important to address the objections against it.

During the development of Frostpunk 1, people made a number of requests to further expand upon the gameplay. Anything from more buildings, more cities to manage, expanded politics, the ability to change laws, and more story events to further accentuate your choices.

Frostpunk 2 overdelivered in all of these qualities.

A more apt comparison is Frostpunk 1's DLC, The Last Autumn. Frostpunk 2 further expands upon the conflict between people, expanded the benefits of managing them well, and even has similar resource demands / problems. However, Frostpunk 2 also takes some ideas from the On The Edge DLC, completing and refining the unfinished trading politics with faction relationships, and further expanding on frostland interaction with skyways, settlements, and outposts.

The major difference that no one has mentioned is that Frostpunk 2's premise demands the player to engage with it mechanically. Whereas Frostpunk 1 could be absorbed passively by dealing with resources, Frostpunk 2's beauty is in the push and pull of its political system. Thematically, it is a far more cruel, ruthless, and miserable game, with your most reprehensible decisions eventually paid off with a city that eats itself.

The highlight of Frostpunk 2 is Utopia mode. Each starting map and communities change how you interact with the game and your people. There's a lot of fun to be found with the odd challenge here and there, anything from never turning on the generator, to never building a food district, to simply optimising the city layout.

I'm only writing this review because I believe many of the negative reviews were not done in good faith. This is a game with every mechanic closely interacting with each other, with a political story you'd never find in any other medium. There isn't a single loose thread to find gameplay-wise. The stories the game can tell with the laws you pass is unlike anything else out there.

Gameplay was not sacrificed. Atmosphere was not sacrificed. It's Frostpunk in every way, only expanded far beyond player expectations. And it's a shame that some have written it off for superficial reasons.

Of course, there's always improvements to be made with city aesthetics, game balance, and story elements, but that's up to 11bit to solve with continued development. The fact it's this strong with still so much potential is really quite impressive. In the future, I'd to see like zeitgeist monuments, district customization, and more laws that oppose or synergize with each other. And nuclear energy.

Frostpunk 2 is everything I wanted from the first, and it has my highest recommendation.

It took me 1166 hours to unlock all the cosmetics and overclocks up to season 5.

There's nothing left here but memories of better days.

100% in a little over 10 hours without guides. It's more a proof of concept than a real game but it can keep you occupied for a day. Shame about the use of AI though.

You can grind for a year or pay $5000 to get all the current content in the game.

It starts off as some kind of comfy city-builder, but can turn into a min-maxing puzzle game if you're autistic like me.

Pure excellence.

Cons:
- Gameplay is as shallow as a puddle
- Poorly optimized, frequent and almost random framedrops
- Zero combat variety
- Nonexistent story
- Resources are poorly spread out, lots of useless garbage, samey equipment and ingredients outside of its respective area
- No furniture drops, which is the only thing that actually matters aside from cooking ingredients
- Furnishing is too damn gaudy or strictly themed, mixing and matching is minimal
- Large catalogue of items without a formal search bar, finding things is tedious
- "Procedural generation" only consists of like 8 different layouts
- There's technically only 3 major areas, one is pretending to be a 4th

- The worst upgrade system in any game, demanding an excessive amount of time and resources for marginal gains, one of which is compounded with unnecessary RNG.

Upgrading anything important is a multi-step process of:
1) Writing down what you need
2) Going into journal to figure out what items are needed to cook that item
3) Going into the shop and sifting through an awful sliding menu to find the necessary item (You have a fully functioning, perfectly organised tab system in the journal, but not the in the cooking equipment? What the hell?)
4) Spending half an in-game day to cook these items (this is with multiple cooking equipment)
5) Click the items so it's in your inventory
6) Go to the NPC and give them the item
7) Then wait an in-game day to use it
8) Repeat this process 10 more times so it's actually useful

- Basically a mobile game but only prefers to waste your time without asking for money

Pros:
- The food looks really really good
- All recipes are described with fetishistic detail
- It's cute

10/10, it's okay. Feels like an early access game, but sold as a complete game under the additional hours of tedium.

Being sold cheaper than the price it should be. It's a masterpiece permanently on a 30% sale.

Although the puzzles are more of the same, the mechanics slightly different enough to challenge old players. Star puzzles are slightly more streamlined. The same gameplay principles from the previous title apply, so the puzzles may feel underwhelming for veteran players, as techniques are largely recycled (driller puzzles being effectively re-skinned jammer puzzles most of the time, beam puzzles needing a couple extra steps beyond placements and connection, teleportation and anti-gravity puzzles effectively using the same design techniques as beam puzzles on different axis, etc.)

I've encountered no bugs and the game ran perfectly. A couple puzzles had position soft-locks that may force a checkpoint restart.

It's more of the same, but with more polish in all areas. Everything a sequel should be, really. This is a puzzle game that all puzzle enthusiasts should own, and anyone else with good taste should try and finish. It's a great time.