Most gamers are familiar with Will Wright’s famous SimCity series. It created the city building genre and there have been many attempts over the years to ape it. But few developers have been bold enough to completely deconstruct the formula; at least until 11 Bit Studios introduced Frostpunk in 2018. What may look like a city builder on the outside is, in fact, a brutal survival experience and a deliberate obliteration of the genre.

中號 OST玩家所熟悉的威爾·賴特著名的模擬城市系列。 它創造了城市建筑風格，多年來進行了很多嘗試來模仿它。 但是很少有開發者足夠大膽地完全解構該公式。 至少直到11 Bit Studios在2018年推出了Frostpunk 。實際上，外面看起來像是城市建造者的就是殘酷的生存經歷和故意的流派消失。

What is Frostpunk, then? The concept is simple. The world is stuck in an endless winter that has led to the end of mankind. The people who remain alive have joined together to form expeditions in an effort to find safe havens as well as a massive thermal generator that will hopefully fight back the cold.

那么，什么是Frostpunk ？ 這個概念很簡單。 世界陷入了無盡的冬天，導致了人類的滅絕。 仍然活著的人們為了尋找安全的避風港以及龐大的熱力發電機而組成了探險隊，他們有望抗擊寒冷。

Although there are other modes and DLC available, the main experience is about the core scenarios. Each scenario requires the player to perform a particular task in order to achieve victory. Although the win state itself is very clear, surviving long enough to get to that point is another matter entirely. The ways you might go about surviving in this unforgiving environment are up to you, and that’s where the game gets tough.

盡管還有其他模式和DLC可用，但主要經驗是有關核心方案的。 每個場景都要求玩家執行特定任務以取得勝利。 盡管獲勝狀態本身非常明確，但生存足夠長的時間才能達到這一點完全是另一回事。 在這種不容忍的環境中生存的方式取決于您，這就是游戲變得艱難的地方。

在纏綿的寒冷中緩慢失敗 (Slow failure amid the stalking cold)

A key design element of traditional city builders is the idea that the player will eventually reach a point of stabilization. Because city simulators function on predictable mechanical underpinnings, a good player will reach the point where they can literally get up and leave their computer and their city will be absolutely fine, humming along without major incident. Frostpunk runs a million miles from this happy state of equilibrium, plunging the player into a desperate battle for hard-won gains.

傳統城市建設者的一個關鍵設計元素是玩家最終將達到穩定的想法。 因為城市模擬器在可預測的機械基礎上起作用，所以優秀的玩家將達到他們可以站起來并離開計算機的地步，并且他們的城市將非常好，嗡嗡作響而不會發生重大事件。 弗羅斯特龐克(Frostpunk)距離這種快樂的平衡狀態已行駛了100萬英里，這使玩家陷入了為來之不易的收益進行的絕望戰斗。

In Frostpunk, you aren’t supposed to thrive. In fact, every player is doomed to failure right from the outset. The reason for this is because there’s nothing fundamentally sustainable or self-buttressing about the cities here. Resources are finite — indeed, scarce — and your generator requires a constant diet of coal to remain operational and to stave off the frost-death of your citizens. As you might imagine then, running out of coal and having your people freeze to death is very likely to be the first fail state you’ll encounter. But it’s by no means the last. You might also run out of food, because you need to send hunting parties out every night to ensure there’s enough food to cook the next day. Oh, and your people can also get sick or injured while working. Every single able-bodied person is a valuable resource that can be lost forever if they become too ill to work or die.

在弗羅斯特龐克(Frostpunk) ，你不應該蓬勃發展 。 實際上，每個玩家從一開始就注定要失敗。 這樣做的原因是，這里的城市從根本上沒有可持續性或自我支撐。 資源是有限的(實際上是稀缺的)，您的發電機需要不斷攝取煤炭以保持運轉并避免公民的霜凍之死。 就像您可能想像的那樣， 用盡煤并讓人們凍死很可能是您將遇到的第一個失敗狀態。 但這絕不是最后。 您可能還沒有足夠的食物，因為您需要每天晚上派出狩獵聚會，以確保第二天有足夠的食物做飯。 哦，您的員工在工作時也會生病或受傷。 每個身體健全的人都是寶貴的資源，如果他們病得無法工作或死亡，可能會永遠失去。

Let’s turn to the cold for a moment. Each scenario is built around a day and night cycle. As the days roll on, the environment around you will get colder. So you’re not only in a running battle to keep the furnace fed and food prepared, but you’re also locked in an entropic arms race, where you must outpace the deepening cold by upgrading your engine and setting up heating around your base camp. Bear in mind too that these upgrades I’m referring to require you to spend resources to research them in the first place. This can be tricky if your researchers and your educated among your workforce are unable to work. All of these different mechanisms are akin to war wounds that spread across your body, gradually whittling down your physical abilities as well as your mental resolve. There is no question that you will succumb to the injuries this world inflicts on you. The only question is whether or not you’ll achieve your objective before the cold brings you and your city to extinction.

讓我們轉涼一下。 每個方案都是圍繞晝夜周期構建的。 隨著日子的流逝，您周圍的環境會越來越冷。 因此，您不僅要進行激烈的戰斗以保持爐子的溫度和食物的準備，而且還陷入了一場軍備競賽中，在這種情況下，您必須通過升級引擎和在大本營周圍設置供暖系統來勝過不斷加深的寒冷。 。 也請記住，我指的是這些升級首先需要您花費資源進行研究。 如果您的研究人員和受過良好教育的員工無法工作，這可能會很棘手。 所有這些不同的機制都類似于在您的身體上散布的戰爭傷口，逐漸削弱您的身體能力以及您的心理決心。 毫無疑問，您將屈服于這個世界對您造成的傷害。 唯一的問題是，在寒冷使您和您的城市滅絕之前 ，您是否會實現自己的目標。

道德和道德困境 (Moral and ethical dilemmas)

Given the context within which Frostpunk places you, it should come as no surprise that morality plays a significant role here. The game’s developer, 11 Bit Studios, is no surprise to the concept if imbuing video games with moral choices (after all, they designed This War of Mine). Success in Frostpunk isn’t simply about clever resource management. It’s also about finding ways to keep up the morale of your people. During the game you’ll see two bars that track to highly important indicators: discontent and morale. If the former completely fills up or the latter is completely drained, you’re finished.

考慮到弗羅斯特朋克所處的環境，道德在這里起著重要作用就不足為奇了。 游戲的開發者11 Bit Studios如果在視頻游戲中加入道德選擇， 這并不奇怪(畢竟，他們設計了《 我的戰爭》 )。 Frostpunk的成功不僅僅在于聰明的資源管理。 這還涉及尋找方法來保持員工的士氣。 在游戲中，您會看到兩個跟蹤非常重要的指標的欄： 不滿和士氣 。 如果前者完全填滿或后者完全耗盡，則說明您已完成。

There are obvious conditions that impact the mental wellbeing of your population (sickness and death have a tendency to increase discontent and reduce morale, as you’d expect). But there are ways you can exercise influence on the situation. This is where the book of laws comes into play. It essentially represents a series of edicts that are dependent upon the scenario you’re running. There are two twists here that make Frostpunk’s morality choices different to other games, though.

有明顯的狀況會影響人們的心理健康(疾病和死亡有加劇不滿情緒和降低士氣的趨勢，正如您所期望的那樣)。 但是，您可以通過多種方法對情況施加影響。 這就是法律法規發揮作用的地方。 它實際上代表了一系列取決于您正在運行的方案的命令。 不過，這里有兩處曲折，使Frostpunk的道德選擇與其他游戲有所不同。

Occasionally a random event will arise and you’ll have the opportunity to appease your people. In this situation it’s critical to understand that it’s worse to promise something and then fail rather than making no promises in the first place. Many games with morality-based decision systems tend to allow the player to exploit the limited AI in the game by choosing an objectively “good option”. But here, a short-term attempt to quell discontent can have serious unintended consequences down the track.

有時會發生隨機事件，您將有機會安撫您的員工。 在這種情況下，至關重要的是要了解，先做出承諾然后失敗 ，比起先沒有做出承諾要糟糕得多。 許多基于道德的決策系統游戲都傾向于允許玩家通過選擇客觀的“良好選擇”來利用有限的AI。 但是在這里，短期內平息不滿情緒可能會造成嚴重的意想不到的后果。

The second difference is that the book of laws features many edicts that will require a binary choice one way or the other. You can’t go back on these later. If you decide to have children work in your labor buildings, or if you choose not to provide housing for the sick, there’s no way for you to change your mind later if people get upset with you.

第二個區別是法律書中有許多法令，這些法令要求以一種或另一種方式進行二元選擇。 您以后將無法再使用這些功能。 如果您決定讓孩子在您的勞動大樓中工作，或者如果您選擇不為病人提供住房，那么一旦人們對您感到不滿，您將無法改變主意。

These choices work deviously within the rules of the game. Remember that your overall mission is to complete your goal. The settlement itself is technically there to simply facilitate that. This means that if you win the scenario with your people miserable and barely alive, this is not considered any different than winning if they were happy. But this reality isn’t communicated to the player in any obvious sense — as a result, Frostpunk does a fantastic job of presenting choices that might force the player to do the right thing for the wrong reasons for vice versa.

這些選擇在游戲規則內工作得很明顯。 請記住，您的總體任務是完成目標。 從技術上講，解決方案本身是為了簡化這一過程。 這意味著，如果您在慘痛而勉強活著的人們中獲勝，那與他們在幸福中獲勝并沒有什么不同。 但是，這種現實并沒有以任何明顯的方式傳達給玩家-結果， 弗羅斯特龐克做了出色的工作，提出了可能迫使玩家出于錯誤原因而做正確事情的選擇，反之亦然。

及時凍結 (Frozen in time)

Almost every city builder has some kind of limit around how much you can reasonably get out of it from a gameplay perspective. There are only so many ways you can build a self-sustaining city (or even just a theme/gimmick one). Due to the underlying mechanics, what works once will always continue working. This is a fundamental constraint from a design point of view — while the game starts off very difficult and mysterious, it can quickly become repetitive once you’ve figured out its quirks.

從游戲的角度來看，幾乎每個城市建造者都會限制您可以合理地擺脫多少錢。 您可以通過多種方式來構建一個能夠自我維持的城市(甚至只是一個主題/ gi頭的城市)。 由于底層的機制，一旦起作用的東西將始終繼續起作用。 從設計的角度來看，這是一個基本的限制-盡管游戲開始時非常困難且神秘，但是一旦您弄清了它的怪癖，它就會Swift變得重復。

Frostpunk has this issue, but it also has even greater constraints. Every scenario features a handmade map with pre-determined resources (though the events that arise are loosely randomized). When you combine set resources with a fixed goal, there’s typically a “best” or “ideal” way to win each scenario. Where other city builders have a more free form design (like SimCity and Cities Skylines), Frostpunk’s more restrictive framework means that tackling scenarios feels more akin to solving a puzzle rather than playing a more organic experience. From the word “go”, you’re on a timer to either winning or losing the scenario. There’s no adaptation or reactionary gameplay opportunities in Frostpunk — you must have a game plan going in, or you’ll fail every time.

霜凍朋克有這個問題，但它也有更大的限制。 每個方案都具有一個帶有預定資源的手工地圖(盡管發生的事件是隨機分配的)。 當您將設定的資源與固定的目標結合在一起時，通常存在一種“最佳”或“理想”的方式來贏得每種情況。 在其他城市建設者擁有更自由的外觀設計的地方(例如SimCity和Cities Skylines )， Frostpunk的限制性更強的框架意味著，應對方案更像是解決難題，而不是發揮更加有機的體驗。 從單詞“ go”開始，您將成為贏得或失去場景的計時器。 弗羅斯特朋克(Frostpunk)沒有適應或反動的游戲機會-您必須制定游戲計劃，否則每次都會失敗。

Here’s an example. In the first scenario, a storm will always occur on day 4 of your playthrough. At that stage, if you don’t have access to heaters, several of your basic service buildings will become nonfunctional. And if that happens, you’ll run the risk of people starving to death and not having access to essential services. On the one hand, this concept presents the brutal nature of the world — but it’s not the kind of gameplay loop we traditionally see in city builders. I can’t help but think Frostpunk would benefit from an additional reward system — like a trophy system — to motivate players to learn and figure out the scenarios.

這是一個例子。 在第一種情況下，風暴將始終在您的通關第4天發生。 在那個階段，如果您無法使用加熱器，那么您的一些基本服務大樓將無法使用。 如果發生這種情況，您將冒著人們餓死甚至無法獲得基本服務的風險。 一方面，這個概念代表了世界的殘酷本質-但它不是我們傳統上在城市建設者中看到的那種游戲循環。 我忍不住認為弗羅斯特朋克會從額外的獎勵系統(如獎杯系統)中受益，這種獎勵系統可以激勵玩家學習并弄清楚場景。

I personally want to see more city building games that discard the genre’s traditional trappings. I’m interested in trying out Cliff Empire and Dawn of Man, titles that might scratch the itch. Frostpunk set a tough challenge for itself by walking the line between a city builder sandbox and the more fixed framework of this genre.

我個人希望看到更多城市建筑游戲，這些游戲摒棄了這種類型的傳統陷阱。 我對嘗試Cliff Empire和Man Dawn感興趣，這些標題可能會傷癢。 弗羅斯特朋克通過在城市建設者沙箱和該類型的更固定框架之間走一圈，為自己設置了嚴峻的挑戰。

It’s a difficult balance. Too much freedom and the game has no structure to it. Too much structure and the game becomes a fixed puzzle with little room for player improvisation.

這是一個艱難的平衡。 太多的自由，游戲沒有任何結構。 太多的結構，游戲成為固定的難題，幾乎沒有玩家即興創作的空間。

And now, a question for the reader. Do you prefer city builders that focus on a specific design (Frostpunk) or city builders that are more open-ended and sandbox-like (SimCity)?

現在，給讀者一個問題。 您是偏向于專注于特定設計的城市建設者(Frostpunk)，還是更開放的，更像沙盒的城市建設者(SimCity)？

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如果您喜歡這篇文章并想與我討論設計，那么 Game-Wisdom Discord 對所有人開放。