Frostpunk - What have I become?!
I finally "won" a game of Frostpunk, and the crimes against humanity I committed to do it still haunt me. For those that don't know what it is, it's a city building game set in the frost apocalypse of a steampunk victorian society. Your people struggle to survive while you manage resources and heat to keep them alive when temperatures drop to dangerous levels.
It's also really good at giving you hard choices, and tempting you down the slippery slope of tyranny. Like, I started out making what I thought were all the "good" choices to solve problems. I didn't enact forced child labor for extra workers. I opted for the cemetery and dignified funerals instead of dumping bodies in an ice pit for later organ harvesting. I rescued every group of people I could, and when hope withered away at tragic news, I built churches to restore their hope that all would end well.
But in the end, to survive the massive ice storm, I had no choice but to declare myself the voice of God and outlaw hope entirely; my word was law, and my secret police of inquisitors ran free on the streets, enforcing harsh penalties on those that would rebel. I ran the fully upgraded heat generator to the point of exploding just to keep the temperature from instantly flash-freezing people. I had to cut the heaters and sacrifice entire districts just make sure we didn't run out of coal. I watched 80% of the population grow sick and die of exposure, and could do nothing about it.
So, yeah, I'm a monster; a tyrannical dictator that took away freedom and hope and replaced it with public executions and obedience. But the city survived!
It's a very good game.
Actual quotes by me to my roommate while playing:
"Oh, they built symbols of my church around town. That's neat, but a little creepy."
"Oh god, what have I done?"
"I didn't tell them to build a public execution platform. They just kinda did that on their own, which is weird in a game where building things is the player's responsibility."
"I either kill this guy to show them I mean it, or the discontent meter will fill up and I get overthrown."
"No, I had to declare myself god to get rid of the hope meter, because it was so low, I couldn't enable the triage law. I would have lost instantly."
It's also really good at giving you hard choices, and tempting you down the slippery slope of tyranny. Like, I started out making what I thought were all the "good" choices to solve problems. I didn't enact forced child labor for extra workers. I opted for the cemetery and dignified funerals instead of dumping bodies in an ice pit for later organ harvesting. I rescued every group of people I could, and when hope withered away at tragic news, I built churches to restore their hope that all would end well.
But in the end, to survive the massive ice storm, I had no choice but to declare myself the voice of God and outlaw hope entirely; my word was law, and my secret police of inquisitors ran free on the streets, enforcing harsh penalties on those that would rebel. I ran the fully upgraded heat generator to the point of exploding just to keep the temperature from instantly flash-freezing people. I had to cut the heaters and sacrifice entire districts just make sure we didn't run out of coal. I watched 80% of the population grow sick and die of exposure, and could do nothing about it.
So, yeah, I'm a monster; a tyrannical dictator that took away freedom and hope and replaced it with public executions and obedience. But the city survived!
It's a very good game.
Actual quotes by me to my roommate while playing:
"Oh, they built symbols of my church around town. That's neat, but a little creepy."
"Oh god, what have I done?"
"I didn't tell them to build a public execution platform. They just kinda did that on their own, which is weird in a game where building things is the player's responsibility."
"I either kill this guy to show them I mean it, or the discontent meter will fill up and I get overthrown."
"No, I had to declare myself god to get rid of the hope meter, because it was so low, I couldn't enable the triage law. I would have lost instantly."
