# Surviving Mars of Frostpunk? Need answer fast. **URL:** \ **Category:** The Game Room\ **Created:** [May 11, 2020, 9:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/surviving-mars-of-frostpunk-need-answer-fast/853603 "2020-05-11T21:29:11Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 8\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Sicks\_Ate](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/258eb7/32.png) [@Sicks\_Ate](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sicks_Ate)\ **Post date:** [May 11, 2020, 9:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/surviving-mars-of-frostpunk-need-answer-fast/853603/1 "2020-05-11T21:29:11Z")
Ready for another survival/strategy game…which should I play? I own Surviving Mars but Frostpunk is on sale on GOG. ---
**Author:** ![Telperion](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/telperion/32/509_2.png) [@Telperion](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Telperion)\ **Post date:** [May 11, 2020, 9:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/surviving-mars-of-frostpunk-need-answer-fast/853603/2 "2020-05-11T21:41:30Z")
I own both and prefer Frostpunk for the setting and the choices you have to make. Surviving Mars isn’t bad, exactly, but it feels pretty generic. ---
**Author:** ![Raza](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/raza/32/213_2.png) [@Raza](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Raza)\ **Post date:** [May 12, 2020, 1:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/surviving-mars-of-frostpunk-need-answer-fast/853603/3 "2020-05-12T13:33:01Z")
I haven’t played Surviving Mars, but I have played Frostpunk for a couple of hours. I like free-form sandboxy strategy games like Rimworld and Prison Architect; I personally just didn’t bond with Frostpunk. It’s beautifully done with a lot of love and care, but to me it’s more of a “puzzle” game. ---
**Author:** ![Sicks\_Ate](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/258eb7/32.png) [@Sicks\_Ate](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sicks_Ate)\ **Post date:** [May 12, 2020, 2:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/surviving-mars-of-frostpunk-need-answer-fast/853603/4 "2020-05-12T14:22:24Z")
I ended up starting FP last night, maybe 2/3 hours in. That’s including several false starts while I figured out what the heck I was doing. I decided to stop for the night on day 4 with no discontentment and not having lost anybody. I like it so far, but it’s one of those games that I’m afraid I’ll get in over my head pretty soon. But then again from what I understand most playthroughs end in failure so… It’s a very fun game to watch/listen to, it reminds me of Cities: Skylines in that regard. About my only real gripe so far is that the toolbars are too small, and I keep wanting to zoom in farther than I’m able. Again like you can in Cities. I tried messing with resolution settings but it didn’t make much of a difference. I suppose I might learn the hot keys… ---
**Author:** ![Unpronounceable](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/9de0a6/32.png) [@Unpronounceable](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Unpronounceable)\ **Post date:** [May 12, 2020, 4:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/surviving-mars-of-frostpunk-need-answer-fast/853603/5 "2020-05-12T16:00:12Z")
The thing about Frostpunk that’s not immediately obvious, is that it is rather time-based. You MUST have achieved certain things by certain dates, or you’ll lose. And those goals can be quite non-intuitive, with little-to-no advanced notice. Surviving Mars is much closer to the standard city-builder style, where there’s no real time limitations that don’t evolve from gameplay. So, a very sit-back-and-let-it-run game. So a game of Frostpunk will generally be much shorter, and more scripted. But the choices you make will be more immediate, and more impactful. ---
**Author:** ![Sicks\_Ate](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/258eb7/32.png) [@Sicks\_Ate](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sicks_Ate)\ **Post date:** [May 13, 2020, 2:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/surviving-mars-of-frostpunk-need-answer-fast/853603/6 "2020-05-13T14:50:16Z")
Wow, sat down yesterday to continue the game I started the night before. That was about 6:00. I realized I was researching entirely the wrong things and stuff was about to go bad, so I started a new game. I decided that no matter what, I’d play that one to the end. 6 hours (and ~18 game days) later, I was banished from my city. Man, this game is bleak. Still, I started feeling some affection for my little people. Seeing them trundle off through the snow with torches to go hunt and whatnot. **Raza** is right, it is kind of a puzzle game. I feel like you’d have to play a couple dozen times to finally know how everything should be progressing and actually even come close to making it to the end. After I quit (or should I say, failed and inevitably froze to death in the wastes) I realized that in that respect, it reminds me of Age of Empires. When I first played that, I remember aborted game after aborted game while I figured out what I needed to be doing. It’s been a long time since I got so sucked in to a game, Subnautica would be the last. I’ll probably play again this weekend, but I’m not sure at this point if I’ll try to eventually ‘win’. I’m just not sure I have enough time to invest. ---
**Author:** ![Sicks\_Ate](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/258eb7/32.png) [@Sicks\_Ate](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sicks_Ate)\ **Post date:** [May 18, 2020, 4:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/surviving-mars-of-frostpunk-need-answer-fast/853603/7 "2020-05-18T16:29:20Z")
Made it to the last day and the end of the game. Man, that was pretty stressful! I will probably play it again, but it’s going to be a while. Excellent game, I would absolutely recommend it. ---
**Author:** ![Raza](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/raza/32/213_2.png) [@Raza](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Raza)\ **Post date:** [May 19, 2020, 1:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/surviving-mars-of-frostpunk-need-answer-fast/853603/8 "2020-05-19T13:07:51Z")
**Man, that was pretty stressful!** To repeat my earlier comments, the game is really well-done, in pretty much every way, and is very popular. But ultimately I found it stressful, not relaxing, mostly because as **Unpronouncable** says it has a pretty strict time-based challenge to it, and it just isn’t right for me. Granted, a game like RimWorld also has some sort of _you shouldn’t wait too long before doing this…_, but the time box is much looser.