I bought this game on the basis of just one trailer. It was THAT enticing to me. It had all the basic elements of the survivalist genre which I absolutely love. Remember the failed Sierra space survival game "OUTPOST" from years ago? I've been chasing similar offerings since then. And an interesting aside is the near contemporaneous release of AMC channel's 'The Terror' as it almost exactly mirrors the plot point and survival decision making. I wonder if that was planned?

At any rate, though the premise is great, I wondered at a lot of its survival solutions. Firstly, the 'hunters' who go out in the middle of the night? What exactly do they trap and capture? It's really just an unseen and unexplained linear resource tree that a player assigns manpower to and it magically delivers raw food over a period of time. The more hunters you program, the more food resource you'll get. There isn't any realistic saturation of a hunted area and a food source cannot be exhausted or depleted. Moreover, if this scenario is supposed to be somewhere in the icy far north, the concept of what is day versus night wouldn't be anything of the 24 hour period shown in the game. It should be days for months, followed by nights for months; so a diurnal cycle is closer to a seasonal concept than daily occurrence; do hunters then sit idle for months at a time?

Additionally, the game suggests that these hardy Victorian were able to mine frozen trees by digging through the icy walls of their surrounds. My question therefore; hasn't any of them realized how nice and cozy it was, inside those mined tunnels that they so easily dug? Moreover, the game does allude to some understanding of the thermal protective nature of the snow and ice, when one of their scout parties discovers a site where inhabitants lived in icy huts. So why do all the buildings in our scenario retain the nostalgic charm of old Westminster and White Chapel? Do our survivalists eschew adaptation because of cultural pride in their architecture? Or is it more designer adherence to eye candy as it offers a luscious reason to purchase their endeavor?

Lastly, after the final onslaught... [MAJOR SPOILER ALERT]...
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... in which the game delivers an ultimate "big boss" level of a monster in the form of an icy storm that reaches a temperature of minus two hundred thirty eight degree Fahrenheit for several days (requiring you to put the burners on overdrive or else have your population freezes to death); the game gives you a banal message of 'the city survived' and you're unceremoniously dumped back into the start screen. There is no warm and fuzzy cuddling afterwards. Like it's "...OK, you got what you wanted, now get out." What would have been a lot nicer would have been allowing one to continue playing and to make other discoveries for those of us who want to prolong the suspension of disbelief for a hew hours more. Also, the ice storm isn't at all realistic in that it only posits the need for thermal regulation; had the storm been realistic, the city would have been razed by the sheer force of the wind, or pummeled to oblivion by the incessant artillery of boulder sized hail. Whatever.

Might I suggest, if there is ever an update, for the addition of an expedition back to old London? Or to find out what happened to the group that left? Of how about being able to micromanage the away teams as they salvage and harvest for the main city. What about enemies? Desperate times can produce some desperate desperadoes, even in the cold reaches I'm assuming based on human nature. How come there's no armorer or martial concerns in the city? If not for the rabble, then at least for the constabulary.

All in all, it was a nice start, but the game could be a lot more. Dare I say, FROST PUNK TWO?

I've given some thought to this one, and I actually don't think it's a problem. The population caps out just shy of 700 people, and you need to feed that full population for all of, what, 10 days? If you go overkill and stockpile enough food to feed them for a year then sure, I can see the depletion issue, but the actual amount of food you need is small enough that I can see an arctic ecosystem providing it without depletion becoming a critical issue.

I think the bigger issue is that, balance-wise, hunting is just overpowered compared to hothouses. The only real advantage of hothouses over hunters is that it allows automatons to work at food collection. Hothouses have a bigger footprint, require heating, and are a steam core building. And the basic hothouse only produces 30 food per day for 15 workers, whereas the hunting post with its basic upgrades produces 20 food per day per 10 workers. Industrial Hothouse is a bit better, but tech-wise it's on par with the flying hunters and it's hard to justify 80 food for 10 workers and 2 steam cores when you could have gone with the perfectly serviceable 45 food for 10 workers and no steam core. You need to have a pretty big steam core surplus to make it worthwhile.