Froshaven, a fantasy board game, adapts to video games, so cold winds gather and pose danger. Dual Shocker had the opportunity to preview the game before the demo became available on Steam Next Fest.
Frossharven is set in the same world as the region’s fate, by challenging dangerous areas to kill as many monsters as possible and grab as many booty as possible.
Gloomhaven featured more standard fantasy medieval dungeons, while Frosthaven turns the adventure far north. There, the sole front post base is threatened by Algox, a race of the Yeti Warriors, which brings together troops to crush this budding settlement.
The only hope for this new front post is the mercenary, whose coins and hunger for adventure will lead to them attracting Argox in combat. It won’t be long until a real danger threatens the area is discovered. And it’s up to these heroes to stop it.
Collect and adventure your flossabn party
Frosthaven can be played as a single-player game or with 2-4 players. Each player can create a hero and solo players can fill a party of four. However, during the preview, the developers opposed this and opposed the instincts of all my gamers to maximize the party size.
Instead, managing a full party of four can be overwhelming, so I recommended making a party of two as the first timer. Certainly, this is how my demo experience went, and the two took part in a quest to complete their first mission.
The Frosthaven demo has four classes and two more promises in the main game. The four classes are Banner Spears, whose flags can use their allies, Drifter, a Brawl Tank, Drifter, a Bonne Shepherd, and use their own blood to summon monsters.
When creating a character, players don’t have many options for customizing the hero, at least in terms of appearance and statistics. This could be surprising to RPG fans. Instead, the main choice during creation is a personal quest, which is a more long-term goal, and completing it will cause the hero to retire and encourage the player to create something new.
If players need to spend money, they can also drop cash on some extra starting equipment. There is also a battle goal, where players can choose one of three options, and completing these will unlock the perk mark.
Frosthaven Battle is about 2 cards
Frosthaven’s main gameplay loop includes that fight. These are done in a hex grid, allowing player characters and monsters to use turn orders. Character location is extremely important as there are risks on the battlefield that can hinder the player’s progress.
Each character in Frosthaven has a deck of cards with two abilities: the top half and the bottom half. This is important. Each turn allows players to select only the upper half of one card and the lower half of another card.
For example, Boneshaper’s “Returned Servant” ability has the effect of summoning a chambre skeleton at the expense of two health, while the lower half allows the character to move through four spaces.
During the player’s turn, each character selects two cards. Next, a turn order is decided, and on each character’s turn, select the top and bottom abilities from each card. These cards will then be discarded.
When a character gets damaged, they can choose to get it (and potentially reduce it with items such as heater shields), burn available cards or burn two discarded cards to protect themselves. While cards may seem like a more secure option, there is a big problem as the cards essentially determine the time limit for each quest.
Like board games, when all cards are discarded, the mission is game over. Luckily, players can discard cards to retrieve all other discarded cards in a short break, and there are two ways to regain them, as long rest burns cards to retrieve all cards, refresh all items, heal two health. However, there is a strict limit to the number of rests that can be taken, so players will have to move to complete each mission.
One of the more tolerant aspects of Frossabun is the design of the map, as each area is divided into rooms. Shown by doors coated with colorful flowers that stand out among the white and brown on snowy ground. Self-contained rooms mean you can concentrate on organizing nearby monsters, and by providing the option to open new areas, you can kite enemies or bottleneck into areas where you can make the most of your aoes.
Also, some enemies can lay traps, so players need to recognize the ground, but they can use danger to slow down movement. Importantly, the loot can also fall on the floor and can only be picked up by ending the tile movement.
The fact that it means that players have limited amounts of movement/turns means that collecting too much loot can be dangerous, but there are items and abilities that make this easier, such as the secondary abilities of pincer movements in Banner Spear, allowing players to grab items as they go.
Frosthaven comes from the difficulty of the Souls School, where players can’t afford to underestimate their enemies. The clock is constantly ticking, and resources are constantly diminishing. This makes the battle exciting, as things can be very tense over the course of the quest, and players must balance what is in their hands.
Build a better base
But what about the outside of the quest? Certainly, it has something to do with the booty, not just buying a sword. This is where the village of Frosshaven comes out as it serves as the base for players between missions.
Frosthaven is a Ramschle Dump at the start of the game, but in the course of the story, you can build more buildings and improve the facilities you already have. Sending more money into town means there are additional resources for new characters, so think of it as a way to make future execution easier.
Examples of facilities available to players include craftsmen who can blend Junkroot into items, and alchemists who create NPC soldiers that can protect barracks from attacks and brew potions.
There weren’t many in the post base before the demo, but it’s easy to see how to enhance the game. This is because characters either retire or die, or new heroes will replace them, so they cannot maintain access to the characters. Frosthaven’s previous post base is a way to keep their achievements alive and make things more tolerant for the next mercenary.
Frosthaven needs more time in the oven
This Frosthaven demo was released before the game that entered early access to the game. It’s clear that the game is far from release, and the developers checked during my preview.
The UI is currently very difficult to analyze for beginners, with many symbols being thrown at the player at once. There are several instances that use right-click to confirm the action, but rather than having a quick keyboard command, players will need to click on the bar to confirm the action.
More importantly, the current version of Frosthaven has many bugs that require you to iron. This gives developers plenty of time to sort out issues in advance, so early access releases are the best option.
Hopefully this time will be well spent. Gloomhaven’s popularity (iterations of both board games and video games) proves that there is a craving for this ultra-challenging experience. Developers need to focus on honing the experience as much as possible.
Playing the demo felt almost unfair as I wanted to dive into the full experience, as the tasters I had for world building and combat wanted me more. It’s obvious that there’s a lot to do, especially when it comes to quality of life features, but there’s a great game bone here and I can’t wait to see more.
