After a year and change as a Steam early access title, Frosthaven Digital gets its full 1.0 release on October 15. The developers at Snapshot Games have spent that time steadily adding more features, classes, and missions to the game, and when the big day comes, the game should finally be a content-complete match for the utterly colossal board game it’s based on. In anticipation, I spoke to lead producer Hristo Petkov, and original board game designer Isaac Childres, to learn more about what’s emerging from the ice.
Team Wargamer is extremely pro-Frosthaven: editor Mollie Russell gave it an extremely rare 10/10 review, and it has a well-deserved slot in our guide to the best board games. But it is so much game, a monster mountain of cardboard that offers roughly 200 hours of campaign play. Frosthaven Digital offers a slightly more manageable package simply through digital streamlining.
“Normally you can play two to three scenarios [of physical Frosthaven] in one session, for let’s say five hours”, Petkov says, “But in digital, one scenario takes approximately between 30 to 40 minutes, so it’s about twice as fast – at minimum”. There’s no set up time, no need to page through rulebooks, and a computer to resolve AI behaviours for you.
A campaign will still be a lengthy affair, because no amount of digital convenience can deal with the challenge of scheduling. “I’ve been playing it with a group of friends since the digital version entered early access”, says Childres, “Anytime you’re involving a group, you have to wait for everybody’s schedule, so we’re not even that far into it”. Playing online does at least deal with the persistent problem of friends living in separate towns.
If you’ve started playing Frosthaven with an in-person group who’ve since moved apart – or you have a group of online friends you’d like to meet up with and play Frosthaven in person at conventions – then a planned “custom save” feature should interest you. “It’s a sandbox mode for your save, you can edit stuff so you can of import your campaign from physical to digital”, or hop back and forth between formats, Petkov says. “We’re not replacing the physical game by any means, we are just making it more accessible for people that cannot really find time to to play physically all the time”.
The 1.0 version of Frosthaven Digital intends to be a very faithful port of the original game. “Mechanically, I would say it’s 99% accurate to the board game”, Petkov says, though there have been “slight changes when it makes sense visually”. One scenario in particular – minor spoilers here – represents the party climbing up a huge monster, with the map representing a side-on view rather than a top down plan. “That’s obviously not something we can do, and we changed the premise a little bit”, he explains, “But mechanically, it’s exactly the same”.
One key part of the Frosthaven experience is the thrill of the unknown and unlocking new content – it’s a board game where “spoilers” are very much a concern for the community. Petkov and Childres are a little cagey in what they want to reveal about the final playable hero, the Shattersong. “It’s unlocked very very late, barely a few missions before the final mission, and it is very important for the story”, Petkov says. “It has more of a support function that enhances the other characters”.
“From a physical perspective it wasn’t even originally in the game”, Children says, “I added it last minute as a stretch goal because the original Frosthaven Kickstarter blew up in such a huge way”. “It had some very challenging mechanics to implement”, Petkov adds, “The ones that let you see into the future”.
You may unlock the Shattersong close to the end of the main story, but that doesn’t mean you won’t have a lot of time to play with it. “There are 137 missions in the game”, Petkov explains, “64 of them are considered to be the main story, so more than half of the missions are side missions, you can finish the game and still have plenty to do”. “The game is not linear, there are a lot of branching paths, which was a big challenge for us to actually show the players where to go”, he adds.
For new players hoping to embark on that journey, the 1.0 release of Frosthaven Digital will feature a slightly smoother on-ramp. “We have a simple three-mission tutorial that is very hand-holdy”, Petkov says, “After that we have a four-mission prequel: it’s basically the road to Frosthaven, how the mercenaries get there.” That all leads into the first mission from the original campaign which, Petkov says “Is still pretty hard, to be honest”.
I haven’t been able to properly test the 1.0 version of Frosthaven Digital yet, but I want to – the board game is great. A version of it that I can play with my friends around the country, in play sessions that fit around adult life, seems pretty ideal.
Are you a Frosthaven veteran, either of the physical game or the digital adaptation? We’d love to hear your stories of triumph and frustration in the Wargamer Discord community.
Source: Wargamer
