Frostpunk Pico

Hello, Captain. Welcome to the frigid wastes of Northern England. The world is cooling, London is in disarray, and there is no end in sight. You are charged with helping your group of refugees survive the cold. This task will be daunting and dangerous, but you are not without hope.

To interact with your city use your mouse. A right click at the edges of the screen will move the camera, a left click will allow you to interact with the various menus and buildings. Your most important edict is this. Keep the Generator running. If it goes out surely your city will freeze to death. 

Main Screen

Above you see the game screen. Along the top are your time controls. Use the pause feature to plan your next move, and use the fast forward feature to move through the game faster. To the right of that you will see your weather predictions. These tell you what day it is, and when the temperature will change. Pay close attention, you do not want to be caught off guard by a hard freeze.

Below the time controls you will see the discontent meter. If this meter ever fills you will be deposed. Discontent is effected by many things, from child labor to masses of sick and homeless, and can be assuaged by signing certain laws.

To the right of the discontent meter you will see the current temperature. By keeping people warm you can keep them from becoming sick.

Along the bottom of the screen you will see your city interaction tabs as well as your supplies. Starting with supplies, from left to right, top row to bottom row you will see:

Coal

Wood

Steel

Steam Cores

Population: Employed/Total

Raw Food

Food Rations

Each of these resources will be used to keep your city running.

Each city interaction tab will be explained as we go along.

Citizens

Assigning citizens to different buildings allows those buildings to be worked. Doing this you will accumulate resources necessary to your city's survival.

Some buildings only accept workers, while some only accept engineers. You will need to manage your work force and place people in the appropriate buildings.

H

Housing

People will need a place to live, and it must stay warm. Placing tents around the generator is a good way to start. Each home can house 10 citizens, regardless of what kind of citizen they are. Communal living is key in the apocalypse.

The Generator

The generator is the heart of your city. You can turn it on by clicking it and toggling the heat level to 1. If things get dire and your citizens are freezing you can activate the Overdrive feature. It will raise each heat level by one. But be warned, overuse of the Overdrive will stress the generator. If you stress it too much it will explode. When the generator is active it uses coal. Make sure to keep your coal production in line with your needs, or the Generator could shut off when you need it most!

The Build Menu

The build menu is where you can access all your available buildings. Each building costs a certain amount of Wood, Steel or Steam Cores to build. In this case, the Cookhouse can convert raw food into edible rations. It's a very important piece of the puzzle, make sure to always have one active.

Each building will also display how cold it is. Any temperature below -20 and the inhabitants have a chance of getting sick. Make sure to keep your buildings well heated. At night, people are extra susceptible to the cold. So be sure to keep everything extra warm.

If a building has served its purpose it can be deleted by pressing the red X. Beware, if you delete a building that was placed over an important resource, that resource is deleted as well.

The Tech Tree

The meager buildings you have access to now surely won't be able to outlast the cold. By building a workshop and employing engineers there you can research new technologies and buildings. This is key to your city's continued survival. The more workshops you have, the faster your research will go.

Laws

Sometimes you may need to sign laws to keep your city running smoothly. If you have a workforce shortage, consider child labor. You will be able to staff children in "safe" workplaces like gathering from wood crates, or working in the cookhouse. If your people are discontented, consider the fighting arena law. By placing fighting arenas near homes your people can blow off some steam after the work shift.

Beware, while you may reap great benefits from the laws you sign, you may also create great discontent. However, there may be ways to completely eliminate discontent all together. The question is, is that too far a line to cross?

Tips

A few final pointers.

Hunter's Huts operate at night. Make sure to have a stable source of raw food coming in as soon as you can.

Sawmills must be placed near frozen trees, these trees will eventually be depleted. Wall Drills can be used for a near infinite source of wood, but must be placed on Wall Veins.

The Beacon is a very important building. When staffed, scouts will automatically be sent into the surrounding frozen wastes and may return with survivors or supplies. This is the only way to obtain Steam Cores.

Medical Tents employ engineers and will work on sick citizens. If you have too many sick, and not enough medical tents, some people may not be treated. Be careful, sick citizens eventually become gravely ill, and if left long enough they will die.

If some of your people do die, you will need to build a cemetery. Dead bodies rotting in the streets is sure to sow discontent.

--Pico-8 Technical Notes--

I did my best, but there will be slowdown towards the end of the game. The little simulated CPU in this thing takes a serious pounding from this game. Thankfully it isn't an action game and can still be played and enjoyed.

There is no save feature, you must either finish the game, or restart it. Saving large arrays into cart data is not something easily done.

Please reach out if you find ANY bugs at all. I hope you enjoy this game, it was a labor of love! Please support the team over at 11-bit studios by purchasing the PC or Console version of Frostpunk, or by adding Frostpunk 2 to your Steam wishlist.