Frost is a card game based on surviving a frozen wasteland. It is hand-drawn and the idea of the “frost” has been around for years. The creator could not think of the best type of game to place it in. Unfortunately, this is what he ended up choosing. Don’t get me wrong, I love card games and I am an avid Hearthstone player, averaging 1 to 2 hours daily. I was excited to see a new card game with a fresh idea hit the marketplace, but this game only has an interesting idea and little else. It’s one that it can’t seem to get to work right.

Here’s what I liked:

The Idea– The underlying premise for the game is great. Survive a frozen land with limited turns and try to make it through various areas to get to the refuge. You have “idea cards” that allow you to actually trade away supplies you have for a ton of different things: you can get weapons to kill threats, trade for the chance to draw cards, and so on. There was a lot of thought that went into the game; it was play-tested by drawing the cards on pieces of paper and playing with friends. It must fill the creator with pride to successfully launch it as a game people can buy!

Here’s what I didn’t like:

Difficulty/Bad RNG — Have you ever played Solitaire? Start with a hand, you realize you don’t like it, so you restart in an attempt to gain a better one. Here, everything is completely random (besides your starting hand, which of course they show you every single time even though it is always the same). There will be times you get stuck, where you just cannot win. You won’t have enough resources to continue, even if you have several turns left. Just like Solitaire: sometimes it cannot be completed. There is a theory that 79% of the games in Solitaire can be winnable. My guess is, the percent for this game has to be around 10%. Even on the easy difficulty, this has to be one of the most frustrating games I have played. It’s riddled with bad luck. Sometimes I have started the game with a threat that would take three spears to kill. It’s literally impossible on the first turn. Take away the Frost counter and this game might have been a lot more fun, but punishing you for not being able to utilize a bad hand is just too difficult. It all comes down to luck, and luck just isn’t on your side.

Controls: The arrow you use to navigate is not a free-roaming one. It has set places you can click over to. This also becomes the only way you can choose things as well as back out. The B button doesn’t back you out of anything, you have to find the X icon. This is terrible design. I have also hit end turn instead of travel a bunch of times by mistake. When you get full of idea cards (the maximum is five), you have to choose one to remove. This is frustrating because you have to navigate up to clear one, and expect it to happen multiple times. It’s just another annoying thing to deal with while already not enjoying all the bad luck you have.

Intro/Music: If you’ve ever been in a shop class, or watched movies with people in some kind of metal or wood shop, you may think at first you’re either there or in some factory. There are just random sounds, which make zero sense because you’re in snow during the game so where are these sounds coming from? Crafting an arrow? While I don’t mind the snowy wind effect (it does sound like a cold day), the other music is not pleasant. There isn’t much of a sound track; the music is as barren as the world you’re surviving in.

Wrap-up

Frost is indeed a cold attempt at a card game. While at first seeming basic and even easy, you quickly change your mind when you realize just how outrageously lucky you have to be to win.  Most players will quit this after only a few attempts. Scenarios open up that make you dread playing even more because Easy was already feeling impossible. This game is a like a slot machine that forgot to let the player win every once in a while to keep them playing. All things considered, it’s just a very poor experience; and if you bought the game, I hope you enjoy losing. Don’t give this game a chance because it isn’t going to give you one.

Score: No Appeal

Frost was published by Digerati and developed by Jérôme Bodin / Stage Clear Studios on Xbox One. It was released on July 20, 2018 for $12.99. A copy was provided by the publisher for review purposes.