At 11 Bit studios’ office in Warsaw, game director Kuba Stokalski is trying to show me Frostpunk 2. But the citizens of New London, the game’s virtual metropolis, have other priorities. Food and fuel are both running low, meaning large portions of the city are hungry and cold. Stokalski’s recently built extraction district is finally producing coal, but he’s placed it too close to several residential areas, causing a sharp uptick in squalor. Now, the city’s representative Council is about to conduct its first vote—to decide whether to oust Stokalski as its newly appointed Steward. “I’m not doing so well, and they see it.” Stokalski says, sounding flustered. “This isn’t going to be an easy one.”
Inside the Council’s circular hall, Stokalski has a small group of loyalists—known as Stalwarts—on his side. The rest of the Council comprises technophilic New Londoners, and more humanist Frostlanders, neither of whom are happy with Stokalski’s leadership. To get the votes he needs, Stokalski will have to grease some palms. He approaches the New Londoners with a deal, give him their approval, and I’ll put more resources into city development. “Let’s promise this and hopefully it will be enough,” Stokalski says.
The New Londoners agree, and Stokalski scrapes through the vote. If he hadn’t, the game would have been over—15 minutes from when it started. “We could have failed this first vote. It is not scripted,” he says, relieved. “We could have failed basically the third quest in the game.”
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Special Report- Stacked Deck - Monster Train, a deckbuilding roguelike that firmly entrenched itself as the crown prince to the kingly Slay the Spire back in 2020, was the kind of smash success you might call Champagne Big.
Monster Train, a deckbuilding roguelike that firmly entrenched itself as the crown prince to the kingly Slay the Spire back in 2020, was the kind of smash success you might call Champagne Big. Four years later, its successor Inkbound’s launch from Early Access was looking more like Sandwich Big.I’m not just saying that because of the mountain of lamb and eggplants I ate while meeting with developer Shiny Shoe over lunch, to feel out what the aftermath of releasing a game looks like in 2024. I mean, have I thought about that sandwich every day since? Yes. But also, the indie team talked frankly about the struggle of luring Monster Train’s audience on board for its next game.
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