Frost

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87%Audience ScoreBased on 107 reviews

gameplay17 positive mentions

grinding4 negative mentions

Unique survival card game with a strong, immersive atmosphere and bleak, minimalistic art style that perfectly fits the theme of a frozen, harsh world.
Creative blend of survival resource management and deck management mechanics, offering deep strategic decisions and rewarding patient, thoughtful play.
Good replayability with multiple scenarios, unique characters, and a steady unlock system that adds variety and challenge over time.

Heavy reliance on RNG can lead to frustrating, sometimes seemingly unfair outcomes, which may overshadow player skill and strategy.
Steep difficulty curve and unforgiving gameplay, especially for new players with limited guidance and a punishing learning process.
Minimalist UI and presentation occasionally sacrifices clarity, making some mechanics and icons hard to understand; lacks windowed mode and other quality-of-life options.

gameplay
61 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
28%
67%
5%
The gameplay of Frost combines survival management with creative deckbuilding mechanics, offering a challenging and atmospheric experience centered on resource management, fatigue, and harsh conditions. While initially simple and intuitive, it gradually introduces complexity and pressure, though some players find its heavy reliance on RNG and limited depth frustrating. The game shines in its unique scenarios and thematic mechanics, making it rewarding for strategy and survival enthusiasts, but may feel repetitive or shallow to those seeking deeper or less luck-driven gameplay.
- “Every mechanic is designed to make survival feel fragile and temporary.”
- “At first, the mechanics seem manageable, but the game gradually introduces more pressure through fatigue, weather conditions, deck pollution, and difficult moral decisions.”
- “The core gameplay revolves around managing a group of survivors through card-based exploration and resource management.”
- “Early runs often end quickly and brutally, sometimes because of bad luck or unclear mechanics rather than obvious mistakes.”
- “The problem with Frost is that it's heavily, heavily randomized around its most basic mechanic.”
- “On top of that, it has a number of mechanics that it doesn't actually show you.”
graphics
27 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
44%
45%
11%
The game's graphics feature a distinctive, minimalist art style with muted, bleak visuals that effectively create an immersive, post-apocalyptic atmosphere. While the artwork is hauntingly beautiful and stylistically unique, it sometimes sacrifices clarity, especially in complex scenes, and lacks advanced graphic options. Overall, the rough, understated visuals combined with a moody soundtrack enhance the game's meditative and atmospheric experience.
- “The artwork resembles dark illustrations from a post-apocalyptic storybook, with exhausted survivors wandering through endless storms searching for warmth that may not even exist anymore.”
- “Its visuals, low-key world-building, atmospheric winter soundtrack, and general design aesthetic are fantastic.”
- “The scratchy art style looks terrific, and the music is wonderfully moody.”
- “While the presentation is beautiful in its own bleak way, it occasionally sacrifices clarity in favor of maintaining the oppressive aesthetic.”
- “There's no resolution or graphics options - full screen as it is or nothing at all and the only thing you can change is the sound which I set to off, since I found the weird groans and clanks a little annoying.”
- “Let’s just get the production value/graphics/sound out of the way; if you’re someone who likes super-slick graphic design and sound, you’re going to have a hard time getting into it.”
atmosphere
25 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
60%
28%
12%
The game excels in creating a uniquely bleak and immersive atmosphere through its minimalist art style, restrained soundtrack, and cold, desolate visuals, effectively evoking feelings of desperation and vulnerability. While its simplicity and harsh tone enhance the emotional impact, occasional basic visual effects and some inconsistent sound design slightly detract from the overall immersion. Nonetheless, the atmosphere is widely praised for being original, engaging, and emotionally memorable within the survival deck-building genre.
- “The restrained soundtrack combined with the bleak visuals creates a remarkably immersive atmosphere that few survival games manage to achieve this effectively.”
- “The game never breaks its atmosphere for convenience or accessibility, and that commitment makes the experience feel far more immersive and emotionally memorable than many larger survival games.”
- “Its visuals, low-key world-building, atmospheric winter soundtrack, and general design aesthetic are fantastic.”
- “The harshness extends beyond the art and atmosphere into both the brutal randomness of the cards/deck and the lack of direction on how to unlock things further.”
- “On a negative note, some of the special effects are very basic, to the extent that they distract the player and break the immersion of the atmosphere.”
- “Some of the visual effects are too basic and detract from the atmosphere.”
story
19 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
16%
68%
16%
The story aspect is praised for its evocative post-apocalyptic theme and immersive survival narrative conveyed through unique missions and card-based scenarios, which spark players' imagination and enhance replayability. However, the narrative is limited, with no overarching campaign or progression, relying mostly on scenario-based challenges and brief in-game texts, leading some players to find the storytelling shallow or repetitive. Overall, the story successfully sets a compelling mood but lacks depth and continuity for those seeking a richer narrative experience.
- “The artwork resembles dark illustrations from a post-apocalyptic storybook, with exhausted survivors wandering through endless storms searching for warmth that may not even exist anymore.”
- “Imagining what the card interactions represent sparked my imagination many times, and the in-universe story of my character leading their survivors frequently took twists and turns worthy of a novel.”
- “As weird as it is to say, I played it for the story. I found the narrative of the world profoundly interesting.”
- “The intro story, while skippable, should probably have been dropped as after you see it once you'll never need to see it again.”
- “Story threads are limited to whatever awkwardly translated text you see during splash screens, which is a shame, but the overall theme of the 'frost' meaning different things to different people is an intriguing one nonetheless.”
- “There's no campaign to give you a sense of progression or story, but there are levels of difficulty that are unlocked, as well as specific challenge scenarios that unlock as you play.”
music
18 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
44%
39%
17%
The music in Frost is minimalist, relying on ambient sounds and subtle, eerie tones to enhance the bleak, wintry atmosphere and build tension without overwhelming the player. While praised for its moodiness and immersion, some users find the soundtrack repetitive with abrupt transitions and limited variation. Overall, the restrained and atmospheric soundtrack effectively complements the game's stark visuals and enhances the sense of vulnerability and desperation.
- “Frost rarely uses dramatic or overwhelming music, instead relying on quiet ambient sounds, distant wind, and unsettling silence to create tension.”
- “The restrained soundtrack combined with the bleak visuals creates a remarkably immersive atmosphere that few survival games manage to achieve effectively.”
- “Music appears only when necessary, and when it does, it reinforces the desperation and exhaustion that define the experience.”
- “Music can end rather abruptly without a smooth transition from one piece to another.”
- “It wowed me the first few games because of the art, sounds (not the music), and gameplay; then it quickly devolved into tedium.”
- “One one hand this makes the game remarkably tense and the designer's unsubtle use of creepy music and jarring screen effects only enhance that tension further.”
emotional
9 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
100%
The game’s stark visual style and harsh survival mechanics create a deeply emotional and psychologically draining experience, emphasizing long-term struggle over short-term victories. Its unyielding atmosphere fosters immersion and emotional weight, making it one of the most emotionally impactful survival card games, though some moments of victory may feel anticlimactic.
- “The visual style perfectly captures the emotional emptiness of a dying frozen world.”
- “Hunger, injuries, exhaustion, and emotional strain all become physical obstacles within the deck itself, forcing players to constantly think about long-term survival instead of short-term victories.”
- “The game never breaks its atmosphere for convenience or accessibility, and that commitment makes the experience feel far more immersive and emotionally memorable than many larger survival games.”
replayability
9 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
33%
56%
11%
The game offers high replayability through its scenario structure, unlockable decks, and various play modes, providing fresh experiences with each playthrough. While some recommend waiting for a better-priced option, many praise its charm, atmosphere, and value as a deck-building game with strong replay value.
- “Fantastic traditional deck builder with a lot of charm and a ton of replayability.”
- “Great deck building game with phenomenal atmosphere and great replayability.”
- “Unlocking more decks and the various play modes provide a nice amount of replayability.”
- “As it is, at full price I don't recommend it; save up and buy a better card game with more replayability.”
grinding
4 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
100%
Grinding in the game is generally seen as tedious and slow, especially for experienced players who find the initial easy mode unchallenging and must endure repetitive tasks before unlocking engaging content. The card-based scavenging mechanic reduces traditional resource gathering but may feel limited in depth unless players focus on achievement farming.
- “Only offers easy mode to begin with; if you are experienced with such games, it takes boring grinding before you can unlock anything more interesting.”
- “The open-play with limited cards makes it feel a little lacking in content, unless you're a fan of farming achievements, and then there'd be a goal in mind.”
- “I don't like strategy/survival games generally because I find them tedious and frustratingly complex.”