By the 22nd century, Earth’s population has reached 14 billion. Escalating crises have left mankind hopeless and desperate on a resource-starved homeworld. After multiple failed attempts at planetary colonization, the United Civilizations launched the Argo expedition through newly discovered wormholes at the edge of the solar system.
They arrive on Janus, the two-faced planet, with hellish Helium-3 solar winds on one side, frozen seas of methane gas on the other. Humankind has no choice but to settle on the frozen frontier in search of vital resources. Hope has been found, but space is cold and unforgiving.
Frozen Frontier is a highly strategic Eurogame for experienced players about the cosmic future of humanity.
Each turn, a player has an opportunity to move their Carrier to any city, collect a project card, and take 1 of 3 possible actions:
а) Construct
A player uses the top part of a multi-use project card to construct a building. Each card defines the type of building and where to build it. If a player meets both requirements, the project card gets added to their player board, and they benefit from the effect on the bottom half of the card anytime it’s triggered. Most buildings advance a player’s Industrial or Science tracks to gain new opportunities but cost a varying amount of resources to build.
b) Collaborate
A player can settle colonists and use their own, or their competitors’, production/science buildings to receive resources and valuable effects.
с) Raise funds
A player receives Qubits and/or special opportunities by using a subsidy card.
When the Subsidy cards deck is empty, players perform these steps in order:
1) receive income from their own buildings and from their cards with an income phase effect
2) send resources to Earth: fulfill common shipments contracts from the board (scheduled shipments), private ones from their hand (unscheduled shipments), and provide the requested amount of He3 to avoid a penalty token (mandatory shipments).
3) prepare the game for the next round
When the 3rd round ends, players count how many victory points each of them has earned. The one with the most points is the winner!
Players earn victory points for:
- controlled cities (the corporation that has more buildings and AI tokens in a city controls it)
- settled colonists
- fulfilled Shipment contracts
- the circumstances described on the cards with “end of the game” effects
- stunning production
- unique dual-layer board
- workers and area control
- space/planets
Mechanics (from transcript analysis)
- resource gathering / worker placement — move workers to planets and cities, build actions
- Worker Placement — move workers to planets and cities, build actions
Video topics + discussion points
Quotes (from this video)
- Gen Con was everything it was cracked up to be this year.
- it's a crisis management game that hits on all cylinders
- I think this game is going to be off the hook
- I would love to cover this game because these things are so cool
References (from this video)
- box looks really cool
- unknown extent of knowledge about the game
Mechanics (from transcript analysis)
Video topics + discussion points
Quotes (from this video)
- we also always want to try new stuff
- we don't need this many games there's no reason for that if you don't have a YouTube channel
- I'm going to be telling you all about how the game box looks because that's the extent of my knowledge about this game
- this is the thing in this whole video which I'm the most excited about
- I backed a Kickstarter to get a lid
- I have a problem it looks really good
- I'm so happy to see that we can get new versions of these games maybe there's hope for Mad some way down the line