I’m not very good at virtual card games because I could be the worst loser in this country. A game like Heartstone can put me in the red zone, especially when playing against other people. Most of the time I try to avoid gender. That’s why I was surprised to receive Wildfrost for a review, but I pulled my pants up and gave it a try, and here’s my take on Deadpan Games’ new card game, which will be released soon. Surprise, by the way.
Wildfrost has no real story. There are different factions with their own maps, each with a short intro, but other than those little stories there isn’t much to say about the narrative. Most of the game is experienced through gameplay, in its purest form, and that will likely appeal to those who think mechanics matter more than… well, narrative context.
Wildfrost is a card game where you have to fight an opponent who has their own unique cards with special abilities. At the bottom of the card is a round counter. When this counter reaches zero, your card attacks the opponent’s card on the opposite side of the table. Yes, you don’t necessarily decide what to attack and when, but giving up that control means the game takes on an extra strategic dimension, because you have to think several turns ahead and therefore always have a strategy ready, because the things they change every turn. Each card has a heart on the left side, which is the card’s health, and a sword on the right side, which indicates its damage. The general objective is to protect your hero, which you choose at the start of the game from several options. Therefore, you have to constantly protect and take care of your hero, but it is he who has the most effective skills, so you need to balance defense and attack very carefully. It took me a long time to figure it out, but along the way it all started to make more and more sense to me. Now, I love this because it forces you to take your time, see the big picture, and plan your strategy based on the defense you’ve built around your hero. At first, I didn’t realize that I had to think so far ahead, so as the turns passed, my hero was often overwhelmed by the opponent’s cards. I got better, though, and when I felt like I finally got the point of Wildfrost, it became incredibly satisfying.
Your hero is not alone on the field, because after the first game you gain access to new maps, where you find frozen heroes as you progress. These, just like your main hero, have a lot of interesting abilities and they are there to protect you. So you have to place these other heroes on the field, which is split in two so that there can be three cards horizontally on the top and bottom of the field. Those that are placed first are the ones that are mainly attacked, and this way you can protect your main units by placing them at the end of the line. This way, only the main heroes take the hits. It’s great that you constantly have to balance the abilities of these heroes, both offensively and defensively. In your hand you have seven cards, which you can play as you wish. They range from direct attack cards to cards that reduce the number of turns it takes for your hero to attack. The good thing about this is that you can draw cards as many times as you want, and if you’re not satisfied, you only have to draw seven new cards. The only downside is that it takes a turn, so you have to be careful when using it.
Wildfrost is a roguelike, so the game is random every time you play. However, the cards are the same and they have the same abilities, but how you play, your opponents, and what buffs you get to help you out are random each time. The best way to describe it is that you see a map between matches that has one of two paths you can choose from. Depending on your choice, you get specific upgrades. There are treasure chests, necklaces that you can put on any of your heroes of your choice, giving them a new ability. As I said, there are also frozen heroes that you can use in the next battle you find on the map. Plus, there’s a snail shell that gives gold that you can use in stores, which also have everything from upgrades to necklaces. Everything is randomly generated, as are the enemies you encounter, making it a classic roguelike. This means both that it’s much easier to see the missing story and it offers sublime replay value. The more you fight, the more you unlock, so even if things don’t go well, you’re constantly progressing, getting better and better, and then getting better at the general mechanics by replaying it over and over again.
There are many hours of entertainment in Wildfrost, as there is addictive progression that takes you another round. Every third battle you find on the map is a boss battle where you have to defeat an ultra-powerful enemy. They are quite a challenge to defeat as they can take a lot of hits before they go down. There are even some that, after being defeated, resurrect with double health, but don’t do as much damage. If you manage to defeat this mega boss, you have the option of choosing one of three perks that apply in the future, such as having more heroes than the three you should have on hand from the start, or you can draw a new hero card. You get the idea, the variations are virtually endless.
It’s a great progression system, and Wildfrost is hard to stop once you get started. I played Wildfrost in my Steam deck and it looks perfect here. I also think it will be when it’s played on the Nintendo Switch, and I could imagine it would be great on mobile too, as the battles are fast and intense, so it’s a game you can easily play on the go, both that the weather just disappears.
If I had to write something negative, it would be that the game is not very good at teaching the player its mechanics. Several hours into the game, things were happening that I didn’t fully understand, which was annoying. The game is also very minimalist, occupying only a few hundred megabytes, so the graphics and sound are quite primitive, there are also no videos or dialogues explaining the mechanics of the game, unfortunately. It could have been better.
However, Wildfrost is well-made, innovative and quite addictive, so if you like a card game that never gets boring, then Wildfrost is exactly what you need. Just great.