Developed and Published by Nionetix, and launching in Early Access, Frozen Ship’s goal is simple: survive the never ending winter you find yourselves in. The best way to do this is to manage your ship and crew as efficiently as possible. As survival games go, this is basic stuff.
The ship is a massive industrial dump truck modified for winter survival. In it you have all the facilities you will need to survive, which include a boiler, kitchen, and housing for the crew. Each facility can be upgraded and new ones can be built in the construction menu. Each has its own benefits. However, to do this you will need to have collected the right amount of materials, and that's where the crew comes in.
Every day each crew member can be assigned a different job, whether that is gathering resources or working in facilities. Keeping track of which is more important is crucial as you don’t want your food or wood to run out, unless you want your crew to freeze or starve to death, but why would you?
Now, keeping them warm and fed is only half the problem, keeping them healthy is also part of what you have to take care of. As you send your crew out to gather resources, there is a chance for them to get sick or come back injured. Without a hospital the sick will slowly die, so build that as soon as possible.
The injured are another thing entirely, if a crew member is injured they can no longer work. These crew members will now just sit there and take up much-needed resources. And at the time of writing this as there is no way to fix them. That said, I would assume that some sort of rehabilitation mechanic or system will eventually fix this dilemma.
But don’t think you are just stuck in the ship while the crew works! You can also go out in the cold to find items and resources as well. Each day starts with you leaving the ship. You can mine ore, chop down trees, or find buildings to loot for items like alcohol or medicine. Typical survival genre objectives.
Currently, Frozen ship has a short storyline you can follow, which ends when you go talk to the leader of the cult of the Cold One. After that, you roam the frozen waste land to see how long you can survive. Personally, I cannot wait for more to be added to give me a bit more purpose.
Now there are two things I found while playing that I am not sure if they are a glitch or feature. The first is if you stay in a non-story area a second day the ship seems to not move down the path it looks like it can go. The second is after I unlocked the radio in the research tree, I had no building, like when I unlocked the foundry. Again, I am not sure if these are bugs or locked features in early access, so I can’t say much on them.
Currently, Frozen ship is a cool take on the winter survival genre, and the road map they put out looks very promising. I look forward to what all they add to this frozen waste land in the future even if it gave me the chills.