cute fun and good music

Wildfrost is big brain and bigger cute. It’s refreshing to play a deck-building roguelite that isn’t a Slay The Spire or Balatro clone. I like bonking creatures into other creatures and Wildfrost’s tactics-y combat agrees with me.

Wildfrost’s adorable presentation and mechanical simplicity hides it’s devilish complexity. Most of my playtime isn’t taking action, it’s staring at board and my hand trying to grok how the upcoming turn can/should unfold. When I’m craving tradeoffs and strategy, I love it. Building a strong deck isn’t about getting that one OP card to carry you, it’s finding the half-dozen simple interactions that feed off each other to create an engine. And even when you have something potent, there’s still a level of execution that’s required. Given the small board size and meager creature health, positioning is often the difference between winning and losing. It’s so satisfying and tactile.

My biggest knock on Wildfrost is the run-length: upwards of an hour on good runs and never below 30 minutes for the middling ones. If my brain worked faster or I memorized more cards those metrics would go down but in my 8 hours of playtime it’s been my biggest inhibitor of jamming more runs.

Wildfrost fills the Hearthstone-shaped hole in my heart. The charming presentation and alluring world-building are the icing (or should I say ice-ing) on the tactically complex cake. I’m stoked to have Wildfrost be my “break in case of emergency” fix for playing cards and making my brain hurt.