How Wildfrost made $1,000,000 by Subverting Expectations

[@bakuhakudraws5603]

An additional way this game leans into the subversion of expectations is how brutal and gory it is. Not just the actual gameplay difficulty, but you're playing in an apocalyptic world of permanent winter that has been driven to the brink of extinction. Your only information on what is happening comes from bloodstained journal pages you find en route to your destination. Your allies are all frozen in blocks of ice and presumably just stay there forever if you don't break them free. My absolute favorite detail is that cards get splattered with blood when other cards near them get hit, and that blood is permanent, meaning you steadily accumulate these bloodstains all over your cards' borders, eventually leading to you rolling up on the final boss with your entire team soaked in red from the injuries their allies have taken along the way. It's incredibly metal, and clashes beautifully against the cutesy, candy-colored art style in an 'over the garden wall' sort of way.

[@maxedsey1447]

I almost deleted this game from my wishlist because the initial reviews were so bad on Steam. Luckily, I actually read through the complaints and found that it was mostly just people saying it was too challenging, so I gave it a try. Few games force me to think about my next turn for upwards of 10 minutes before having that “a-ha!” moment. The closest game I can think of in this regard would be Into the Breach, which is one of my favorite games of all time. Absolutely incredible game that I would wholeheartedly recommend to fans of the genre.

[@WordUser]

The game was actually review bombed by a chinese content creator and their audience on release day, like 2 hours after release, their reason was something along the lines of "A cutesy artstyle means the game cant be hard" i believe, weird stuff pretty sure it was malicious and they just wanted any reason to review bomb the game

[@armandostockvideos8386]

I thought the negatives reviews were because the game was unbalanced.(the team that you used to beat your last run become the final boss of the next runs)

[@ZamWeazle]

​@@WordUser Also Afterimage was review bombed from Chinese users as well. Maybe its a trend In China

[@maxedsey1447]

@@armandostockvideos8386 I guess it kinda depends on your definition of “unbalanced”. I thought that was a really cool mechanic and forced me to come up with an even better strategy to counter my previous team. Having just beaten the game today, I can say that finding ways to feel overpowered and “exploit” the games mechanics was one of my favorite parts. I did find a couple minor bugs in my 36 hours of playing, but other than that, I never felt like the game was unfair. It just felt like I was being rewarded for learning the game 🙂

[@Comrade-Doggolover]

It definitely needs balancing work but into the breach wasn’t hard it was BS, I got put into unwinablw situations a lot so I stopped playing, but it was not a bad game by any means however

[@keyzack]

Love to see this kind of Indie Success Recap Format. Not sure if it is somehow advertisement, but great job, Kp it UP Clemmy!

[@alexgonzalez9053]

I'd add that on top of all that the game is juicy as hell, just looking at it gives a great impresion of the game feel and how fun it will be to play instead of just looking. It's a greatly polished piece, way beyond what most copycats would take the effort to make,

[@AlfredKamon]

Super interesting analysis on a genre that is flooded with copycats of Slay the Spire nowadays - I really appreciate your insight on what makes Wildfrost "unique" while nodding at its predecessors, Clemmy! Great stuff, I hope you post these kinds of videos more - they're not only interesting to players, but also useful for devs.

[@McRealz]

I played the 1st 2 levels of the demo and promptly uninstalled. …so I could buy the full game. 😉 Not even that big on card games, but there’s something special here!

[@inuart19]

he had us in the first half not gonna lie

[@Zoodude254]

1:49 holy shit, I've never looked at the background of the shop! But now I see Shovel Knights helm, the Spelunky totem, finns sword. I'm sure there are others but thats what I caught right off the bat.

[@RenIsBack20]

I love this format ! So satisfying to see indie success

[@andypitkin9051]

Which game is featured at 02:10 please?

[@MrRuso55]

Had my switch eating dust until this game came out and put at least 20 hours in it in the last week... Very nice and addictive game!

[@theinvisibleskulk4563]

Is it truly "subversion of expectations" if the departures from formula are revealed before release, or does the gaming community need a new word for that? And if the latter, is subversion of expectations truly a good thing?

[@percyvile]

"Subverting convention" might be a better wording.

[@CozyBloom]

Keep up the good work 👍 happy to see this game succeed 👏

[@magilunedecelestia]

I hope they port this to phone

[@M.CFFFFF]

They port it to Nokia 3310

[@magilunedecelestia]

@@M.CFFFFF noice

[@WordUser]

I havent been able to play this game yet because the price in south africa is 90% more than it should be (steam recommended pricing, which every other country is set to) so to me its the equivalent of paying like 38$ which is a bit much for me 😅

[@WordUser]

I have played the demo and loved that though

[@giantewok]

Aweh same dude

[@Regula_joe]

​@@WordUser ey man im also from south africa. Most games on steam are very expensive now. Must be those taxes

[@WordUser]

​@@Regula_joe nah, steam did raise their recommended pricing but this game should be R185 not R385 lol, games are just getting more expensive, indie games are asking for 20$ instead of the old 15$ which im perfectly cool with

[@AlvaroGonzalez-zv4ft]

Love this game Have somewhere between 15-20 hours of gameplay on it and I will say it’s definitely challenging, and a victory does require good RNG luck. That being said, so far I’ve won with all three extra difficulty bells on and gotten to the final boss, so it’s not as difficult as some people make it seem. You just have to be patient when you play because every single action can definitely make or break a run. I think a little more customization, like modifiers or maybe choosing your own leader or different game mode, would help the replay-ability aspect, cuz for me that’s the only part where it’s kind of lacking. Doing the same boss fights over and over, especially when you have a doodoo leader and cards and you know you’re not gonna make it to the end does get boring. Now I just end my run before the first battle to reroll the leaders so I don’t waste my time haha.

[@juamibenito2558]

i find this reroll habit of gamers today just robs them of more fun and more stories to be had, i can somewhat understand the reasoning behind it, but it sorta shows that gamers only want to experience one kind of story, a safe winning story where you get a good start roguelikes are built on "luck" not really mattering due to the sheer number of times you "roll" for something, your leader and starting cards merely being the first few when you roll that many times, then on average it's not about whether or not you got good cards, you almost certainly did other than doomed runs (which are interesting rare 5%-ish of stories in their own right), it's about where you got your good cards/good rolls and how you recognized and maximized them, which opens up so many more interesting stories and journeys

[@ajb_sg]

This is the first game I bought immediate at launch. So addictive.

[@en0nx]

Looks Good! I don't play games like this very often, but I'm willing to try, considering that I liked the game GWENT from CDPR, so maybe it will be similar here. Thanks for the review.☺

[@Voxelroguery]

This game is great! I love it! It makes me want to throw my laptop against a wall in frustration but I love it

[@commentarytalk1446]

Congratulations to the devs who are both clearly talented and hard-working people to develop a successful game. With that said, it's not my cup of tea. I've played some fun card deck-building based boardgames and tbh I find the social "around the table banter" is really what makes those games and the cards a bit lack-lustre and more so on a screen. At first for the careful game analysis to success, I thought the 3 step process was going to be: 1. Steal pants 2. ? 3. Profit !

[@BrooksSoljah]

I enjoyed the demo, might grab it eventually

[@thebigidea9659]

Hopefully this encourages them to continue to update the game

[@noskes1]

I like how the game is all cute and pleasant, but there are so much blood splaters in the backgroud showing that under that sweet overlay in reality its a dark world.

[@gemodemplay415]

I made such a strong hero that I could not beat anymore afterwards. I struggled for 2 weeks already but I cannot beat him and I will have to reset the save..

[@Maxim.Nazarenko]

Waiting for this type of video for Shadows of Doubt. But yeah - it's stil in Early Access.

[@armandostockvideos8386]

So...Is this game any good? I heard it was unbalanced and the devs seem to have closed the steam forum...

[@cariandi]

Opinion only, obviously, but I love the game. I'm by no means great at it but I also don't personally think it's that unbalanced. At most, I'd say 1 or 2 enemies are a bit overtuned (the bigfoots...). Once I started slowing down and thinking more, I realized what seemed like impossible situations were really just me not planning ahead properly. The devs are apparently more active in their discord (can't confirm because I'm not in the server), but on steam they've mentioned the next update will be focused on bug fixes and then they'll be looking into game balance.

[@Daniel-xv3nw]

i love the music in this

[@nuclearbeeberman]

Haven't played the game and it's also not very appealing to me (not a card game fan) but it seems like the success is very much earned. To become an artist that is this good is already very difficult and takes a lot and a lot of hard work. Also marketing a game is a skill by it's own and it seems like they did this very well. congrats

[@raduvalentin6122]

Remember RNJesus? There was a time when great games got cancelled just for that only, now "it's a feature to subvert your expectations". What a joke...

[@magicalcapi9148]

I believe this game took a huuuuggeeee risk by overestimatimating its audience. If influencers didn't come for the rescue, Among Us style, its destiny might have been different The good thing, that it casted a shadow of doubt on Steam reviews, maybe there are some good indie titles hidden on more neutral reviews. The almost bad, is to be a case about making a good first impression. Aim for a good head start

[@UliTroyo]

It looks great! Hope it gets a mobile port.

[@sayonarakid]

I like the art of the game. Nothing more. Already so tired of deck building rogue like. Its really not enought subvertion of the genre to bring back someone in.

[@Rimelev]

I can dream of mine hase also some Zero's

[@88Opportunist]

I was going to ignore it because I'm pretty burned out on deckbuilders and because I am generally not a fan of card games where the units themselves are cards. (witch the exception of TCGs) as I find them hard to play. But if it's been this successful then I guess I don't need to have those fears and can just let the great art do the talking and get the game.

[@ajxx9987]

The game is so RNG reliant sadly and lacks variety when it comes to builds

[@jopkins11]

Komentarz

[@sirdinkus6537]

If by "subverting expectations" you mean make every drop entirely RNG with no way to influence your card offerings, then yes this game "subverts expectations". I expected basic deckbuilding quality of life features to be included, and that expectation was subverted. The player agency in this game boils down to "did you get a broken drop? No? Then pick the least crappy useless drop out of the useless choices we randomly offer".

[@xalt255x]

>great art it's so generic it hurts

[@OldyAlbert]

I'm not a fan that you put "card" on a field. Like, they are creatures not cards. In Monster train you use cards to summon creatures that looks like creatures, you not summon cards and slam them together, that's stupid, it's videogame, there's zero reason for it to have limitations that real-life card games have.