Frosthaven game director explains the challenges of adapting the hit dungeon-crawler board game

“The tricky part was if we give too many choices, this will break the game too much,” Petkov said. “If you want the game to be exactly like the board game, you can play like that. If you want it to be a little bit more fluid but maybe not perfect, you can play like that.”

Flaming Fowl Studios handled the digital adaptation of Childres’ first dungeon crawler, Gloomhaven, but then moved on to work on their own roguelike auto-battler Konfronto. Petkov based much of his work on the successful Gloomhaven adaptation, trying to incorporate Frosthaven’s more complex mechanics in a way that would please players of the Frosthaven board game, Gloomhaven digital players, and fans of tactical role-playing games who hadn’t played either.

The Snapshot team led by CEO Julian Gollop, the creator of XCOM, worked with Childres to devise a four-mission campaign called “The Road to Frosthaven” meant to teach Gloomhaven players the mechanics that are new to the sequel, which will be available as a free demo.

Image: Snapshot Games

In Gloomhaven and Frosthaven, characters use cards to represent their special abilities. When they rest, they get some of their cards back and lose one until the end of the scenario, meaning they can take a limited number of breaks during a mission. With Childres’ permission, Snapshot introduced a story game mode that removes this core mechanic of the game.

“It allows you to learn the game as a new player without the time pressure,” Petkov said. “We found that if players play a couple of scenarios, they understand how the game works and can easily switch to the next difficulty. It’s not intended to play the whole campaign like this. It gives you a stepping stone that you can learn the mechanics without the punishment.”

The Snapshot team is also doing its best to keep from overwhelming players with Frosthaven’s rules. All the information – like what cards an enemy is using – is one or two clicks away, but the user interface is designed to keep things simple. Frosthaven can be played with up to four players, and one of the biggest mistakes Petkov sees is solo players opting to control four characters by themselves. Each character starts with 10 cards, which can be used for one of two actions. That means a party of four is immediately capable of 80 different actions. Just the first turn can take half an hour, and even then the player is likely to miscalculate something and make a tactical mistake.

Image: Snapshot Games

“This is so overwhelming that we really need to put some disclaimers,” Petkov said. “Please don’t do that or do it at your own risk. What I normally recommend is just start on either the easier or the second difficulty and start with two characters. Gradually, if you feel confident with controlling two, you can add a third and maybe a fourth later. But never start with four.”

Most Gloomhaven digital players played the game solo, but Snapshot is working on ways to make multiplayer more accessible so players can enjoy the synergies between characters without managing everything themselves. Options include matchmaking with other players and a save editor that allows players to alternate between digital and physical versions of Frosthaven based on scheduling. The team is also working with Childres on other ideas for a post-launch roadmap including incorporating characters from the board game’s Mercenary Packs addons or Gloomhaven: Second Edition.

“There’s a world of possibilities to create more content,” Petkov said.