EmberFrostLaunch5 min read
EmberFrost is out now on iPhone: a cozy winter survival village builder
Light the last ember, keep the fire alive and rebuild a frozen village with one thumb. EmberFrost: Survival Tycoon is out now on the App Store, free to start, with no ads.
EmberFrost: Survival Tycoon is out now on the App Store. It is a cozy winter survival game about one fire, one village and the people who come back to it. You can download it on iPhone today, it is free to start, and there are no ads.
This post covers what the game is, how it plays, and what you get for free.
What is EmberFrost?
EmberFrost begins with almost nothing: a snowed-in village called Tamarisk, a dead fire pit in the square and one last ember in your hands. You arrive alone. Light the ember, and the cold starts pushing back.
From there, the game is about growing a circle of warmth. The temperature never stops dropping, so the fire always comes first. You chop wood in the forest, carry it back on your shoulders and feed the flames. Whatever you do not burn, you sell. With the coins you rebuild the village one place at a time: cabins, a market stall, a fishing hole on the frozen lake, a pier, a quarry, a forge and a lookout tower.
As the village grows, people return. Granny Maud opens an infirmary. Bram the smith fires up the forge. Lily turns up with a torn piece of an old map and a question about what lies beyond the valley. New families move into the cabins you rebuild, and some of them start working alongside you.
How it plays
EmberFrost is an idle arcade game, sometimes called a carry-and-build game. You play it with one thumb in portrait mode.
- Move with a joystick that appears wherever you touch the lower screen.
- Gather by standing next to a source. Trees give logs, the ice hole gives fish and the quarry gives stone, and everything stacks on your back.
- Feed the fire by walking into the fire pit with wood.
- Sell by standing on a sell circle, or keep the market stall stocked so villagers buy from it.
- Build by standing on a ruin that shows a price. Your coins fly in, and the building rises.
There are no menus to learn and no timers to wait on. The village reacts to where you stand.
Read more about this style of play in our post on idle tycoon games you actually play.
The cold is the opponent
Every survival game needs pressure, and in EmberFrost the pressure is the temperature. The fire heats a ring around it. Step outside that ring for too long and you get chilled: you slow down and frost creeps over the screen. Head back to the warmth and it passes in seconds.
Your villagers feel the cold too. When the fire runs low or a storm hits, they get cold, then freezing, and if nobody helps them they fall ill. Without an infirmary, a sick villager may give up and leave the village for good.
That is the worst thing that can happen in EmberFrost. Nobody dies. We wanted a survival game with real stakes that never turns cruel, and losing a neighbour you rebuilt a home for turned out to be stake enough. We wrote more about that in what makes a survival game cozy.
From one fire to a whole village
The fire itself grows with you. It starts as a small campfire and can become a stone hearth, a great hearth and finally a beacon fire, each one warming a wider part of the map. Braziers carry heat out to the forest edge and the lake, so your workers can stay out longer.
Workers are where the idle side of the game comes in. Build a woodcutter's hut and a woodcutter keeps the wood coming. A fisher works the lake, a stonecutter works the quarry, and a carrier hauls goods back to the square. The forge turns stone into better tools, bigger crates and a sled for carrying twice as much.
Then the storms come, and everything you built gets tested. It all leads to the Great Blizzard, the night that decides whether Tamarisk makes it through the winter.
If you want a head start, our beginner's guide has the tips we wish every new keeper knew.
Free to start, fair to play
Here is how EmberFrost makes money, stated plainly:
| What | How it works |
|---|---|
| Free | The prologue and your first three buildings are free. |
| Full Story | One purchase unlocks the rest of the village, the workers, the forge and the Great Blizzard. No subscription. |
| Coin packs | Optional, and only after the forge is built. The game is fully playable without them. |
| Ads, account, tracking | None. It plays offline, and you never need an account. |
Nothing you can buy makes you faster or stronger. The economy is not tuned to push you toward coin packs.
The details
- Platform: iPhone (it also runs on iPad). Android is coming to Google Play.
- Languages: 21, including English, German, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Japanese, Korean, Chinese, Turkish and Arabic, with a fully voiced story.
- Difficulty: Normal and Hard, chosen when you start a new game.
- Game Center: achievements to unlock along the way, including one or two secrets.
- Saves: automatic, in three save slots. When you close the game, your village waits for you exactly as you left it.
Get EmberFrost
Download EmberFrost: Survival Tycoon on the App Store. It is free to start.
If you play it, we would love to hear how far you get and what you build first. Write to us at contact@fiosapps.com.
