Frozen City

The human element of this city building sim is a compelling concept, but the time tasks take to complete slows down the pace -- and makes the game less interesting -- fairly early on. Kids try to complete items on a continuously updated task list in Frozen City, which contains actions like upgrading one of the dorms to the next level. If they don't have the amount of resources required, such as wood planks, they'll have to wait for more to be created by the survivors before being able to click the Upgrade button enough times. For survivors to work at the maximum level, they have to be fed and have an appropriate amount of rest, which also causes complications, because activity happens in cycles. At night, resources won't be produced at the level they're added during the day.

Kids have some autonomy to make things happen in the game, like choosing which task to put resources toward. They can also occasionally pay to speed things up, by spending gems, and can adjust the fire in the center of the camp. The fire is particularly important because it serves as the general heat source. Kids can flip the onscreen switch to change it from a big fire to a more moderate one, but turning it off completely could have a negative effect on the residents. But kids don't have complete freedom to assign specific workers to tasks, and they may feel powerless to do anything. The cyclical work schedule can result in considerable pauses because you don't have enough wood to fund more upgrades or the workers to produce it until morning. The visuals and actual gameplay also aren't overly intriguing, because much of the activity you see involves small-scale characters shuffling from one location to another and making repetitive motions like hammering. Even before kids start getting hit with requests to buy additional things -- which doesn't happen immediately in the game -- they may have already moved on from Frozen City to less idle terrain.