In analyzing the developing path and reading the player comments, we will see that the topic of child labor vs child shelter is wildly discussed. Player can draw conclusions from various perspectives. One that impress me the most is that, child labor is known through the game as a primitive and illegal labor structure to all players. No one is arguing about this.

Lets talk back to the system and explain it a little bit. In the beginning of Frostpunk, player can choose policy to implement through the Book of Law system. There are 6 choices that you can make to start with. There are an interval between one and the next decision, so player have to choose the sequence carefully. One major route is whether the community use child labor.

For this branch, players can choose child labor (safe jobs) to boost production or they can build a shelter for children. For the sake of productivity, child labor is way better than shelter, which will cost precious resources and opportunity for decision making. But child labor is forbidden worldwide and each player knows it.

So here comes the first question: in a surviving game, is morality still the standard for what’s good or not? Different players have complete opposite views. One who act as a god, will not care about individual’s welfare but the surviving of the whole city. But those who act as a part of the community, will hate depriving human rights. Every player has to become a policy evaluation expert in Frostpunk, keep analyzing the pros and cons of the implementation of a policy.

And the developer took a step further. In choosing child labor (safe job), players can later choose the child labor (all jobs) which will bring child mortality. And people will lose hope greatly. Sadly, in reality, those child who work from a very young age have no chance to choose “safe jobs”. They are born to face all jobs. Child mortality and malnutrition is the direct consequence. The two step policy making show the full view of child labor situation in the past. And they divided it by the type of jobs are smart. Defining the child labor by the job type is also a key element to discuss. Working in parents’ farmland is not child labor but in factory, it is. But defining it is not that easy, in parents’ farmland can also have abolition and vise versa. The developer must have done their research in this field to divide it by the jobs’ fatality.

For the opposite, if players choose the shelter for child, they can later choose to train and educate children into junior apprentices. It will bring even more boost on the production than child labor but in a later stage of the game. In fact the major solution for child labor is education for all. When a kid will receive education regardless the race, age or financial situation, there are no room for child labor anymore. Now most of modern countries have the compulsory education system, thanks to god.

The four choice reflect a lot, but there are more choices to make in Frostpunk, making its gaming experience different for players. To me, the child labor is the lesser evil in the game (there are choice to be a dictator and use people as human battery), but once you took the step, the game will accuse you in its ending. Is survival worth it no matter the cost? It is the final question the developer asked to each player.

In conclusion, as a game developer we can choose to dive deep into a historic event with details as 11 bit studios do. Not just child labor, but also the reason of its occurrence, the outcome and how to avoid it. Combination of all can make a decision making system more creditable for players. It can also raise attentions to certain topics, player are happy to discuss it when it is well arranged into the game.