Frostpunk

I like to play this game in the winter and open up my window to let the cold in so that i can feel 10% of the discomfort that these people feel everyday. The game is great, it’s a hard, stressful and frustrating. "THE CITY MUST SURVIVE" i tell myself while making the most morally abhorrent decisions. 11/10 will make the children work 24hrs shifts in coal mines again.

I thought this was going to be a depressing hard choices simulator, which kept me away for a long time. When I finally gave it a shot I was surprised at how much it's about endurance, hope, and human ingenuity. It's definitely not easy, but you can not just survive but thrive. (It's kind of a shame that once you thrive the game basically plays itself, but you can consider that a reward.)
Can you imagine... living in a society where people are willing to work together to do what is necessary to survive a world-threatening climate disaster?

The rage I felt when my rioting countrymen blamed me PERSONALLY for the weather was real.
The ungratefulness!! Listen, I'm SORRY you had to work a double ONCE in 30 days but literally everyone was going to DIE if you didn't!
Terrible game. I've played 22 hours on record in 2 days and I WILL save these stupid people.

What a hard, stressful and frustrating game.
Recommended.
On a more serious note, I originally thought this was a city builder, but it felt more like a resource management puzzle game. You have to gather coal, wood, steel and food in order to make sure that your population stays warm and fed. This might sound easy, but before you know it everyone is suddenly starving or ill (or both), and if they get too angry or lose all hope then they'll be coming for your neck (meaning game over).
The reason it feels like a puzzle game is that each scenario starts out being very challenging for the first couple of days/weeks, but once you "crack the code" and get off to a decent start, the game pretty much plays itself.
My only complaint is that in the game it is possible to send out scout expeditions to look for resources or survivors, however some of the locations that you come across have a 50/50 chance to either give you some much needed resources, or kill your scouts (meaning you also lose all the resources they were carrying). You can of course choose to ignore those locations, but on the hardest difficulty they're very much needed, and unless you're willing to risk losing the game on the spot there's really only one solution - save scumming.
Other than that I definitely recommend Frostpunk as long as you're NOT looking for a calm and relaxing game.

Little Timmy came to us as a refugee, got put into the coal mines on a 24h emergency shift and died.
All in one day!
What more could you want?

Imagine complaining about the lack of prosthetic fingers available on the market after surviving a mass-extinction event where you are only one of a few thousand living organisms left on a now-frozen Earth.
Devs completely understand mankind. 11/10.

Alright. Frostpunk is done and dusted. It actually took me 16 hours to complete the main campaign with the rest of my gametime spent trying out the unlockable scenarios and playing through the DLC. The first couple hours, I spent really figuring out how to play, then I played through the story until my people eventually executed me, and then I played through again and finished the campaign (which is called "A New Home"). I'm not somebody who plays a lot of builders, and even less so builders that require significant thought and strategy, so this wasn't in my wheelhouse, and yet I thoroughly enjoyed it.
The story set-up is pretty simple. You are the captain of an expedition sent to set up a new city, New London, around a powerful generator set-up previously in anticipation of the world freezing, which it has by the time you begin your adventure. Your goal is to keep the generator running while creating a city within which people can survive this frozen land. Maybe even thrive. The rest of the story is one of your own making. You are in charge, and you will make decisions and enact laws that will determine your city's outcome.
To that end, you will direct the gathering of resources, the construction of buildings and streets, the warming of the city, exploration outside of the city to find more resources and survivors to bring to your city, and you will as mentioned make laws. This takes the form of the Book of Laws, and your edicts will shape this developing survivor society. You have your base set of laws. Some are simple things such as decreeing that a graveyard will be built or a public house for people to let off some steam after a hard day. Other decisions will include deciding whether you will make the children work as laborers or allow them to develop and help out elsewhere instead. Your decisions will range from benevolent to tyrannical, and they will have an impact on your people and their morale.
So, in a sense, the morale system is also the morality system. And you will have to make some difficult decisions at times in order to ensure everybody's survival, whether or not they like how it happens, lol. And the people are fickle. This is represented by two bars: a hope bar and a discontent bar. Woe be the captain who lets that discontent bar grow and the hope bar wane. Think of them as health bars, only it's the health of your city and your leadership. Additionally, the people will make requests of you. Sometimes those requests will be common sense, other times they will be selfish requests, and yet other times, they will be completely unrealistic. Like letting people rest when you only have a few hours before a massive storm hits your city and need them manning their posts. And those types of requests often force your hand and make you issue some of the more tyrannical edicts.
As far as the unlockable scenarios, I'd consider those to be challenge modes of sorts. In The Ark, for example, you are tasked with building up a community around seed vaults. And while I'm sure there are people who have no problems playing through this, for me, it was super difficult. Not in a bad way. But probably above my skill level lol. I did not try the Endless modes, btw. That's not really my type of thing. But it is awesome that they are available for people.

Most of the game is spent staring at your city and various timers for job completion, the day/night cycle, and so on. However, there is also an overland map which you will use to assign search teams to check out various landmarks or things you can see from your city due to a beacon you will craft early on (basically a big balloon that gives you the ability to see the various places located outside your city but within eyeshot). And that might seem like it could get boring, but it doesn't. Why?
Because you're always planning your next moves, trying to reason out what will be most necessary to ensure your survival. And that leads to some incredibly tense moments throughout a playthrough. My first full playthrough, the people revolted and executed me fairly close to the end. And that taught me a lot about what I needed to do to actually survive. My second playthrough, I took the lessons I learned from my first and did complete the game. However, with only a couple in-game hours left, my generator still failed despite my planning and I barely limped across the proverbial finish line. I was so relieved and happy to have beat the scenario but I also couldn't believe how tense and uncertain it was, lol.
And those kinds of visceral moments and experiences is really what makes this game special. Additionally, something I never really do IRL is lose track of time, and yet while playing Frostpunk, as I was wrapping up a playthrough, I'd look up and realize it was 4 AM and I needed to be up at 7, lol. That's what this game can do to you. It's been out for over six years now, so it's a safe bet you have at least heard of it, and it may very well be languishing in your library. Play it. It's one of those games that deserves to be experienced by as many people as possible.
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