This is the seventh article in the Playing Inside: Board Games, Video Games, and the Indoors series, which explores the ways that board games, video games, and other types of indoor play impact and guide our understanding of the environment.
Frostpunk is a post-apocalyptic survival city-building game. In the game, players lead a dystopian community through unrelenting cold. Adeline K. Piercy’s video essay examines the unanticipated ways Frostpunk serves as a strategy for neurodivergent players with sensory dysfunctions — particularly those who struggle with the heat of summertime.
Feature Image: A screenshot from the video game Frostpunk, depicting the development of a settlement.
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Adeline K. Piercy
Digital Humanities MA Student at University of Alberta
Adeline (she/them) is a Digital Humanities graduate student at the University of Alberta, Co-President of the Digital Humanities Student Association, and a member of the CRYPT Lab led by Dr. PB Berge. She also teaches Professional Communications at MacEwan University.
As a storyteller, they create narratives across poetry, fiction, interactive stories, and games. Her work focuses on queer and feminist issues, and explores trauma, neurodivergence, and self-exploration. Their current research challenges patterns of gendered exclusion in videogame culture, from ‘girl game’ movements to game design interventions. You can follow Adeline at @adelinekpiercy or adelinekpiercy.com.
Latest posts by Adeline K. Piercy (see all)
- Controlling Catastrophe: Indoor Gameplay to Support Sensory Dysfunction - October 31, 2025