LudumData

Snowcastle Meltdown by Noiyy

[raw]
made by Noiyy for Ludum Dare 50 (JAM)

About the game

Topdown 2D pixel-art game about protecting your snowcastle from melting.

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It was always your dream to have a magnificent snow castle in desert and now that it’s done, you have to face the problem of it melting down. Protect it by making snow & ice inside caves, where it’s cold and fortify your castle so it may stand another day!

You start with full water (refill your water from traders), and water's used for making ice in caves. Specifically, you have to enter a cave, find a pond and pour your water in it! It'll eventually freeze - at that moment, you can collect ice! If you have ice, go quickly to your snowcastle to restore it a little bit!

Watch out! Each day, the sun burns more intensely than before! How long can your snowcastle hold out?

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Controls

  • WASD / Arrows - Movement
  • E - Use

- Hey! I'm Noiyy, currently high school student and now a game dev after my first Ludum Dare! What a nice moment, it's also LD 20th anniversary! Wow, I can't believe it's been going for this long already, and that I have actually finished my game :open_mouth:

Changelog

  • Bug Fixes #1 (11/04/2022):
    • Fixed bug with player positioning after passing through caves
    • Fixed water trader collisions and hidden their cooldown text while in caves
    • Fixed svg game icon, Inkscape messed it up, wasn't visible
Link https://noiyy.itch.io/snowcastle-meltdown
Link https://noiyy.itch.io/snowcastle-meltdown
Link https://noiyy.itch.io/snowcastle-meltdown
Original URL https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/50/snowcastle-meltdown

Ratings

Overall 1126th 3.153⭐ 61🧑‍⚖️
Fun 1206th 2.833⭐ 62🧑‍⚖️
Innovation 808th 3.195⭐ 61🧑‍⚖️
Theme 320th 3.966⭐ 61🧑‍⚖️
Graphics 988th 3.258⭐ 62🧑‍⚖️
Humor 764th 2.815⭐ 56🧑‍⚖️
Mood 1133th 3.027⭐ 57🧑‍⚖️
Given 68🗳️ 110🗨️

Feedback

jkyd
05. Apr 2022 · 08:00 UTC
Cool concept!
taran95
05. Apr 2022 · 08:08 UTC
I liked the game
Narffy
05. Apr 2022 · 08:13 UTC
Nice good game, and great concept !
Nuelijarma
05. Apr 2022 · 08:14 UTC
I survived 3 days and a few seconds! Is there a better strategy than alternating between the closest cave and the bottom-right merchant?
May I suggest that water freezes during the night? That could incentivize to fill more ponds and quickly collect everything at morning.
crotonyl_alcohol
05. Apr 2022 · 08:14 UTC
Took me a while to figure out what to do, but generally it's fun to play. Well done!
LoukUP
05. Apr 2022 · 08:14 UTC
fun game
eLxAr_Productions
05. Apr 2022 · 08:15 UTC
Neat little game! I really loved the music ^^
AndyZYZ
05. Apr 2022 · 08:19 UTC
The music is amazing. Also the concept related to the theme is brilliant.
Krunk
05. Apr 2022 · 08:28 UTC
Great concept! It just needs tuning. All of the pools and merchants give the same amount of resources, so certain routes are guaranteed to be a net loss. Maybe you could require the player to do something specific between runs, or introduce danger to certain areas to have them consider the risk and reward.
PickNucker
05. Apr 2022 · 08:30 UTC
A great game
🎤 Noiyy
05. Apr 2022 · 08:45 UTC
@nuelijarma A friend also recommended water freezing during the night, so I'll consider that, thanks! @krunk Thanks! I was thinking about having cooldowns on cave entrances, so the player would have to go to another one, also good idea with the amount of resources and requirements/dangers in areas, I'll keep that in mind :smile:
🎤 Noiyy
05. Apr 2022 · 08:49 UTC
@elxar-productions @andyzyz Thanks! The music is "Whimsical Town" by Chris Logsdon, from his Fantasy Towns Music Pack on itch.io & I agree, it's amazing :wink:
KoHaku347
05. Apr 2022 · 11:26 UTC
A very nice small game, I like it! <3
LDJam user 279610
05. Apr 2022 · 18:28 UTC
Very unique mechanic and use of theme. I really like it.
LDJam user 261538
05. Apr 2022 · 20:28 UTC
nice game! I got trapped ![LDBug.png](///raw/2ad/f3/z/4cd59.png) but I thought I was doing pretty well till then XD
🎤 Noiyy
06. Apr 2022 · 04:04 UTC
@amberfall92 Thanks, how did that happen though? :sweat_smile: :laughing:
LDJam user 5143
06. Apr 2022 · 09:42 UTC
Idea is fun! Water and ice managment is hard, but interesting. Great job!
PureImprov
06. Apr 2022 · 19:10 UTC
Haha, ice castle in the middle of the desert! Maybe some additional speed boosts and things would add more but very nice!
morcado
06. Apr 2022 · 20:56 UTC
Nice game, maybe you every day the map is different or castle in another pos...
BougieBirdie
06. Apr 2022 · 22:46 UTC
I spent far too long looking for water before realizing I had to talk to the NPCs for it. Then I see in the description I just didn't read about it :laughing:

Fun game!
shadow64
07. Apr 2022 · 10:18 UTC
First I just want to say congratulations! If I'm reading this right, it was your first game! That's awesome! I think you did a nice job putting this together. The concept comes together well and some of the other commenters already made good points regarding possible changes. I agree that it did feel like the was an optimal path so it may make sense to time out the caves the way you time out the traders for a bit in order to force the player to explore a bit more. Looking forward to more LD's for you! :) Congrats on finishing and thanks again for playing and commenting on The Apocawiz!
TomatoOmelet
08. Apr 2022 · 02:10 UTC
Noice game, took me a while to figure out I need to get water form the people, lol. But protecting ice castle is an interesting idea and congratulations for finishing your first Ludum Dare!
Itskdog
10. Apr 2022 · 15:43 UTC
Good job with this. Maybe I should not have built a Snow castle in the desert! :)
Askoed
10. Apr 2022 · 15:44 UTC
Nice game! I really like the music!
DrumGadget_433
10. Apr 2022 · 16:00 UTC
Woah, congrats on your first Ludum Dare! This was a cute game, and a fitting concept for the theme. This type of task-management reminded me of games like Overcooked. The simple controls and set sequence of events to follow were a great foundation for this concept, I think! Could also make for an interesting cooperative game if you were to expand upon the concept.

I really enjoyed the music as well! Nice work :)
🎤 Noiyy
10. Apr 2022 · 16:25 UTC
@drumgadget-433 Thanks! ^^ I watched a gameplay of Overcooked, it looks really cool and fun! :open_mouth: I'll have to try that one with my friends :smile: I plan to add more stuff & polish this game later on, maybe even add co-op mode in the future, who knows :thinking: Could be interesting & a way to try developing a multiplayer game :smile:
Roolow
10. Apr 2022 · 23:39 UTC
Congrats on your first LD! The graphics are cute! It's fun to find the optimum route, and your mechnanics are sound, however once you've found the best route, it just becomes repetition, which isn't too bad to have but I would suggest something to mix it up and give the player more choice. An example that wouldn't require changing anything you have would be that caves are exhausted after you've used them and therefore to get the best score you must use all of the caves and in an effective order. Either way did enjoy my time with it. Good job!
TheBlitz
11. Apr 2022 · 08:25 UTC
Good effort and I think there's potential in the game (maybe different activities that keeps the castle alive). Also 80% of the map isn't used, so consider having longer cooldowns to encourage players to multitask. Keep up the good work!
![Screenshot 2022-04-11 at 4.19.07 PM.png](///raw/f67/e2/z/4dd78.png)
Gaming Night
11. Apr 2022 · 10:10 UTC
Nice take on the theme! And really cool game for a first LD! As said in the comment above, a lot of potential in this idea. Maybe some in-game instructions would have been nice (to understand that you have to talk to people to get water) Also, we are not really invited to get farther in the map, as every pond seems to give the same amount of ice. But this is just tuning!
🎤 Noiyy
11. Apr 2022 · 11:07 UTC
@roolow Thanks, I planned to make the caves also have cooldown, but time was running out :sweat_smile:
@theblitz @gaming-night Thanks! I definitely want to add more stuff and modify it, so that the whole map can be used and present more options for player :smile:
Aliiiii
11. Apr 2022 · 12:17 UTC
Cool ideal!
But I'm stuck:(
![1.png](///raw/37d/64/z/4dd9d.png)
TeamMonumental
11. Apr 2022 · 14:57 UTC
Very fitting to the theme! I enjoyed listening to the music. I agree with what some others have said about there being little reason to explore far into the map. Otherwise, good game!
DesertMaw
12. Apr 2022 · 12:12 UTC
I wasn't sure at first about putting the water in the cave, but on my second try I figured it out. Nice little entry
pollahard
12. Apr 2022 · 20:12 UTC
Good art and music!
Amerigo Gazaway
13. Apr 2022 · 20:14 UTC
Cool concept and very satisfying game loop, Pixel art and music are good too. Super impressive that this was made by a high school student, keep up the great work!
spadekHemoglobiny
14. Apr 2022 · 10:00 UTC
Nice simple game, just needs some polish. For example the ice timers would show up on the main map instead of just in the caves and the transition system from a cave to the main map is a bit buggy as well, sometimes it would play the transition in the wrong time
Sawyer
14. Apr 2022 · 21:24 UTC
Very cool game! The music is good and creates a nice mood, and the graphics are great!
PhyscoKillerMonkey
15. Apr 2022 · 17:40 UTC
Cool little game, I managed two days, the castle melts so quickly! Took me a little while to work out what I needed to do, but once I did it was a bit repetitive walking between one trader, one cave and the snowcastle. Would be good to see this developed further, good work!
PTSnoop
16. Apr 2022 · 14:54 UTC
I like the music - it does a good job of setting the tone for this game - but I was wondering if it'd make things even better if the music started building to something a bit more frenetic when the snowcastle's dangerously close to melting. (But having said that, maybe the rapidly-shrinking bar at the top of the screen makes things tense enough already? Either way, good game!)
kuviman
19. Apr 2022 · 11:00 UTC
ezpz

![Screenshot 2022-04-19 145943.png](///raw/7e3/32/z/4e2a9.png)
Hawkin
19. Apr 2022 · 23:59 UTC
I think you did a solid job implementing the systems! Everything worked, and I understood the game loop pretty quickly. The tough aspect of this theme is that the typical interpretation is "last as long as you can, eventually game over" (my game included!), which might feel like a loss. I don't have a recommendation on what you might have done differently. I think you did well! Keep at it!
Vanessa Wright
26. May 2022 · 19:59 UTC
Wow! Congrats to you! It's great that you have time for such cool projects as this game. Unfortunately, I spend most of my time studying, but I'm still thinking about developing something. I'm a medical student, so I guess you understand why things like that are in my life. Thanks to this source, my education goes faster because of many examples articles. I get information from there and do some supplements. I'll wait for your future projects. You are a cool guy!