SNoWay by skale
❄️ About the Game
SNoWay is a fast-paced (not really) winter defense game
You play as a living snowball, rolling around and collecting snow to grow bigger and stronger.
Your mission: protect the snowman from waves of attacking candles(cubes yet) that are trying to melt him down.
Every bit of snow you gather increases your size — and your strength.
But beware: the bigger you are, the harder it is to maneuver.
Collect snow, build momentum, and use your snowballs wisely — they can destroy enemies or heal your fragile snowman.
How long can you keep him safe before he melts away?
Developer Notes
- Builds:
- The Post-jam version (SNoWayWindows_v1.1) is available with minor values tweaks and balance adjustments.
- The original SNoWayWindows build remains below for judging purposes.
- Gameplay:
- Target lock on does not predict enemy movement, but you can still shoot ahead of enemy manually.
- If the game is too easy - just keep playing. If you get bored or don't want to wait, you can intentionally lose to check out the snowman melting mechanic and game over screen.
- The camera spin has no gameplay purpose — it’s just cool. Try it out!
🎮 Gameplay Features
- Grow by Collecting Snow — Roll across the field to gather snow and increase your mass.
- Defend the Snowman — Stop waves of candle enemies from reaching him.
- Throw Snowballs — Launch snowballs to destroy candles or heal your snowman.
- Endless Defense Mode — Survive as long as possible — every second counts.
- Typo on the game over screen - Unbelievable...
🖼️ Showcase
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⌨️ Controls
| Action | Key | |--------|-----| | Move | Move your mouse — the snowball follows | | Stop Moving | Right Mouse Button | | Throw Snowball | Left Mouse Button | | Rotate Camera | Q / E |
🛠️ Post-jam changes Log
- SNoWayWindows_v1.1 - Tweaked gameplay values for balance, disabled mouse cursor
🛠️ Development Info
- Engine: Unity
- Additional tools: Blender, Photoshop, Audacity
- *Roles: *
- Design, Code, Art, SFX: Viktor Pariienko (@skale)
- *Note: * Unfortunately, I made a tessellation shader that isn't supported by WebGL, so only Windows build available
| SourceCode | https://github.com/SkaLe3/SNoWay |
| Original URL | https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/58/snoway |
Ratings
| Overall | 376th | 3.533⭐ | 47🧑⚖️ |
| Fun | 331th | 3.443⭐ | 46🧑⚖️ |
| Innovation | 163th | 3.651⭐ | 45🧑⚖️ |
| Theme | 543th | 3.409⭐ | 46🧑⚖️ |
| Graphics | 383th | 3.682⭐ | 46🧑⚖️ |
| Audio | 400th | 3.107⭐ | 44🧑⚖️ |
| Humor | 443th | 2.863⭐ | 42🧑⚖️ |
| Mood | 458th | 3.452⭐ | 44🧑⚖️ |
| Given | 51🗳️ | 69🗨️ |
Personally, I missed the ability to move with the WASD and shoot with the mouse simultaneously. Overall, great work!
it's a cool game, but I would increase the ball's size and make it so that throwing snowballs reduces its mass more effectively. Ideally, I would also add the ability to crush enemies
Nice proof of concept, I can see this being iterated on with upgrades and maybe different levels & enemy types. Great effort for the jam!
(A small suggestion: maybe consider adding an upgrade option that consumes the big snowman's health, which could give more meaning to shooting snowmen to restore health. Of course, I understand time was tight...) Love your game!
Having the mouse control and aim added a nice challenge. And I love that I could heal and attack with the same ability.
Was I getting smaller when firing snowballs, or no?
I think that would be a really cool challenge - where my 'size' is my 'ammo'. Would be interesting to see the shots more impactful in that way - make enemies die in 2 shots, but you shrink dramatically with every snowball launched. That way, you have to aim well and collect snow often.
Excellent work with this, very smooth playing experience.
One of my ideas for expanding the game is to add upgrades that increase projectile size
I like the concept of your snowball being your ammo although I think it needs a little tweaking because right now I could just spam snowballs with no noticeable decrease in snowball size.
The sound effects are good however they got a bit tiring after a while due to hearing them continuously, I think it would help to randomize the pitch a little bit each time to have a bit of variation.
The "target lock on" felt like it was going against me because if the enemies were on the move and I shot were the lock on suggests, I would miss the target 100% of the time, I think it would help to either have it predict the movement and shoot accordingly or not have it at all.
Overall: Great work with good graphics, physics and mechanics and with a bit of polish it could be really great.
The camera felt a little bit too zoomed in, I didn't see the full picture of enemies coming towards the snowman. Also, it would be very cool if colliding with an enemy at high speed had some cool effect: dealing damage, or pushing them away. Still, a very enjoyable game!
But current game loop is completely detached from the theme. Also snapping cursor to enemy works fine with static enemies, but guaranties missed shots on moving enemies (you can't shoot ahead of enemies to land shots in time).
But overall fun concept that needs more polish. Good job!
But I would make the controls more responsive and the ball's movement faster. Overall, I had trouble loading the game on PortProton, which might be why the ball moved so slowly.
Overall, I really liked the game! Good luck with its future development :)
By the way, if you're looking for a slightly more quirky atmosphere, you can check out our game too 🤪
Not sure if anyone else had this issue, but I had some pretty bad stuttering. I think it had to do with the snowball growing / eating snow mechanic.
Great work!