We've been brainstorming for quite a while, trying to dig out an idea that doesn't feel too obvious. The lighthouse has disappeared. Space too. But something much more promising has appeared — ICE SHAMANIC DRUMS!

(Art by @saitoni & @venomousmouse)

Drums, walrus rockers and rave Gods! It was you who received the signal from above. It's up to you to prove that you are the best drumming shaman in the world. Conquer the musical Olympus with your rhythm!

After finishing work on the game (by the way, here’s the link: https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/59/drumnice), I started wondering how realistic any of it actually was. The Penguin God is obviously real, and the walrus rockers are clearly beyond suspicion - but what about an open conflict between the two?

The good news for the planet is that a penguin-walrus war is almost impossible.

Why? Because penguins mostly live in the south, while walruses live in the north. In other words, nature looked at this potentially awkward encounter and basically said, “Nope, let’s not do that.”

Penguins are organized, perpetually serious birds in tuxedos who always look like they’re either heading to an important business meeting or about to settle a score.

Walruses are enormous, mustached ice uncles with tusks who somehow give off the impression that they’ve already won just by showing up.

But if we imagine that they did somehow meet, the possible scenarios might look like this:

Scenario 1: Diplomacy

• The penguins arrive in a tight formation, discuss something at length, and stare disapprovingly.
• The walrus looks at them, snorts, and falls asleep.

Conflict over. Nobody is quite sure whether there even was one.

Scenario 2: Psychological Warfare

• The penguins pretend there are far more of them than there actually are, and that they are fully in control.
• The walruses pretend they couldn’t care less.

Victory goes to whoever can stand on the ice the longest while maintaining the most serious expression.

Scenario 3: Battle in the Water

Now this is where things get interesting. Penguins are extremely fast and agile in the water. They’re basically torpedoes with wings. Walruses, on the other hand, bring blubber, tusks, and a lifetime of experience in icy seas. In other words, penguins would be highly maneuverable, while walruses would be formidable in every possible sense.

Conclusion

In real life, they’ve chosen the wiser strategy: stay far away from each other and avoid starting unnecessary trouble.

Thanks for joining me on this little investigation! Have some great games! :)

So, we received a lot of important and fair feedback about our project. We carefully went through it all and decided to make several major improvements that, in our opinion, make the gameplay much better.

If you wanted to try the game but something stopped you, or if you could not get it running the first time — now is a great moment to give it another shot. The new build is already available on itch.io — [https://venomousmouse.itch.io/drum-n-ice-postjamupdate].

CHANGELOG

Important

• TUTORIAL! Now you do not have to guess how to play our game anymore :D
• INPUT SETTINGS! If you wanted to play with WASD or on an AZERTY keyboard — you are very welcome to try again.
• UPDATED THE RHYTHM ENGINE. The game should now feel smoother, more accurate, and more responsive.

Other changes

• SPELLBOOK. You no longer start with 4 identical spells. Now you begin with 2 and build up your spellbook as you progress.
• BALANCE. Damage, enemies, and the shop have all been rebalanced.
• ENEMIES. They now have health bars, move more rhythmically, and also make sounds when preparing spells.
• SOUND. We fixed a number of sound issues and small audio bugs.

We tried to quickly fix everything that was genuinely hurting the gameplay experience. Thanks again to everyone who has already played the game and shared feedback — it really helped us a lot.

You can also check out the current gameplay here:

Gameplay