Hey hey,
Johan and Anders here. We got a bunch of questions from the Icy Tower community a while back and wanted to answer those as well as shed some light on where we are in the development.
Wait a minute though, we just crossed 20 000 wishlists! Thank you so much for the support and keep spreading the news about the game. ❤️
Okay, let's revisit the vision we have for this game. We're basing the gameplay and mechanics on the original Icy Tower that came out in 2001. It is the version of the game we like the most ourselves. The new version aims to have the same feel and physics to deliver that edge-of-the-seat excitement as well as the frustration when losing a big combo and wanting to smash your keyboard into bits. We're not big fans of meta game progression so we're staying away from coins and collectibles. The game should be played because it is fun in itself, not for being a checkbox exercise.
All graphics are remade from scratch in high quality and glorious low resolution by some of the best pixel artists in the business. It is looking fabulous!
On the audio side we're re-recording the original sound effects, keeping the style of the original sounds, but we're also adding a lot of new sounds for a much more immersive experience. When it comes to music, we're re-recording the original songs and adding more music, recorded with live musicians in studio quality. The game will sound as great as a modern game deserves.
Tech-wise, the game will run at a fixed 60fps timestep. The game should run without issues on most hardware, but will drop down to 30 FPS if needed. The main reason we're not supporting higher FPS is that going that route will likely require a non-fixed timestep which in turn would make replay a lot more complex to handle. Since the vast majority of Icy Tower players are likely to enjoy 60FPS as much as any higher rate, this feels like a good tradeoff.
There's been a few questions about how the Facebook version of Icy Tower relates to this new version and what features that might be brought over. In short, we're sticking to the original Icy Tower, but that doesn't mean we wont cherry pick a few favourites more. For instance, we're not looking to do a map with different towers, instead we're focusing on a single tower just like the original but that doesn't mean we wont change things around sometimes even if the core experience will be playing in the classic tower.
Right now we are in the final stages of making a version of the game that has all the parts required for it to be a proper Icy Tower game. Graphics, Steam integration, physics, sound and music, scoring, leaderboards, the lot.
Let's look at some of the stuff we know the game will have:
Classic Icy Tower gameplay - just the way you like it.
Tower themes - where the original Icy Tower had new floors every 100 floors, this new version will not only have new floors, but new walls and backgrounds as well.
Characters - we're adding some new friends to Harold and Dave.
Kickback - make combos to earn a chance to continue climbing the tower.
Leaderboards - both global and local. Fully integrated with Steam.
Achievements - we will have them! Fully integrated with Steam.
The idea is that once we've locked down this foundation, we'll be able to see how much time we have left until release and decide which features we want to add for the launch. We want to make sure the first version feels great in terms of features and polish, and rather add more new things post release.
Some of the features we are looking at adding (either before or after launch) include (but are not limited to):
Multiplayer - there are a few options here and we're looking at real time as well as turn based.
Daily challenge - identical towers for everyone who plays, might also include some changes to physics and other gameplay rules.
Custom gameplay - adjust the game's parameters and decide yourself how easy or difficult the game should be.
Replay sharing - share replays of your best runs with your friends for bragging rights.
Mod support - custom characters were a massive thing with the original. Let's bring it back.
We'd also love to hear from the community what you'd like to see in the game. Even if our own ideas for the game is pretty strong, we're always open feedback!
Overall, we hope the game will be successful enough so that we can keep adding features post release, the same way both the original Icy Tower and the Facebook version did. As the community grows we are confident we can find the bast way forward together!
/Johan & Anders