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KickStarter ICY: Frostbite Edition

OwNathan

Innervoid Interactive
Developer
Joined
Nov 11, 2013
Messages
210
Yup! Apparently there was a really good yes/no ratio!
 

daveyd

Savant
Joined
Jun 10, 2013
Messages
287
Congratulations OwNathan and Innervoid! Hope it comes to GOG as well.

Greenlight page says release is July '17 is that accurate?
 
Last edited by a moderator:

OwNathan

Innervoid Interactive
Developer
Joined
Nov 11, 2013
Messages
210
May be earlier, next week we'll finalize everything, then do the final polishing/balance.
So I'd say we're not going to miss July, no more delays.
 

J_C

One Bit Studio
Patron
Developer
Joined
Dec 28, 2010
Messages
16,947
Location
Pannonia
Project: Eternity Wasteland 2 Shadorwun: Hong Kong Divinity: Original Sin 2 Steve gets a Kidney but I don't even get a tag. Pathfinder: Wrath
May be earlier, next week we'll finalize everything, then do the final polishing/balance.
So I'd say we're not going to miss July, no more delays.
How can those claim the new edition who backed the original campaign?
 

OwNathan

Innervoid Interactive
Developer
Joined
Nov 11, 2013
Messages
210
Could you showcase the new combat in a screenshot ord a vid?
Sure. Tomorrow I'll prepare some stuff to post here!

How can those claim the new edition who backed the original campaign?
All Steam users will automatically receive the new edition, either via an upgrade of the old ICY or another game in the library. Also backers will be able to contact us to receive GOG keys if we get accepted on GOG. We'll easily sort it out, once we'll be done we'll directly contact all people.
 

OwNathan

Innervoid Interactive
Developer
Joined
Nov 11, 2013
Messages
210
So, here are some details.

This is how the new Combat System appears now:

ED314D661F8DAB7AA9D418F2369C474FC353E9E2

In the old ICY there was some sort of COYA engine to manage fights, now it is completely different. We have Health and Morale, for both allies and enemies, a lot of strange symbols, the four combat-related items buttons on the left and a clear "end turn" button on the right.

So, fights are now turn based, each turn the player or the AI get 12 different actions, such actions can be combined into abilities. "Snipe Arrow" is a temporary name for a combo made with a Snipe Action and a Arrow Action. In this case the Abiity inflicts 120 damages to opponent's health and 32 to their morale. Once a side health reaches zero, that side has lost. Morale, on the other side, affects damage done and received, so it's important to keep a high morale to maximize the damage output.

Where do those Actions come from? Here is the new Inventory System:
4B37C3ADE98D5A1747895652AF7CFC93E287629A

Now the player is finally able to outfit the whole group and, as you can see, equipped items define the Actions in the party pool. In this case equipping an Assault Rifle would grant two Silver tier Bullet Actions. A character can gain Actions equipping weapons and armors, but also leveling up some skills (especially the PC can get a lot of Actions with skills).

The Tier (Bronze, Silver, Gold) does not affect how Abilities can be made, but higher tier Actions simply improve the overall effects of an Ability.

But what are those "exclamation mark" Actions? Penalty Actions. The less a character is skilled in the use of a certain weapon, the more penalties will be added to the party pool. At skill level 0, 5 Penalties will be added. At skill level 5, no penalties are added. Penalties are useless and the more penalties there are in the pool, the less good Actions the player or the AI will draw.

Abilities don't simply damages morale and HP, they can also heal a party and restore the morale. Firearms based Abilities consume bullets. Those item buttons on the left allow the player to use up to one item for each turn, immediately unlocking one or more additional Actions.

This kind of combat system should involve more tactics and most of all be much more rewarding. Having a complex Combat System improves pretty much everything: it makes sense to equip the whole party, it make sense to craft items, it make sense to scavenge and hunt to gain crafting components and valuables.

It is not XCOM, it is not Original Sin, but it is finally something nice and well-connected with the rest of the game. It gives a meaning to every other mechanic.
 

OwNathan

Innervoid Interactive
Developer
Joined
Nov 11, 2013
Messages
210
at first i was
:neveraskedforthis:
and then i was
:desu:

Sadly we had some HUGE design limitations when trying to create a new Combat, like the fact that you always bring your whole party with you or the fact that we couldn't afford new assets for ICY, but this should be a good way to entertain for some hours and give some meat to a game that was 90% dialogues.
 

daveyd

Savant
Joined
Jun 10, 2013
Messages
287
Latest comment from InnerVoid on the GL page:

Jun 13 @ 5:02am
Every feature is in place and most bugs got already removed, we're focusing now on balancing the fights, the three different difficulties and on removing the last minor issues. All major bugs we found are gone, most minor bugs got fixed too, but we found several things that could really use some care and love.

We're definitely in the final phase of the process, but we won't rush the release this time. When we originally released ICY there were several pressures from different sources and the final result was buggy. We'll take the time we need to deliver the best game we can.

Also we're nearly done so it won't take more than a month to finish, pack everything and have it released.
:bounce:
 

OwNathan

Innervoid Interactive
Developer
Joined
Nov 11, 2013
Messages
210
This time the release date is certain. Actually, we only need to tune a little the balance of the game and finalize some stuff related to the italian localization.

Here's an extensive (and WIP) changelog:


TL, DR list of changes
· We built a new game on the original idea.

Dialogues and Script
· Restored some minor contents in the Prologue/Tutorial.

· Slightly fixed some dialogues during the tutorial to make everything smoother.

· Added more personal dialogues to all companions, making them react to what happens in the game.

· April and Carlos will properly react to a certain event regarding a tree.

· Also, that even makes now much more sense and it’s heavily dependent on player’s choices in the early game.

· Janeve is now appearing in the early game as companion, making her more important and making the whole White People matter more interesting.

· Janeve has also a quest in the early game, completing the quest will allow the player to take her into the party.

· Added more lines to all companions, especially the more silent ones, to properly flesh them out.

· Cut some info dumping here and there, to make dialogues smoother.

· Mobolaji recruitment event is now more consistent and well-shaped.

· Fixed some bugged conditions preventing the player to access to some minor paths and choices.

· Added sounds across all dialogues.

· Cut the “Memento” quest from the game and added a new, longer and more interesting one in its place.

· Added two new late game quests given by Vernon.

· Fixed the “Laboratory” quest bugged dialogue options.

· Improved the ending to be more detailed and rewarding, with a unique UI.

· Improved the White People Ending with more contents.

Scavenging, Hunting and Inventory
· Completely overhauled the system, now scavenging and hunting will be much more consistent and give proper feedbacks to the player.

· Added more events and more variety to existing events.

· Added more risk events and improved their functioning.

· While scavenging and hunting is now possible to trigger fights, if the risk is high enough.

· Improved the loot system that will offer more consistent rewards.

· Improved the events to be more consistent with what the player is actually doing.

· A new crafting system will allow the player to combine items in order to create new ones, improve old ones or assemble consumables.

· The crafting system work in conjunction with schematics allowing the player to learn new crafting recipes and use them to build unique items.

· The inventory was completely overhauled and it’s now possible to equip all companions. Also the Inventory has more functionalities and works better.

· Added more than 40 new items to the game, including several weapons and armors that can be crafted by the player and upgraded across the whole game.

Travelling, surviving and exploring
· Completely overhauled the system, now the player will be able to travel between nodes, with each node hiding several places in which to scavenge and hunt.

· Removed the camping system and the fuel resource that were not a good addition to the game in its current state.

· Exploring new areas is now much more rewarding in terms of loot and it’s easier to calculate routes and avoid being out of food for no reason.

· Overhauled the healing system to be more consistent. It will also be possible to heal companions more easily without having to navigate through sloppy menus.

Combat System
· Created a brand new combat system from scratch. This new combat system is turn based, with a turn for each side. At the beginning of the turn 12 Actions are casually drawn from the party’s or the opponents’ action pool, then the player or the AI will be able to combine them into Moves and use such moves.

· The new combat system allows the player to fight against any sort of human opponent, but will offer fights against beasts too. Beasts and humans will behave differently.

· It will be possible to use items in combat, like grenades.

· Fights will be more rewarding and will actually involve strategy.

· All companions’ stats and equipment will affect the party’s Actions pool.

Technical Improvements
· Performances are dramatically improved: the game requires less RAM to operate, will load faster and occupy less space on the hard drive.

· All UI was redesigned to improve appearance, performances and usability.

· UIs are now fully compatible with all screen resolutions.

· The options menu offers more options to choose.

· Added several graphical effects to the game to make everything better looking and animated.
 

OwNathan

Innervoid Interactive
Developer
Joined
Nov 11, 2013
Messages
210
Looking forward to it. Any word on the GOG release?
We'll work on it asap, but we know nothing about it for now. Sadly, Inner Void doesn't hold the distribution rights, so we may find our hands tied.
 

YES!

Hi, I'm Roqua
Dumbfuck
Joined
Feb 26, 2017
Messages
2,088
We thought the publisher could manage to go to some Steam guy and do the same thing that was done for games like Deus Ex: Human Revolution or Kingdoms. Apparently we were wrong and to release it as a different game (and have some exposure) we need to go on Greenlight again.
But the good news is that we're nearly done, we're satisfied with the many changes and it will still be free for previous owners! We should be fine, at least it's a good chance to find some more buyers.

The worst part is how the stress of the GL campaign can affect my crappy, crohn diseased intestine. I guess it's diarrhea time, again. (Yeah, thanks Nathan for the unnecessary info!)

I'm not happy to here about the card game combat. I am not very familiar with TCG but I know kids love it so it is too simplistic for any adult challenge or enjoyment. I did enjoy your original game and will try this with an open mind. A

Also, have you thought about some sort of upgrade sale or dlc, some way for customers getting this for free to throw you some cash? One game had a "buy us coffee" dlc. I'm sure I'm not the only one who'd throw you guys some cash for a "support the devs" dlc, maybe like a very low powered or aesthetic only item.
 

OwNathan

Innervoid Interactive
Developer
Joined
Nov 11, 2013
Messages
210
We thought the publisher could manage to go to some Steam guy and do the same thing that was done for games like Deus Ex: Human Revolution or Kingdoms. Apparently we were wrong and to release it as a different game (and have some exposure) we need to go on Greenlight again.
But the good news is that we're nearly done, we're satisfied with the many changes and it will still be free for previous owners! We should be fine, at least it's a good chance to find some more buyers.

The worst part is how the stress of the GL campaign can affect my crappy, crohn diseased intestine. I guess it's diarrhea time, again. (Yeah, thanks Nathan for the unnecessary info!)

I'm not happy to here about the card game combat. I am not very familiar with TCG but I know kids love it so it is too simplistic for any adult challenge or enjoyment. I did enjoy your original game and will try this with an open mind. A

Also, have you thought about some sort of upgrade sale or dlc, some way for customers getting this for free to throw you some cash? One game had a "buy us coffee" dlc. I'm sure I'm not the only one who'd throw you guys some cash for a "support the devs" dlc, maybe like a very low powered or aesthetic only item.
Some TCG games are quite complex, to be honest, but in this case we have something more like a peculiar mix. I have described how it works in this page. While definitely not the deepest combat system in the world, it is actually fun and interesting to play with a reward a tactical approach.

About the other issue: we'll probably release some sort of Deluxe Edition with a lot of stuff in it, like the soundtrack, all artworks, and a few more extras!
 

OwNathan

Innervoid Interactive
Developer
Joined
Nov 11, 2013
Messages
210
The Frostbite Edition is now in the Steam library of all previous owners of ICY, it will unlock on 11th of August. We also sent the build to GoG, let's see what happens. We'd really like to see our game on GoG.

We're satisfied with the result and we also managed to squeeze some more improvements into the game. For example, the combat system now support buffs and debuffs, allowing for a wider tactical choice. We also rebalanced the whole experience to be more survival and less "LET'S SCAVENGE AND HUNT EVERYWHERE WITHOUT CONSEQUENCES!", but we didn't turn the game into an annoying experience in which the player has to constantly worry about survival and can't really enjoy the plot. At least not at the standard difficulty.

For people willing to enjoy a more relaxed experience, we made a story difficulty. For the ones willing to suffer, we have a nice hardcore difficulty.

I'm really looking forward to hear what you people think about the game. While we couldn't redo everything, I think we did a good job and laid the foundation for future RPGs.
 

OwNathan

Innervoid Interactive
Developer
Joined
Nov 11, 2013
Messages
210
Sounds like just the thing that's needed today in this african heatwave.
We're enjoying some incredible 25 degrees here in Rome but sadly is going to end soon.
The same day ICY was released...Coincidences?
 

Dickie

Arcane
Patron
Joined
Jul 29, 2011
Messages
4,235
Steve gets a Kidney but I don't even get a tag.
I bought the game a few days ago to check it out, after thinking the demo seemed OK for about an hour. Huge mistake. Not sure what I was thinking. After playing for a while (2-3 hours), I find the whole thing so tedious to play that I think I'm done with it. The UI seems like it was designed for mobile devices, which is a design decision that always grinds my gears.

None of the normal hotkeys you'd expect in games are there, like Esc key bringing up the game menu so you can get the fuck out of this miserable experience. You have to click the map and drag it with the right mouse button to pan around and can't even do it by pushing the edge of the screen with the mouse. It took me a while just to figure out I could even pan the map. I tried arrow keys, moving the mouse cursor to the edge of the screen, dragging with the left mouse button, and WASD to no effect and concluded the map couldn't be panned. Possibly I missed it in the tutorial or there is a manual I didn't see.

Maybe it's my fault for playing on the middle difficulty, instead of the top one, but resources are unlimited. Low on food? Just go to any nearby forest node and hunt at one of the respawning hunting spots until you have 20-30 food and don't worry about it again for a while. The only thing that limits your money and food is how much patience you have for clicking through the same three events and moving back to town to sell whatever you found when scavenging the respawning scavenge locations.

I never played the original version but I just skimmed through the Codex review, and it seems like the game is pretty much the same. You go through events where your decisions don't really matter and slog through the same combats over and over. The individual battles can take a long time, too. Your most damaging attack might do 80 damage if you're lucky but the enemy group might have 600-900 HP. Every time the enemy would hit my group's morale (affects your damage output), my real-life morale would drop because I knew that was gonna drag this battle out even longer.

The combat system is pretty neat and is similar to the one in The Curious Expedition with randomly grabbed tokens instead of dice, but it's even more abstracted as it adds your whole group together as one entity. This means you can't see where individual tokens are coming from or maybe take out a dangerous opponent with some tokens that are messing you up. I just wish the combats didn't drag on so long, especially since combat is so frequent.

The writing is OK. It seems like writing done by a programmer instead of a writer. Some phrasing is awkward at times, and I did notice some spelling errors, but there were a few neat events I saw.

All in all, this is more of an interactive novel for tablets than a survival game. I made different decisions in events between the demo and the real version, but the outcomes were the same, so it's not even a choose your own adventure. The Codex review of the original said your choices near the end affect your ending, but I didn't get that far to verify.

Summary: 3/10
  • Bad UI
  • Decisions don't seem to matter in events
  • Resources too plentiful (infinite) for a survival game
  • Combat system is decent, but battles take too long and/or are too frequent
  • Writing is pretty bland, but there were a few neat things that happened
If you like survival games where your choices don't matter and resources are unlimited, be sure to check this one out!
 

thesheeep

Arcane
Patron
Joined
Mar 16, 2007
Messages
9,939
Location
Tampere, Finland
Codex 2012 Strap Yourselves In Codex Year of the Donut Codex+ Now Streaming! Serpent in the Staglands Dead State Divinity: Original Sin Torment: Tides of Numenera Codex USB, 2014 Shadorwun: Hong Kong Divinity: Original Sin 2 BattleTech Bubbles In Memoria A Beautifully Desolate Campaign Pillars of Eternity 2: Deadfire Pathfinder: Kingmaker Steve gets a Kidney but I don't even get a tag. Pathfinder: Wrath I'm very into cock and ball torture I helped put crap in Monomyth
While I agree with many of Dickie 's points, I cannot agree that it is all so bad.

Especially in the UI & accessibility features (like hotkeys) department, the game has numerous shortcomings - some - like ESC not opening the menu - are especially baffling and make you wonder indeed how such an oversight can happen.

Also, yes, it does seem that resources are unlimited. I think once in the beginning I was low on healing items, but that was about it. The biggest problem here is that locations can just be looted multiple times after going somewhere else for a while - that timer should be much higher or the "respawn" removed completely in favor of something else to keep you somewhat fed.
However, this is more of an interactive novel game and not a survival game similar to Don't Starve, Zomboid, or whatever. So I really don't think it matters that much.
Gathering resources is still important as it is the only way to get good gear which is very much required for later encounters.

I saw decisions matter quite a bit throughout the game. Not as much as in AoD for sure, but still there were many events that were clearly influenced by what I had decided before. Though I wish you could lock yourself out of ending decisions. As it is, you can basically save before the end, and then just reload to decide on the different endings, but maybe there are even more endings and I did lock myself out. :lol:
The game doesn't really track your alignment or anything, so I don't quite know how such a lock could be done here.

I really can't agree that combat takes too long. All but the toughest fights were over for me in about 10-15 rounds. Which seems pretty quick for a turn-based game, actually. And the enemy turn can be sped up a lot, too.

The writing is not top tier, but clearly above average. And thankfully doesn't try to be especially gritty or humorous.
 

OwNathan

Innervoid Interactive
Developer
Joined
Nov 11, 2013
Messages
210
We are already working on some issues, like a different way to pan the map or adding more keys to navigate the UI.

Sadly, while we noticed many issues in the first place, the development of this remastered edition has not been easy, not at all. I can't discuss most of the issues freely, let's just say we had lot of different limitations and issues coming from the original script. While this doesn't justify the game's most lacking aspects, it can explain them. Also, since we couldn't afford things like doubling the artworks or rewriting the whole plot, we put our efforts in improving what we could. For example, the original ICY had no crafting, then we added a really simple crafting, but we felt that it was lacking. So we implemented recipes and schematics, to increase its depth.

I'll speak honestly just like I always tried to do on this forum: ICY is not a masterpiece. But, unlike the original edition, this remastered is not bad, not at all. It is not something I am ashamed of. While I can agree on many things with you, Dickie, I feel like you either judged the game a little too harshly or you expected something different. But I appreciate the extensive feedback because it helps me to better understand what we did , something quite hard from my perspective. And you gave me a couple ideas that will definitely improve the game.

We're working on several updates and we will definitely address some of the issues you found, I will notify when things like the terribly fast respawn of places or the lack of hotkeys will be fixed, hoping that you will spend some more hours in it to see the actual ending, in which there are many more choices compared to the early game.

Also, being the writer, I'd be really interested in having detailed feedbacks on the actual writing, especially regarding the new contents!
 

Dickie

Arcane
Patron
Joined
Jul 29, 2011
Messages
4,235
Steve gets a Kidney but I don't even get a tag.
I saw decisions matter quite a bit throughout the game...there were many events that were clearly influenced by what I had decided before.
Do you mean decisions in one encounter affected things in future encounters? I didn't play far enough in both games to check this out. I just meant that selecting different things within an encounter didn't seem to make any difference. I didn't go back and replay and check every decision, but the ones I checked changed nothing.

I really can't agree that combat takes too long. All but the toughest fights were over for me in about 10-15 rounds. Which seems pretty quick for a turn-based game, actually. And the enemy turn can be sped up a lot, too.
Combat was pretty fast in the beginning against dogs and mutants, but once I got to fighting humans, it slowed to a crawl. Maybe I was just bad at combat or didn't have good enough equipment (mostly sniper rifles, assault rifles, and body armor that added a wall and a maneuver token), but I'd do like 100 damage on the first round of combat then the enemy would lower my morale to 0 (they'd lower it by over 100 each turn to be sure it was 0) and throw up shields every round, reducing my damage to about 20-40/turn, making it take forever. Even on turns where I pulled some morale tokens, I could maybe get it back to 50 for a turn to have it drop down to 0 on the enemy's next turn.

Is it maybe faster if I don't give my guys any armor, so they aren't filling 1/3 of token pulls with defensive stuff? Maybe I need to use more grenades? I don't spend a lot of time scavenging because it's too repetitive, so I have only used a few grenades, but they didn't seem to do a whole lot, since I couldn't find much to combo them with to do big damage.
While I can agree on many things with you, Dickie, I feel like you either judged the game a little too harshly or you expected something different.
It is definitely the case that I expected something different, somehow, even after playing the demo. I think I mainly expected decisions in dialogues to matter more than they do. I was kind of judging the game based on it being "a narrative-driven post-apocalyptic survival RPG," rather than an interactive novel, and that was totally my fault. When I played the demo, I thought all the choices I was making were life and death, but choosing different options only seemed to really change the very next line of dialogue before things got back on the rails. I also didn't realize that the loot locations were respawning when I played the demo.

Oh, and I forgot to mention before that I like the art style, except for Demetra's portrait, so that's another positive.

Like I said, there are things I liked. I liked the event in the glass building with the giant thing that I won't spoil for anyone who hasn't played the game. I also liked the church where you go for the holy relics and the part where I was able to dress up like a monster. The story is all fine, too. I just find the UI so frustrating and the overall gameplay isn't my cup of tea, since I would like a "survival RPG" to involve difficult choices with trade-offs.
 

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