[Project] Snow Cones - A Frozen Treat Dating Simulator
I'm very happy to finally share a project that Team Lazerbeam (@Jaysong, @merrik and I) have been working on in our free time over the past few months!
Presenting Snow Cones! A short story about two icecream cones, out on a date, in some perfectly snowy weather!
Team Lazerbeam started working on this project as an entry for Ludum Dare 32. That weekend proved to be a poor one for jamming, with everyone having a bunch of other commitments falling over the time. Despite trying to compensate by sleeping very little and spending any free moments jamming, we weren't at all happy with what we had by the end of the jam and did little to share or promote what we initially released. That said, the three of us were very excited about the foundations that we laid with the game. Between Jason's awesome acoustic guitar compositions, Richard's charming in-game animation and rad mechanics and the art style I adopted, and mostly the overall mood of the game, we felt like we were onto something that interesting mechanical approaches , and the art style I adopted, the heart of Snow Cones was something that made us very happy.
We've kept chipping away at the game, over nights and weekends since the jam, and while we still have a rather long list of things we'd like to do, we feel the game's at a stage where we can share it with the community.
Click here to play Snow Cones!
Controls: directional buttons and space bar
Plans for future updates:
Final date activity: the Frozen Lake. Roll around on a frozen lake! Avoid the penguins and try bump into your date!
Audio: More songs and sound effects!
Art: We wanna update some art; in particular, the assets of the "Ferris Wheel" and "Petting Zoo" scenes.
Game Design: This is a big one. Many scenes are pretty obtuse, and it's not clear what players should do. While we like the idea of using a simple set of controls and letting players figure out how they effect each scene, we feel the game could benefit greatly from some more clear indication of what the player's goal should be, In some cases, an establishing cutscene will help with this (in the bar scene, we plan on seeing your date ask for a milkshake, establishing a goal before you need to fight your way to the bar). In other places, this is more tricky; for example, on the Ferris Wheel, how do we show that you're trying to hold hands with your date?
We're looking forward to everyone's feedback and thoughts. We'd really appreciate some help in answering our questions about how to make the objective of each scene clearer. Past that, we'd just love to hear any other thoughts, suggestions or feelings after playing our little brain-baby!
Presenting Snow Cones! A short story about two icecream cones, out on a date, in some perfectly snowy weather!
Team Lazerbeam started working on this project as an entry for Ludum Dare 32. That weekend proved to be a poor one for jamming, with everyone having a bunch of other commitments falling over the time. Despite trying to compensate by sleeping very little and spending any free moments jamming, we weren't at all happy with what we had by the end of the jam and did little to share or promote what we initially released. That said, the three of us were very excited about the foundations that we laid with the game. Between Jason's awesome acoustic guitar compositions, Richard's charming in-game animation and rad mechanics and the art style I adopted, and mostly the overall mood of the game, we felt like we were onto something that interesting mechanical approaches , and the art style I adopted, the heart of Snow Cones was something that made us very happy.
We've kept chipping away at the game, over nights and weekends since the jam, and while we still have a rather long list of things we'd like to do, we feel the game's at a stage where we can share it with the community.
Click here to play Snow Cones!
Controls: directional buttons and space bar
Plans for future updates:
Final date activity: the Frozen Lake. Roll around on a frozen lake! Avoid the penguins and try bump into your date!
Audio: More songs and sound effects!
Art: We wanna update some art; in particular, the assets of the "Ferris Wheel" and "Petting Zoo" scenes.
Game Design: This is a big one. Many scenes are pretty obtuse, and it's not clear what players should do. While we like the idea of using a simple set of controls and letting players figure out how they effect each scene, we feel the game could benefit greatly from some more clear indication of what the player's goal should be, In some cases, an establishing cutscene will help with this (in the bar scene, we plan on seeing your date ask for a milkshake, establishing a goal before you need to fight your way to the bar). In other places, this is more tricky; for example, on the Ferris Wheel, how do we show that you're trying to hold hands with your date?
We're looking forward to everyone's feedback and thoughts. We'd really appreciate some help in answering our questions about how to make the objective of each scene clearer. Past that, we'd just love to hear any other thoughts, suggestions or feelings after playing our little brain-baby!
Comments
<3
I love the date activities and accomplishing them. Their obscurities, is fine I think because it's almost as if you're solving a little puzzle. Which could be like a date with a bit of awkwardness in what to do. Like the feeding at the petting zoo, I just kinda stumbled upon the grass that you need to feed. A small sign with "food" or "don't over feed the animals" to kinda direct the players a bit if you want to help the player out.
What about different things to do on the date? Quick thought was being able to put your arm around your date on the ferris wheel? That's what I felt like I'd naturally do. So, the ferris wheel date could be either hold hands, put your arm around your date or you could move your arm and you're pointing at a view?
Or have a movie date where you do the cliche thing and put your arm around your date.
I think you guys have brilliant characters that can easily be gender neutral but the colors automatically suggest you're playing the boy. That could be one way of making the gender neutrality even better. Which I think would be a fresh way of not explicitly asking the player to choose a gender but just naturally feels they aren't being put in someone else's shoes. You could also have in the dressing up scene you pick your main flavour ('what's your flavour?") So many connotations :)
I really enjoyed the experience especially the fact that there
Ideas:
Maybe we can all tell you about embarrassing or wonderful date experiences which you can add as funny story based game levels, if you need content ideas. I can see this get as popular as "Dumb ways to die" games.
Love the sense of story telling! Want more mechanics.
Petting is scene is weird lol
When using space as action key, it usually can also be jump, so some scenes not obvious that up is jump and you may miss it.
Could have easily been just an animation video, for same amount of entertainment.