Another blog post about a video game I made, entitled “Frosty’s Snowed Under!”. Should you wish to just play the game rather than read the story behind it please click here.
Recently, I got into making video games. A little hobby for something I wanted to take a bit seriously especially outside the cricket season. One such element I’ve enjoyed has been that game development, either because I’ve a 16 year development career behind me or there are tools out there that makes life a lot easier to put out games. The struggle I had with Blitz Basic at the turn of the millennium doesn’t seem to exist anymore, and I believe that anybody with some creative idea could put out something in one of these tools.
One such tool is the Pico 8. It is a fantasy console that imposes limitations on your coding (you can only have a certain number of “tokens” in each programme. For example: "if x==1 then print("Hello") end" counts as 8 tokens). But it includes a simple music player, graphics and map editor. This allows some pretty nifty games (of course somebody has ported Doom to it) and most games – from racing games to shooters – exist on the little console.
I was drawn to it after putting a few games on my Ambernic retro device, and after completing an excellent Metroidvania – UFO Swamp Odyssey – I wanted to have a go at making a game. I wanted to make a little game to play on my Anbernic – the thought of somebody curling up in the festive season with my game like a good book to while away the winter nights was rather romantic, and I thought that a little retro platformer may be perfect. With the time of the year it was, I began making a game from my childhood.
Frosty The Snowman
A game that had a special place for me in the Wynne household has been Frosty the Snowman. A festive game that usually came out of it’s sleeve in the festive season, Frosty the Snowman was on the covertape of the first edition of Commodore Power released in 1991. One of the staff writers – Richard Taylor – was an amateur game developer, and put it on the covertape. With a cracking remix of the Frosty the Snowman tune by Steve Barrett on the soundtrack, the game stuck with me for longer than it had any right to. I also have the original covertape still! There’s a bit more history to the game which you can read on the Retro Garden blog.
For my first Pico-8 game, I thought of remixing Frosty. With the tracker, map editor and sprite editor, I felt I could knock something together that looked similar to the 1991 original. After MonoScale, I wanted something relatively easy with the graphics. Thankfully with the 128×128 screen and a 16×16 sprites even I couldn’t mess up something that resembled a snowman!
I was happy with how it turned out. I removed a bunch of the unfair deaths and made it accessible for a modern audience, kept the scoring and introduced a timer and multiplier system. I wanted it to introduce an end game: have a timer and require Frosty to take shelter towards the end of the game, to avoid the ending of the most traumatic Christmas experience (the ending of The Snowman). Time and effort made it not so, but I kept it a high score push.
So far the feedback has been positive. With folks commenting it has replayability. I’m not sure where I’d go to improve it. It’s by no means the best games, but was built over 6 weeks and I’m happy for how it looked. It also was the first game I live-developed on Twitch.
Pico-8 Advent Calendar
I intended to release Frosty a Friday before Christmas, however I heard about the Pico-8 Advent Calendar Game Jam. I joined it to share my game. No doubt it gets more eyes on the game. It’s also been fun seeing some games being developed and helping out with them in real time, taking on a more supportive and critiquing role.
Anyway, at the time of publication there are a few more games due to be released in the calendar. I’d love you to check out the rest of the advent calendar, but if you just want to check out Frosty’s Snowed Under, then you can do at the link here:-
There is a download link so you can play it on devices like an Anbernic or RetroArch, which I’ve done below. You may need to update the Pico-8 version on your Retroarch to do so mind.
If you do like the game, please do share it or add it to your collection on itch.io.