Freeze It

 A game for the lighting game jam with the theme of freezing

Post Jam Thoughts

It's been a while since I submitted anything to a game jam so I had to say I was satisfied with my entry in that regard. But the key is that I was solely satisfied in that regard. 

Many of the changes that I made and added with this post jam updates were changes that I felt I could have easily made during the jam's submission period had I known what I wanted to do from the start and worked properly towards it. Nevertheless, I didn't and the result was that my submission fell short of what I considered acceptable. They are here now I guess and I hope they paint a better picture of what I was hoping to create than the previous iteration. All these changes and future changes are all listed below.

Patch Notes for Post Jam Update

General Changes

• New Mechanic, gates can now be blocked by frozen objects.
• New ice cube types, deep and light, with freeze duration of 3 and 7 respectively.
• Regular ice cube now freezes for 7 seconds (Was 5 seconds)
  • Deep ice shares this duration but trust me it is different ;).
• New Freeze Blaster that shoots freezing particles.
• Partial controller support
• Overhaul to the pause and options menu

Level Updates

• Ice cube in level 1 has been changed into a light variant and so have others.
• Level 3 cube display now has a block for the cubes to stand on before being pushed off.
• Level 4 intended solution has changed.
• New level 5 introducing the freeze blaster.
• New Level 6
  • A little rough around the edges currently, it was made after 7
• New level 7

Sound Updates

• New game music.
• Ice cubes play a sound when colliding with anything.
• Freezing objects plays a brief sound effect.
• The goal now plays a sound effect when you are near it.

Planned Changes

There is no established timeline for when these changes will roll out however they are listed out in order of priority.

1. New levels.
2. More Music
3. Way to distinguish between colored blocks for color blind players.
4. Visual upgrades for existing objects
5. Better looking levels
   1. Adding some decorations and possibly forms of environmental story telling is as far as I intend to go with this
6. Keyboard rebinding
7. Controller rebinding
8. Animated acid pits.
9. Full controller support.

Experimental Changes

These are changes that I tried to and or wanted to implement but gave up on during the period of the jam

• Grabbed objects cannot go through walls and would adjust to maintain themselves within the level space
  • I haven't yet explored this properly. Until then placing objects through walls is a feature and is part of the puzzles. Though I'll try to use it sparingly.
• Slopes, the player can't go up slopes very well. Adding better slope support could help the level design feel less... blocky.
  • My initial attempts were scrapped as I needed to manage my time to complete my jam submission.