Icy Tower is a freeware video game created by Johan Peitz of Free Lunch Design, inspired by Xjump. In the game, the player controls Harold the Homeboy whose goal is to climb the tower as high as he can by jumping up floors, and earn points while doing so.
| Icy Tower | |
|---|---|
| Developer | Free Lunch Design |
| Publisher | Free Lunch Design |
| Designer | Brian Fernande |
| Platform | Windows |
| Release | April 2005 |
| Genre | Platform game |
| Mode | Single player |
The game can be controlled by keyboard or by a gamepad/joystick.
Gameplay
Overview
The Tower consists of floors in different sizes and is of infinite height. The player's goal is to reach higher and higher floors without falling off the screen. The player can fall off if he fails to land on a floor or if he does not keep up with the scrolling of the tower.
Scrolling
As the player escalates the tower, it will start to scroll upwards slowly and the player will have to keep up in order to not fall off the screen. This is not so hard in the beginning since the scrolling is very slow, but every 30 seconds, an alarm clock will sound and the scrolling will go slightly faster. A clock in the upper left corner of the screen shows how much time is left until the next speed-up.
Movement
The player's character will constantly accelerate as long as it moves. The faster it runs, the higher and longer it will jump. Hitting walls (the sides of the tower) and immediately turning around generally maintains the character's speed.
Combos
Combo-jumps (combos) can be made by jumping more than one floor at a time. With enough speed, the player can jump and land two floors or more above where he started. After making a combo-jump, "combo mode" begins - the meter to the left of the screen will fill up and it will drain within a second. In order to stay in combo mode the player needs to make another jump of at least two floors high. If he manages to do that before the meter is empty, the meter will be refilled and he will be able to continue doing combo jumps.
When the meter runs out or if the player makes a non-combo jump, the combo will end and the player will be given score depending on how many floors in total he managed to climb during the combo.
Scoring
The player earns 10 points for each floor reached. This alone will not give him great scores. For the player to really be victorious, he will have to make cool jumps, combo-jumps, for which he will be awarded points for every floors jumped in one combo.
Players either strive for the highest score they can achieve (by making the biggest combo they can jump), or to reach the highest floor they can.
Rewards
After making a combo-jump, the player is given a reward as well as points. The bigger the combo, the greater the reward. As of version 1.2, rewards are simply a flashy message along with the following words, spoken after the player has successfully finished a combo.
| Reward | Number of floors |
|---|---|
| Good! | 4 - 6 |
| Sweet! | 7 - 14 |
| Great! | 15 - 24 |
| Super! | 25 - 34 |
| Wow! | 35 - 49 |
| Amazing! | 50 - 69 |
| Extreme! | 70 - 99 |
| Fantastic! | 100 - 139 |
| Splendid! | 140 - 199 |
| No Way! | 200 and above |
Floor types
Every 100 floors, the floor type (the way the floors look) changes. As of version 1.2, there are a total of 10 floor types, type 1 being floors 0-99 and type 10 being floors 900 and above. Version 1.3 features one more floor type, which starts off from floor 1000, and can not be unlocked or seen in lower floors.
Icy Tower features the ability to start the game with a floor type of your choice, but only after you have successfully landed on the actual floor where that particular type begins.
The available floor types in version 1.3:
- 0-99 - Floors covered with snow
- 100-199 - Floors covered with snow and ice
- 200-299 - Wooden floors
- 300-399 - Shiny, blue floors
- 400-499 - Floors covered with pink chewing gum
- 500-599 - Bones
- 600-699 - Jungle
- 700-799 - Super-Mario-styled bricks, and question mark blocks
- 800-899 - Clouds
- 900-999 - Shiny rainbows
- 1000 and above - Glowing dancing floor
Replays/high scores
Version 1.2 introduced the ability to save replays of games. This gives the player the ability to provide proof of their highest scores, combos and floors. The offspring of this ability is the global High Score List, which lists the best Icy Tower scores, combos, and floors, and allows internet users to download replays of those events.
Note: You must have Icy Tower installed on your computer to view downloaded replays.
Atmosphere
Much like Sony's PaRappa the Rapper, Icy Tower depicts ghetto and hip hop culture as a happy and humorous environment. The main character, Harold the Homeboy, is implied to be an emcee, as he sings and raps the menu music (which is a parody of hip hop and R&B), and uses the slang. He also wears a beanie, while his homie Disco Dave contrasts with him, what with his disco quotes such as "stayin' alive," his wardrobe and his afro. Notably, the character's theme music is the Earth, Wind & Fire single "Let's Groove".
The levels and graphics in general are also very colorful and bright, much like the Super Mario Bros. games. Interestingly, level six platforms are based on bricks from Super Mario Bros., with Yoshi eggs displaying your jump count.
Characters
Version 1.2 introduces the ability to play with custom characters. Icy Tower comes with two default characters: Harold the Homeboy and Disco Dave. Icy Tower also comes with a template character, allowing fans to create their own characters, with their own graphics, sound effects, and background music. Characters can be downloaded from the internet. The Icy Tower resource page, German Icy Tower Community or Icy Tower fan page offer some of them.
Mods
A few mods exist for the game. Some of them are graphical mods, and some of them change the gameplay. The following are gameplay mods by RamboBones, which work only for version 1.2:
- FastFloor - the game goes slightly (~120%) faster
- ProFloor - the floors are shorter
- SolidFloor - floors are completely solid, so you cannot jump on them from below
- RamboMod - enables customization of the speed and floor sizes of the game