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Starting out in PICO-8 game dev, I wanted to make something thrilling, as I hadn't seen many action games for the platform. I was craving a PICO-8 game with twitchy combat, high difficulty, and satisfying game-feel and visual polish.

So, over the last few months, I've been developing Icebreaker, a skill-based arena brawler. I'm really happy with how this final build turned out, and I hope to continue developing the idea into the future. Thanks for checking this project out, and your feedback and constructive criticism is highly appreciated!

Cart #rakuwiyonu-5 | 2023-07-29 | Code ▽ | Embed ▽ | License: CC4-BY-NC-SA
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Follow on Itch.io: https://wsasaki01.itch.io/
Follow Icebreaker's development on Github: https://github.com/wsasaki01/icebreaker

Gameplay

Ice and Reflex

Ice enemies are attacking, and you're the last line of defense against the onslaught. Defeat waves of enemies using your hammer and reflexes!

Intense Combat

Throw the hammer to smash through groups of enemies, and roll to re-position and gain the advantage. Faster enemies are orange or red; kill them for even more points, and keep your combo up to get a multiplier and earn massive scores!

Customisable Weapon

Hammer types introduce new gameplay mechanics to switch up the pace and flow of combat.
Mods change the properties of your hammer, changing its strengths and weaknesses.
Mix-and-match hammer types and mods to make the perfect build!

Controls

Normal

  • Without the hammer equipped, press ❎ to roll
    • This gives you invincible frames, so roll through enemies to avoid damage!
  • Run over the hammer to pick it up
  • With the hammer equipped:
    • Press ❎ to hit (damage around you)
    • Hold a direction and press 🅾️ to throw

Magnet

Hold 🅾️ to attract your hammer back to you!

Teleport

Press 🅾️ to teleport to your hammer!

P#132412 2023-07-26 17:30 ( Edited 2023-07-29 16:01)

The game feel of this one is great! It's so... Meaty. You really feel the weight of the hammer and enemies.

This is the kind of thing my friends and I would have played to death if we had it on the NES. I'm tempted to add a two-player mode for that reason.

Terrific work!

P#132435 2023-07-27 00:29

Saw this randomly on Splore and it feels really good to play. Surprisingly polished as well. Great job!

P#132458 2023-07-27 14:27

This is so good!
It really does fill that gap in pico8 games you mentioned, and is also really tough.
The polish is great and makes the game feel amazing to play. Though I do feel the hammer/projectile sprite when on the ground looks a bit like a placeholder? Is it supposed to be like an ice scraper?
Also adding some animation to the enemies would be cool (um, also not entirely sure what they are, look like boxes with an ear and an eye but because they don't turn to face the player they look like icicles?).
[also also, maybe adding more enemy types that maybe shoot something but are stationary? More variety like that could be interesting]

P#132471 2023-07-27 18:21 ( Edited 2023-07-27 18:46)

It's great to see how much you love making exciting action games for the platform.
geometry dash

P#137999 2023-11-29 01:35 ( Edited 2023-11-30 10:00)

the modular build stuff is great and the tutorial introduces it all nicely. the extra strategies are excellent too (not killing slow enemies, trying to stay on exactly 2 hearts). I played 3B endless with reverse teleport and got to wave 17 or so -- really fun!

P#138125 2023-12-01 23:04

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