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Adventure Platformer 'Icycle: On Thin Ice' Named App of the Week, Available for Free

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Apr 12, 2001
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Thanks to the annual App Store freeze that took place over the holidays last week, a new App of the Week missed its normal Thursday announcement date. As the shutdown lifts, however, the App Store team has now named physics platformer Icycle: On Thin Ice from Damp Gnat as this week's App of the Week, temporarily making the app free for all users.

Touted for its visuals and general "bizarreness" in various App Store reviews, the game tasks players with guiding its nude protagonist, Dennis, across eighty levels of various landscapes ranging from frozen tundras to "bizarre creations plucked from Dennis' subconscious."

From its jaw-dropping scenery to bizarre creations plucked from Dennis's sub-conscious, award-winning studio Damp Gnat draws inspiration from art, film, and comedy to deliver an experience that is beautiful, sad, hilarious, compelling, and fun all at once.
- A thrilling platforming adventure from award-winning studio Damp Gnat
- Breathtaking worlds that are as beautiful as they are dangerous
- Stunning soundtrack and unique surrealist visual design
- Unlock a wardrobe full of garments to dress and humiliate Dennis
- Upgrade vacuum cleaners and umbrellas to reach hidden items
- Complete 80 missions to unlock bonus features including the original Icycle game!
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Icycle: On Thin Ice can be downloaded from the App Store for free. [Direct Link]

Article Link: Adventure Platformer 'Icycle: On Thin Ice' Named App of the Week, Available for Free
 
Article Link
https://www.macrumors.com/2014/12/29/icycle-free-app-of-the-week/
Well, my mind is warped after seeing such levels of nudity on the App Store. Why can't Apple protect my eyes from such sights? I hope I am not permanently disturbed from seeing such filth. :p;)
 
Chillingo! There's a blast from the past (i.e. the early days of iPhone gaming).

Haven't heard much from them since they were acquired by EA a few years back. Good to see they're still in business... or is this just EA rehashing an old brand name for indy-ish mobile releases?
 
Perhaps you should've mentioned that it isn't a free but "freemium" game that offers In-app purchases.
 
simonmet said:
Perhaps you should've mentioned that it isn't a free but "freemium" game that offers In-app purchases.
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To be fair though, it's just to buy the currency, which you can easily get in-game.

And here's a hint, only the air tanks actually matter. Everything else is just clothes and skips, which you could easily do without. You even get at least one skip to begin with.

Before people judge something that has IAP, actually read what they are, and use the actual app before you pass judgement. Sometimes you can do without the IAP very easily. Lots of $10 apps still have IAP still, but it's for things like voices, which developers have to license each separately. Nobody wants to pay for 50+ voices they won't ever use, they just want one of them.
 
Dezryth said:
We'll spend thousands of dollars on a phone and a mobile plan but $2 to help support the developers? HERESY!
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I don't think that's the main problem in this thread. It's more that people need to open their eyes a bit more. If this was Monument Valley, Kiwanuka, The Room, Super Hexagon, etc people would be saying the same thing.

Which in the end is probably the main reason they ditched 12 days this year, and why they won't do the U2 thing again. People are not courteous enough just to either not download the app and just delete it, and would rather give the developer a mouth load of why it sucks. It wasn't good for them in the long run, and it didn't make the kind of people posting those opinions want to buy something else in the App Store.

If you want whatever you want for free, then you're better off going with Amazon. Let that company suffer with trying to serve 10 million people with $100 Amazon Prime memberships, free Amazon Appstore credit, free music streaming, and whatever else. You might think that's a lot of money, but try splitting that up between all the different people making this content to begin with. It doesn't go far enough, isn't guaranteed money because it changes as people drop and join the program, and the income won't pay for future projects, or even a standard $50,000 income.

I'm going the way of PRSI here, but man, people have such a huge problem with people other than them making money doing what they love for a living, it's sick.
 
I beat the whole game in an hour. I would imagine someone better than me (I died ~120 times while playing - I know near the end I got a 100 deaths award) could probably beat the whole game in about 10 minutes. Had I paid for this, I would have been extremely disappointed with how little content there is.

This would be a nice "game as art" example, but the physics kind of suck. Your bike frequently bounces into the air for no apparent reason - a huge problem towards the end of the game where there's very pricise jumps you need to make. Or your bike will be cruising ahead fine, then suddenly get snagged on something invisible - but backing up a bit and moving forward again gets you past that something invisible fine.

Plus the game feels very formulaic and repetitive. You start on a harmless looking screen with things to collect near the far side. You move towards them. Something bad happens between where you were and where you are, but now collectables are in that area. You must immediately move towards them or something bad will happen where you are now and you will die. Repeat collectables appearing that you must move towards or die again and again hundreds of times. There. That's the entire game. Just do it for an hour against a huge variety of backdrops.

All in all, 2/5. The artsy aspects of this are the only thing that makes it not get 0/5, because it just fails all around as a game.
 
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