Freezing Knights
A light co-op turn-based RPG
Take control of two knights and try to reach the end of the perilous snowy mountain paths by avoiding enemy attacks and powering-up your characters.
Features
● Single-player and two-player modes
● 14 music tracks by @ohhcurtains
● 30 enemy encounters
● 11 unique enemies (+1 ???)
● Customizable character builds
● Multiple paths
● Optional hard mode
● 🐔🐔🐔
Controls
Keyboard
Xbox controller
Soundtrack
Many many thanks to @ohhcurtains for composing the amazing extensive soundtrack for it and providing great feedback!
The full soundtrack (+9 bonus tracks from other games by @ohhcurtains) is available for download here:
https://ohhcurtains.bandcamp.com/album/freezing-knights
About
Freezing Knights is my first real attempt at creating a game and took about 7 months to develop. It is split between 14 carts and was mainly inspired by that one RPG series with two plumbers 🐢.
It originally released as part of the Twelve Days of Pico-8 Christmas 2022 event.
Also available on itch.io and Newgrounds.
Credits
Music and OhCurtains intro by @ohhcurtains
Testing / Feedback: Arthuria, Partybird, @ohhcurtains, SmellyFishstiks, paraK00PA
Source code
The full source code is available under the CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 license: https://github.com/tinyevilwizard/FreezingKnights.
Changelog
Version 1.2.0 - August 26, 2023
- Players now receive two additional potions after a game over
- Increased potion limit in normal mode
- Increased hp limit for both difficulties
- Removed losing health from action after killing the last enemy
- Added ability to return to previous safe zone in world map, which allows players to farm for gold
- Reduced damage dealt by final boss shadows
Version 1.1.0 - January 1, 2023
- Added skip tutorial option
- Decreased tutorial length
- Increased great sword damage
- Increased great sword price
- Updated color of unavailable items in rest menu
Version 1.0.3 - December 16, 2022
- Fixed Knight B losing the sword when entering a rest area
Version 1.0.2 - December 15, 2022
Yoooo! This is incredible! The gameplay, the gfx, the music by @ohhcurtains! I only had a few minutes to play this morning but this looks like a new all-time favorite on the platform for me. Thanks so much for sharing!!!
First up, this is an amazing game, and I gave it a gold star. The adorable units, both friendly and enemy, are the front for some incredibly timed attack patterns that seem impossible at first, and then you master them. They specifically remind me of a 1990 game called The Immortal, especially its notoriously precise final boss. The resource management is really well thought out, making you stress over every decision to chug a healing potion or hope you can last a turn without them. The way the corruption overruns the map gives additional urgency. The music is glorious.
Playing through on Normal difficulty, I fought the Elite Corrupted Guardian boss, and it seemed right on the edge of my abilities to evade. When I took it down with two healing potions remaining, I breathed a sigh of relief. Your game's pacing felt as impeccable as the rest of the design.
Also, regarding the story implied in the environment?
i would have a option to skip the tutorial but overall an amazing game!
This is great. I'm still grinding through it but the tutorial is wonderful to go through the first time and get the basics. Well done integrating that. Music is bitchin' and everything feels nice and tight so far. Gonna be playing this one for a bit I think...just hope it saves my progress!
Incredible game - atmosphere, juice, graphics, sound, gameplay are spot on and really fit Pico8.
Found a bug where the sword ability vanishes on the second knight after the wizard boss fight.
I played this with a friend, and had an absolute blast! Great job, great game!
We also had the bug where I lost the sword after the second boss.
The great sword was a great help in mid game, then kinda became useless with both of us having upgraded sword, only doing 4-ish more damage.
Also, I feel the ending could have been a tad cooler. More payoff for this 1.5-2.5 hour game.
Anyway, again, amazing game, lots of fun!
Woooow! Just beat the first boss but I already love this game. Great job and thank you for this wonderful addition to the Pico8 library!
Every time i beat an encounter a red bar that says download failed comes up and the game won't load I've beaten the final boss twice and can't get the ending due to this
I had a really good time with this! The art and music are fantastic and the combat was fun also, with a good amount of enemy variety. I'm sort of mixed on real-time reflex-based systems in turn-based RPGs but this one works pretty well, and it does mean if you screw up your upgrades you can still win with persistence.
On that note, the one snag I ran into on my playthrough was related to the upgrade system. I sort of overlooked the health upgrades and didn't end up purchasing any until the last campfire -- I usually tend to favour offensive/ability upgrades because they give me more options. I did buy a couple potion upgrades but no HP ones. Because of this I really struggled with the section just before that point -- it seemed really hard with tons of difficult to avoid attacks that nearly took out all my health on a single hit. At some point I realized I probably should have bought some health upgrades, but reloading my last save it had already saved my last purchases so I couldn't change out the upgrades. Not wanting to restart the whole game, I powered through it to the last camp fire, but it took me many many tries.
Once I got there I realized the health upgrades are by far the most cost-effective upgrade in the game and I had really put myself at a disadvantage by not buying them. If you consider a character's total health pool is HP X Potions, it means the HP upgrades are about 5x as cost effective as the potion ones, since they add +5 HP and potions only add +1 potion, both values starting at 10 (HP upgrade is also half the cost but only affects one character). So the HP upgrade is way way better but the game doesn't really communicate this at all (it says increased HP, but not by how much). And since it's sandwiched in between the potion upgrade and weapon upgrades I think my brain just kind of skipped over it at the beginning.
Anyway, it's a minor quibble and I had a lot of fun playing. The game is very polished and has great style and it must have been a ton of work to make, so congratulations @tinyevilwizard and @ohhcurtains on the achievement! Great work
Thank you all for all the feedback and comments, very appreciated!
This is such a fantastic game. The music and graphics are top notch. The game mechanics are great. Some bits are really hard but after a but of perserverance they can be overcome. Strangely I didn't find the last boss as difficult as some of the other enemies.
My winning strategy was to upgrade health and attack as quickly as possible and equip player 2 with a sword. Arrows seemed to become less useful in the later part of the game. Never did get a chance to buy the fire stick even though I ended up with 200+ gold.
Really, really, good game. So ambitious but so well executed.
Fantastic game & excellent soundtrack. Thanks for bringing it to the pico-8 community!
Great game! In fact the best RPG I ever played on pico-8! the music by @ohhcurtains is amazing the actual gameplay itself is fun and very replayable. If there was a top 30 pico-8 tier list this game would be in it. For me, this game is top 10. I love that you added a 2 player option. My only criticism is that there was a settings menu to change the controls.
Thank you!
@birdmanisking There is an option in the main menu to swap [O] and [X], which also swaps the jump buttons for the knights. Not sure if it's something like that you had in mind?
No way to remap keys for Pico-8 games as far as I know unfortunately!
@Earthybread Late response, but this looks to me like a problem with the Lexaloffle server. I remember encountering it once last year.
To anyone encountering loading errors like this with the carts, the only thing I can really do is recommend trying the itch.io or Newgrounds versions instead.
Released version 1.1.0!
- Added skip tutorial option
- Decreased tutorial length
- Increased great sword damage
- Increased great sword price
- Updated color of unavailable items in rest menu
The full source code is also now on GitHub under the CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 license: https://github.com/tinyevilwizard/FreezingKnights
I found this through the Pico Playtime "favorite PICO-8 games of 2022" youtube video, and I've been really enjoying it-- the battle defense 'minigames' are all so crisp and different, there's so much boss variety, and the soundtrack is an amazing complement to the game. I can tell a lot of polish went into it, so thank you for creating this!
(I've now made it to the final boss but without enough potions to make it past-- will have to try again)
I really, really, really, really, really, really, REALLLLY like this a lot! :)
I don't know if I made that clear enough.
Anyway, I just HAD to make a video for this, which you can see below:
:)
Nice game! I really had much fun playing it. I just didn't like the ending because there wasn't any story explaining what happened to the world (with that crazy "corruption"). I think you should invest in the history of the game.
Found a bug, when completing a round with both knights down, the win animation plays twice
the colossal guardian is super hard
I love this
dangit im on corroption core with only one heal =I
Released version 1.2.0:
- Players now receive two additional potions after a game over
- Increased potion limit in normal mode
- Increased hp limit for both difficulties
- Removed losing health from action after killing the last enemy
- Added ability to return to previous safe zone in world map, which allows players to farm for gold
- Reduced damage dealt by final boss shadows
This update should prevent bugs that could occur when winning with both knights down, and should help prevent players from getting stuck in a fight without enough potions.
WHY DID IT RESTART ME!!!????
Edit: next day and it restarted me again!????
=I
@Pinapple Are you playing from a browser, or through Pico-8?
If you're playing from a browser, make sure you're not using something like incognito mode, it probably won't keep the save data.
im on browser, and not incognito
(either way this is literally the best pico-8 game ever)
Just checked in with this amazing game after what 1 and a half years XD. Anyway, I finished the game and with the updates included this game is the best RPG on Pico8 that I have ever seen keep up the great word (I have an idea of maybe having an enemy that deals automatic damage but dies quickly and has high damage so it can encourage players to switch their strategy a little) anyway bye its time for me to wait another 1 and half years for the next update.
Plis make one mode with just one warrior(Sorry bad inglish i am from brazil)
I replayed the game on hard mode recently with a friend and felt the need to comment about how much fun this game is, I like it more I revisit it. This is the most complete+polished+big pico8 turn based combat game and the most complete+polished+large multiplayer experience in pico8 as far as I am aware. This is awesome.
Amazing. Really loved playing through this game. Great work.
Final boss theme goes HARD. Great game, definitely going in my favorites.
Best game I have discovered for Pico 8 so far. Very awesome and fun.
Thank you TINYEVILWIZARD!!!
I'm sorry for being that one guy, but...
🤓 According to the shop, the Great Sword is "Etremely Heavy"?
And potions refill when you reach "a rest areas"? 🤓
All in all, this is a great game! I would love to see a sequel!
Also, the sit and relax feature makes me think of popular games that let you pet the dog!
Today I played Freezing Knights, and it was an absolutely fantastic adventure. It felt like completing a real JRPG, but it only took one hour instead of 60+
The artstyle is fantastic! Really fun in Co-op mode. Good job :)
Such an amazing game and lovely soundtrack! Really well done!
This game is absolutely amazing. Not only it's a turn based game, but also features jumping mechanic from Mario & Luigi games. I almost never used a money attack
Incredible game indeed, one of my favorites period
I even tried a dodgeless run but got stuck on the final boss
As a huge Mario & Luigi fan, I LOVE this game! I like how the battle system works, as well as the juice to it! The upgrades are also nice, leading to a lot of playstyles. Overall, one of the best games on PICO-8!
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