Winter

While playing Ika games, I feel like an archeologist. They are hardly amongst the oldest games, engine is newer than several makers or Sphere or five generations of consoles. But there is no longer community to be found. It ceased to exist. Only sole man with picture of character from an old game as his face and Magyar name works on something related. He is like Thorvalden and his 'antic' statues.
And there were such a potential, such a good concepts. Youngsters to real indie scene, such as I am, can know only few games. There was a man called Hatch. And another one called WIP and Andy, the creator, and some more.
Hatch is the one, who interests us the most. He was one of the leading personaes in the community. Lately, he was working on beautifully looking metroidvania (more of the Metroid than 'Vania) Mannux. Its small demo is wonderful. This would be game of the year if it ever were finished. He made Final Eclipse, System shock 2 inspired dungeon crawler. And he worked with several other Ika legends on a small winter themed game. It got finished and its called Winter.


Winter is an eye candy.

Story
It's more of the scope than an actual story. You play as a man, hunted and haunted. It's a story told to children. The Teller is one-eyed elder, maybe cyclops. It's trying to be deep, but it doesn't really work. Part of it seems to be unfinished. From more recent games, Winter's story reminds me of Carpan. It's deep and I haven't understood its meaning. It wasn't problem of the language. In winter I got kind of confused. You are hunted with an arrow in your knee. You run away, but there is nowhere to run, so you have to return to undergo some kind of trial. And then you fight the final fight. You got me thrilled. Where is the land I reside in? What have the hero done? Is he a killer, a rapist? There is so many unanswered questions with so small space given to the story.
But we all know, that is not what the game is about. We want to play some Zeldish fighting.


And then he fought yet another killer cony.

Gameplay
And it works fine. On map real-time battles are working. There is nothing to really complain about. You explore the word looking for something to happen. As you progress, you level up and you have chance to find some spells as well as some stat boosts. There are rabbits lurking at you from the holes, there are green wolves attacking from under the cliffs and there are yetis with their powerful punches.
Most of the gameplay elements are fun, however bit frustrating. Bunnies can easily overwhelm you and bit fair piece of your 'body' off. Stronger enemies on the other hand are fun to fight. Wolves are dangerous beasts. Luckily they are always reasonably numbered. Yetis with their ultimate punch are most joyous to fight against as you have to use hit'n'run strategy to defeat them.
Variety isn't so big and enemies can feel bit repetitive to some players. My opinion on this is, that there could be more enemy designs as some of the stronger variants have colors contrasting to icy nature of the environment. On the contrary certain amount of monotony fits to game's atmosphere perfectly.
Spells are fun to use and have some nice effects. My personal favorite is Crushing gale as it has some nice dash to it. My only complain about them is that you don't get to use them in fight as much as you would like, because your mana poll is extremely small and the wisest decision is to save your mana in case of an ice block blocking your way.
In general game is pretty frustrating with its frozen wastes, filled with bunnies, few save tents and exploration elements. It's good frustration, tho.


UI is clean and simple.

Art
Corey's custom pieces are just beautiful. Color palette is well-chosen and environments are without a flaw. I had small problem with some of the animals as their recolored versions were hurting my sense of esthetics. Otherwise, Sprites were cool too, especially the one of the survivor.
Hatch's mapping is beautiful, partly due to excellence of Corey's assets. Early maps are really nice and clean. Some pieces later in the game can get bit confusing and cunning positioning of foes leads to even more common appearance of game over screen.
Music is fine and ambient. It stands out most in the subtitles as its not disrupted by never ending stream of shouts, alerting the player of foe's presence. Music fits calm nature of Winter and its slow pace.


Example of super confusing map.

Conclusion
There is many things player can complain about while playing Winter. The good thing is, that they are all springing from frustration. Frustration which, in this case, gives player motivation to continue and makes him/her to enjoy the game. The way the game ends is not that rewarding and it does feel strangely unfinished. There is end, when old Cyclops finishes his story, keeping it open. But the game continues for the sake of the final boss. And that is kind of strange.
Winter is game showing Ika's potential and potential of some people standing behind it. Andy, Hatch, Corey and Thrasher, I had such a good time playing your game.