We are delighted to announce the official launch of Ikonei Island: And Earthlock Adventure on PlayStation and Xbox Series X | S! The Blooming Beginning, a 1.5 update, is also available now on Epic and Steam.
A massive thanks to our publishers, Jetpack Collective and The Iterative Collective, for their support throughout this journey!
Share this news and help us spread the word! #GameDev #GameLaunch #IndieGameDev
Big wins for Ikonei Island! We're thrilled to announce that our cozy game has won 3 awards at the Norwegian National Game Awards:
🏆 Game of the Year
🏆 Best Fun for All
🏆 Best Technology
Huge thanks to our incredible community for your support! Hop onto this award-winning adventure today.
We have awesome news, Castaways: Ikonei Island has been nominated for 7 categories in the Spillprisen Award, including Game of The Year!
We’re more than proud to be nominated along with other amazing games!
Check the full list here: https://www.virke.no/konferanser/spillprisen/
Hey, Voyagers! 🧭
When we first started developing EARTHLOCK 2 in 2019, we had a specific vision for the game but as we were developing it, we found that it didn't work as intended. We made the painful decision to stop the production and instead started working on Ikonei Island so that we could get enough time to rework the core vision for EARTHLOCK 2.
The rework of the vision is now done and we are super stoked with the new concept.
Today, we're eager to begin sharing this with you!
What is EARTHLOCK 2? 🗺️
A band of voyagers stands at the precipice of danger and glory. What lays before them - a vast desert of mystery and possibility. Explore and transform the sands into an Oasis full of life, and you will surely grow more powerful. Your trusty Desert Ship may start as a humble mode of transportation, but with time and effort, it will become your mobile base of operations, and instill fear into your enemies in the desert. Rise to become the most formidable Explorer of Umbra!
Creating Biomes and Desert Ships. ⚒️
We augmented Unreal’s Landscape system by making it dynamic and developed a full ecosystem simulator; together, this enabled a fully dynamic game world. It changes over time and responds to what the player does. The game world starts as a blank canvas, a desert, and you’ll get to change it over time.
We also spent some time developing features for base building and then we noticed that in a large, open world, building new bases over and over again as you explored it would be less fun, so we decided that a mobile base would do the trick. That’s when we came up with the concept of a desert ship
Umbra World Map
The expedition awaits! ⌛
Just like a pirate ship is good for sailing in the sea, a Desert Ship is perfect for exploring the desert. Your Ship is your mobile base! Driving your Ship doesn’t always have to be a solo experience - having a crew of friends to join your expedition and travel across the Desert can make this experience even more fun. Use the riches collected from the Biomes or dropped by enemies and turn your mobile base into the most formidable Ship the citizens of Umbra have ever seen!
Check this update to learn more about the Desert Ships.
Desert Ship prototype
If you're familiar with the friendly environment of EARTHLOCK, brace yourself for a stark contrast. In EARTHLOCK 2, the scorching sun and the dunes render life nearly impossible. Nearly. Biomes full of life and dangers emerge amidst the vast sea of sand. Tend to them well enough and you’ll be compensated with riches and treasures.
You can learn more about Biomes in this update.
What mystery lies ahead?
Thank You For Your Support! 💛
We’re excited to hear what you think about all this news, Voyagers! Wishlist EARTHLOCK 2 now to support the development and stay updated with the latest news.
Join our Discord to discuss EARTHLOCK 2 with fellow Voyagers.
Follow us on Social Media: Twitter | Instagram | TikTok | YouTube
Wishlist Earthlock 2 here: https://store.steampowered.com/app/826640/EARTHLOCK_2/
As we approach the end of the year, it's time to reflect on the milestones we've achieved together and share some important updates.
🐸Ikonei Island Launched on Steam and Epic🐸
We're thrilled to announce the successful launch of Ikonei Island: An Earthlock Adventure on November 9th, now available on both Steam and Epic platforms. We worked hard to implement the “Friends’ Pass”, which also functions as a demo! The “Friends’ Pass” allows a group of up to 4 players to play indefinitely on the host’s island, provided the host owns the game. We hope this fosters a sense of community and collaboration among players.
We are not done with Ikonei Island yet - On December 14th, Ikonei is celebrating “Lystide”! Players will be visited by “The Spirit of Lystide Past” - so make sure to check out the Hamlet!
Your support has been instrumental in making this launch a success, and we're excited to continue building and expanding Ikonei Island in the coming months.
Earthlock's Epic Store Free Week
Our first title, Earthlock, was originally released in 2018. We have seen a huge boost in activity since it was available for free on the Epic Store for a week in November. Over 5.9 million people claimed the game! We hope you enjoyed revisiting the world of Earthlock. Be sure to check out our comics on Steam and Epic if you want to delve further into the Earthlock lore.
Earthlock 2 Delay and Updates
We have restarted the Earthlock 2 project and with that put the date to TBA. For the last year we have been in pre-produciton totally redesigning the main concept and direction of the game. We are super excited to share this new vision for E2 with you and will be doing so in the upcoming months.
Our team made the choice to switch from Unity to Unreal Engine a couple of years ago. This has been a huge undertaking, and we have learned a lot about the engine, and the way we work as a studio. Another major challenge we have taken on is working on our first multiplayer game in Ikonei Island. We have grown as a studio tackling these challenges, but it has cost us more time than initially anticipated.
However, for the last year, we have gone back to pre-production working on the core vision and redesigned the main concept for the game. We feel we have something really good now, and we have been presenting this to publishers and investors lately. We even won an award for the most anticipated game at an investor event in Malta at the end of November.
We are working on making this vision presentable to the community and will begin posting about this soon. We’re excited to share these new features and more news about the development process going forward, so wishlist Earthlock 2 to keep up to date!
Speaking of new features… What’s this?
As we wrap up the year, we want to express our gratitude for your unwavering support, feedback, and enthusiasm. Our community plays a pivotal role in shaping the future of our games, and we look forward to embarking on new adventures together in the upcoming year.
Wishing you a joyful holiday season and a fantastic New Year filled with exciting gaming experiences!
Best regards,
❄️Snowcastle Games❄️
Ikonei Island features a contribution from YouTube sensation hurdy-gurdy player, Patty Gurdy!
Snowcastle Games has been collaborating with Patty Gurdy to create the Piratehog Chant! Her new song set on Ikonei Island is now out on YouTube and all popular music streaming sites. This partnership has been long in the works, and we are very excited to finally share it with you!
"Working with Snowcastle has been an exciting step in my career. As a musician, it is an honour that I get the chance to work with different media such as video games because it teaches yet another layer of the power of music. Snowcastle is a team of hard-working and kind people that taught me a lot about the unique aspects of this medium. I could not have had a more welcoming start into the world of games." - Patty Gurdy
Check out the music video on YouTube HERE
Patty plays as the talented Piratehog Captain in Ikonei Island - Captain Rustbristle. You may encounter her chant among different pirate camps across the island, and if you want to listen to the full song in game, check the credits.
Now you’ll be able to hear the full song of the piratehog captain which keeps her crews so engaged in their dance.
Listen to the Piratehog Chant: HERE
Play the Open Beta and Defeat Captain Rustbristle!
We are happy to announce our new, upcoming game Ikonei Island: An Earthlock Adventure! Ikonei Island will be an early access game coming soon to PC, and eventually make its way to consoles.
You can wishlist Ikonei Island: An Earthlock Adventure on Steam now!
Taking inspiration from titles like Animal Crossing and Stardew Valley, Ikonei Island: An Earthlock Adventure offers a unique take on the genre, adding to compelling resource gathering and crafting systems with perilous pirate camps, the ability to enlist the unique talents of the island’s wildlife to help you out and many more exciting additions to be announced as we lay out the roadmap for Ikonei Island’s early access journey.
Ikonei Island: An Earthlock Adventure builds on the success of the Earthlock RPGs, taking the rich world-building and magical setting of the franchise into new territory. Set on a deserted island, the game tasks players with exploring its diverse and intriguing landscape as they collect resources for crafting and befriend wildlife to employ their unique abilities to progress to new areas of the island.
You will discover ancient ruins from a bygone civilization, deal with treasure-hungry pirates, and unlock a host of different biomes, ranging from icy mountains and parched deserts, to dense jungles and humid swamps, as you uncover the secrets the island has to offer.
You will also have the opportunity to make the island your own. An upgradable hamlet serves as a base of operations and unique placeable items allow you to customize the island to your liking!
There’s a lot more to learn about the game’s intriguing environments and expansive web of gameplay systems. Your feedback will be vital in informing the tweaks and additions made to the game during its time in early access, so you are encouraged to join our Discord and get involved in helping to shape Ikonei Island.
You can wishlist Ikonei Island: An Earthlock Adventure on Steam now!
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Hello from Umbra and our Snowcastle team!
We have been awfully quiet about Earthlock 2, and we are sure you are wondering what is happening. 👀
Rest assured, Earthlock 2 is coming!
But before we update you on Earthlock 2, we want to tell you about our studio and what we have been up to.
First, we want to thank you for your continued support! Our fans keep messaging and tweeting us about our games and asking about our team - it means the world to us!
What has Snowcastle Games been up to last year?
We have some bad news and some good news. The bad news is that, unfortunately, Earthlock 2 is delayed and will not be released this year. Don’t worry, we are still working on it! Since we began the game, our team has doubled and we have had to come to grips with switching from Unity to Unreal. This has been a huge undertaking, and we realized that we needed to rethink how we work.
Earthlock 2 character concept art
Earthlock 2 in engine capture
The good news is that the changes we’ve made internally have been a huge success! Earthlock 2 is an ambitious project. We know you have high hopes for it and so do we. Now we are confident that we’re on the right road to meeting those expectations.
There is, however, one last thing: beside Earthlock 2, we have been working on something that you are going to hear about very soon! 🤩 It is a completely new project and we can’t wait to show it!
We hope you continue to support us, and promise to share updates a lot more frequently in the future, both about Earthlock 2 and our secret new project!
Sign up to our newsletter: https://www.snowcastlegames.com/newsletter
Get free games from Thunderful, Studio Fizbin, Megagon Industries, and more!
We are celebrating the Nordic tradition of Midsummer the only way we know how: with an annual game giveaway. This year we are partnering with developers and publishers around the world for a 7-day long giveaway of awesome games!
Do you want to know which games will be part of Midsummer Giveaway Week? We can’t reveal them just yet, but we have partnered with Thunderful, Maschinen-Mensch, Megagon Industries, Scorpius Games, Studio Fizbin, Home Net Games, and Bouncyrock Entertainment to bring you free games from June 21st daily until June 27th.
Tune into our Twitter page at 7PM CET from today until June 27th to see what’s up for grabs.
To enter, all you need to do is follow us - Snowcastle Games on Twitter and retweet our Midsummer Giveaway Week’s featured game tweet on each day, tag a friend, and you’ll be in with a chance to win! Signing up to the newsletter for Earthlock 2 will net you an extra entry to boot. So if you want to win some free games this summer, join us and our industry friends in Midsummer Giveaway Week!
Follow us on Twitter: https://twitter.com/snowcastlegames/
Sign up to the newsletter: https://www.snowcastlegames.com/earthlock2
Back in the beginning of August we were happy to show the world our first Teaser Trailer for Earthlock 2!
You can read more details about it at IGN’s exclusive coverage here : https://www.ign.com/articles/earthlock-2-announced-first-open-world-gameplay-details-revealed
To stay tuned to the newest info for anything Earthlock 2 related, be sure to subscribe to our newsletter here : https://www.snowcastlegames.com/earthlock2