Snowfriends [Prototype]

Snowfriends [Prototype]

  • baku
  • 4 years ago
  • 59th
Download
Windows

Take a break from the stresses of every day life. Come play in the snow! Build some snow friends. and dress them up however you like, in cute fake 3D.

A note on theme and gamejams in general

So you might be able to tell that Snowfriends isn't really a complete game. In fact, it's barely a game at all. It also doesn't really have too much to do with the theme "Sacrifice" - so you might say I decided to sacrifice some ratings in order to make something fun ayyyyy. Eh? Eh. I tried. But yeah, I didn't have any ideas for the theme, and I really just wanted to not stress out about gm48 yet again, spending upwards of 40 productive hours in a weekend. So instead I decided to just make something nice and experimental, because why not. Gamejams are about making games and having fun.

Controls
WASD Move
Mouse Move camera
Hold RMB while moving   Roll snowball
LMB Pickup / Throw / Put on
Escape Pause / Resume (window display controls are on this page!)

 

If the game starts up and it's like "whoa, bigger than my display resolution!!", simply click LMB to start the game → Alt + Enter to enter fullscreen → Escape to pause the game → click "Decrease window size" a couple times → the window should now be smaller if you exit fullscreen mode.

Made by
baku  @Bakufreak - show me your best snowfriends!
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  • Vojaz
    Vojaz Vojaz Level 7

    Fun litte snowbuilder, even without a goal it feels like something fresh. All games should have a snowman builder in their world. :)

  • Lucky Pixel
    Lucky Pixel Lucky Pixel Level 2

    Very nice demo on the mechanics and 3D perspective. Wish there was more to do and some story. Maybe sacrifice the snowmen to the yeti people of the North to survive the upcoming blizzard (Just a thought). Awesome!

  • Joe Miller
    Joe Miller Joe Miller Level 20

    Very interesting use of controls and camera, I enjoyed just moving around and interacting with everything. I made a couple of snow abominations that had to be exiled from the camp before getting an decent looking snow man with the proper amount of limbs and only 1 face :)

  • Jupiter Hadley
    Jupiter Hadley Jupiter Hadley Level 12

    Cute game! I included it in my GM48: Sacrifice compilation video series, if you’d like to take a look. :) https://youtu.be/syYlrVk54P8

  • Veralos
    Veralos Veralos Level 37

    Neat game, though it obviously has nothing to do with the theme. It's nice just walking around and sticking stuff on your snowman. I was a bit disappointed that you can't stack snowballs, though.

    The graphics look nice and the pseudo 3D effect is very impressive. However, it feels like it's missing some sound effects for walking in the snow and some calm music. I also had a bug where the game screen would turn fully black at certain camera angles.

  • Rohbert
    Rohbert Rohbert Level 14

    While the 3d effect is commendable, there unfortunately is not much to do in game. No sound was unfortunate. The camera perspective also seemed far too close and limiting. Also the theme, like you said was completely ignored. Also, every game in the jam can be considered a prototype, so not sure that was needed to be stated. Still though, original concept and it is nice to see 3d games made in GM.

  • LD Smith
    LD Smith LD Smith Level 10

    I really liked rolling up snowballs and making snowmen. At first I thought it was a Katamari style game. It is really impressive to make a 3D game in GameMaker. The game could have used some objectives like making the snowman a certain size.

  • Josiarthei
    Josiarthei Josiarthei Level 4

    This was very quality. Quite out there too compared to the rest of the games. Good job!

  • siridakis
    siridakis siridakis Level 7

    Nice and relaxing indeed :)
    For some reason my snowman reminded me of the clown in Twisted Metal... I really don't know why ._.

  • Fachewachewa
    Fachewachewa Fachewachewa Level 62 Patron

    Lovely. But I threw my snowfriend out of the playzone then pushed it a little and got lost in the infinite snow ! At least I we were together

  • Kwis
    Kwis Kwis Level 63

    Well, I had to sacrifice my snowman once I closed the game I guess so... It counts as being the theme? :p

    Relaxing and stuff, also it's fun to roll the balls. Lacked music. :< And a tiny bit of relation to the theme would have been nice. like a fire in which you can roll the snowbaaaaalllsssss

  • TheCalster
    TheCalster TheCalster Level 4

    A cool game! Although like you said, not much to do with sacrifice haha. Either way, I thought that the 3D effect was absolutely awesome! Would be interested to know how you accomplished that? (Unless it's a trade secret haha) The game ran smoothly for me, and controls felt nice and natural. Only trouble I had was picking up specific items in a cluster of items.

    • baku baku
      baku
      Level 55
      Patron
      Developer

      Thank you! Scroll down and find the reply I gave Yumeito for some links on how it works.

  • Jean-Michel Bourget
    Jean-Michel Bourget Jean-Michel Bourget Level 2

    I love relaxing games with no real purpose except making snowfriends. Good job on making this fake 3D game + it runs smoothly.

    Also, I saw you eggplant!!!

  • SpaceMyFriend
    SpaceMyFriend SpaceMyFriend Level 15

    Despite not having much to do with theme, this was fantastic! I uh....did a dumb and dumber snow man :D https://imgur.com/kofSPLW

    I'm a little ashamed but not sorry

    Good job!

  • Ajmal Rizni
    Ajmal Rizni Ajmal Rizni Level 10

    Really enjoyed this one! I lost track of time playing around making eggplant snow friends. Kudos to you for accepting the lack of link to the theme because I for sure would have shoehorned in something about a satanic ritual to summon a yeti. But yeah, ratings-wise can't really give any points for theme or audio.

    I know everyone talks about continuing working on a game after a jam but I would seriously love to see this developed into something a little bigger. Could get some crisp snowy footstep sounds in, make heads stackable and maybe expand the environment a little? (I was imagining the game set in a friendly little suburban neighbourhood and you would have to explore to find parts + snowballs would be made from patches of snow around the neighbourhood and there could be a puzzle element to make sure the balls don't melt or break while rolling them around on non-snow surfaces.)

    Anyway... great job!

  • Yumeito
    Yumeito Yumeito Level 5

    This is sooo cool. It may not have anything to do with the theme but It's a neat litle sandbox/snowbox game. I would love to see the source code :P I've always wanted to get into fake 3D but I have no idea how to go about it...

    Thanks for the links :D

    • baku baku
      baku
      Level 55
      Patron
      Developer

      Thanks! But trust me, you don't want to see the code. It's... a mess, to put it lightly :D

      Just search for "fake 3D gamemaker" or whatever and you'll find a billion results, such as this

      For making the models, use MagicaVoxel + this tool

  • bucketbomb
    bucketbomb bucketbomb Level 5

    Oh god I love this idea. I'm imagining a sandbox game where you stack the snowballs into snowfriends that move and have attributes based on the items you give them. Then layer features, goals, etc. and that's a game I would really like to play. No connection to the theme and no sound so the ratings aren't going to be overall extremely high, but I'm glad you made this game because it's the seed of a really fun experience.

    • baku baku
      baku
      Level 55
      Patron
      Developer

      Thank you! ❤ I may or may not try to work on this a bit more - at least implement snowball stacking, a more involved way to get items, and a way to remove items from snowfriends if you wanna redo them - before lowrezjam in August!

  • Problematicar
    Problematicar Problematicar Level 37

    This game looks amazing, I love fake 3D and you executed in in an awesome way, but there's no sound and connection to the theme, and the overall score is gonne be lower for that.

    This is one of the rare cases where the execution is amazing but the base idea just has nothing to do with the jam at all.

    Also here's my snowfriend and his little blind friend. Snowfriend

  • Tero Hannula
    Tero Hannula Tero Hannula Level 45 Patron

    Well it looked really nice, and seems that you have some experience already from fake-3D. This was more like a sandbox game.

  • Michael Debono
    Michael Debono Michael Debono Level 3

    Really good graphics. Camera is incredibly annoying and i didnt like it at all. NO CONNECTION to sacrifice which ya know did kill me inside a bit. You could have at least made a fire and you have to throw snowballs in to gain parts to build the snowman but all in all great proof of concept.

    • baku baku
      baku
      Level 55
      Patron
      Developer

      I spent a lot of time thinking about the best way to approach camera control. Direct mouse control like a third person game was the best I could come up with, sad to hear it didn't work too well for you.

      The fire thing is a damn good idea actually. I imagine throwing a snowball on the fire, and a gashapon capsule with an item inside popping out :D

  • Robert
    Robert Robert Level 7

    Really nice Graphics Method used here. Yeah, stacking the snowballs to make a snowman would be ace... there's no apparent connection to Sacrifice though.

    Amazing work!

  • Euxiac
    Euxiac Euxiac Level 4

    I really really like this! Looks super adorable and plays nicely! One of the best looking games this jam! The camera movements make me abit sick but that's about it. At the beginning I was struggling abit because I thought you could stack the snowballs to make a traditional 3-high snowman. After I gave up on that tho and realized the player character was only 1 snowball high, I had a lot of fun. I'm really looking forward for this full release!

    • baku baku
      baku
      Level 55
      Patron
      Developer

      Thanks for the feedback, glad you liked it ❤ I wanted to implement snowball stacking, but decided to focus my time on putting items on snowballs instead, and that ended up talking all of my time.