All posts by icepicklodge

Knock Knock

There is an unusual cabin deep in the woods. It had served as a laboratory and a dwelling for three generations of Lodgers.

But as of late the latest Lodger has been noticing weird changes in familiar surroundings; things are missing, noises and rattle heard. Something odd is coming out of the woods. Come night, it seems like someone’s made himself at home in the twilight of rooms, attics, and cellars.

You need to stay awake and sane till dawn.

The Lodger is wandering the rooms, evading the unknown, counting minutes till morning. But it’s only in the night that he can solve the main puzzle and find the answers. What’s going on? Are the Guests real, or are they just figments of his insomniac imagination? What’d happened to the forest? What’s happening to the cabin? Is there a line between reality and imagination?

Features
  • Hide! Play hide-and-seek with denizens of your nightmares.
  • Don’t look now! The goal of each night is to reach dawn while still sane.
  • Fill in the gaps. The house aids the Lodger. You only have to fix it up and keep it in order.
  • Seek. Something very important has been lost. The reason for the unfolding events is hidden inside The Lodger himself. Everything that is happening can be explained, you only need to find the key and bring it to light.
  • Wait. In this game you need to watch and listen carefully. Inspect and scrutinize. You only have to last until sunrise.
  • Follow the rules of the game! Of course you must first unveil them, understanding what game you are playing.
Screenshots
Buy Knock Knock

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Cargo! The Quest for Gravity

Its dreariness highlighted by seemingly colorful appearances, this dystopian study daringly presents us with a world based upon a metaphor taken literally. “Everything has lost weight, things have flown into space”; upon this foundation, the game builds a thought-provoking narrative, contemplating the importance of cultural heritage, history, and artifacts of everyday life. Thrown into a phantasmagoric world, Flox wants to restore it to normality by extracting FUN from all around her. But can FUN ground us in this world? Can it make the world meaningful again? These are the questions the player will have to ponder.

Oh, and also you can totally kick weird naked people.

Features
  • Kick weird naked people for FUN.
  • Explore crazy environments—including flying islands and huge underwater caverns—filled to the brim with challenges and opportunities to produce more FUN.
  • Build zany yet functional contraptions to face the challenges, kick more weird naked people and simply feel awesome, thanks to the innovative physics-driven engine of the game. Piloting your own creations is FUN!
  • Try the endless sandbox mode that offers an infinity of FUN!
  • Customize the game by adding your own soundtrack. Playing under the beat you know and love is immense FUN!
  • Have FUN!
  • Seriously, this is a game about kicking dwarfs for FUN.
  • Did we tell you they’re naked?
  • FUN
Screenshots
Buy Cargo!

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The Void

When a person’s soul is extinguished, for a brief flickering moment it passes The Void—a grey limbo, breathed back to life by scarce droplets of Color scattered across it. Ravenous, monstrous Brothers beckon the soul to preserve every bit of it; enticing, sly Sisters beg to be fed. The whole Void, inhabited also by a multitude of weird and sometimes scary creatures, changes with every droplet of Color used, making every action you take have repercussions across the whole world.

But perhaps there is another way to use the Color. The way to break out of the never-ending cycle of the Void. Nourishing Color in gardens and fighting the Void’s creatures, unlocking the Sisters’ hearts and taking on their Brothers, the player gets the chance to find it… and achieve ultimate transcendence.

Features
  • Gaze long into the Void and feel it gaze into you. The only resource in the game, Color changes both you and the world around you with every droplet used. Accumulating Red inside your heart can make you strong, but it also makes predators more aggressive; find the perfect balance or just watch the world react to every choice of yours.
  • Explore the Void. Broken into 29 separate chambers, the place you have fallen into is full of secrets, twists, and turns.
  • Nourish, hunt, mine. Each type of environment offers its own features: grow Color in some, hunt for it or mine it in others, unlocking new chambers through the Sisters.
  • Draw your soul. All important actions in the game are executed through drawing on the screen, the effect depending both on the sigil drawn and the color used.
  • Get to know the Sisters. Each of them representing a combination of two Colors, each of them alluring and greedy, the Sisters are willing to spill their hearts out—if you fill them with Color first.
  • Obey… or disobey. Seeing you as one of their own, the grotesque Brothers are willing to share their wisdom—as long as you obey. And if you don’t, be prepared for hard fights with intimidating gigantic foes.
  • Listen to the Voice of Color and find your true purpose.
Screenshots
Buy The Void

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Pathologic (2006)

A cult classic given new life, Pathologic Classic HD follows the fate of a small town devastated by a deadly plague of unknown origin. Each of the dozens of named characters has their own idea as to the nature of the beast, but only three of them—the Bachelor, the Haruspex, and the Changeling—are imbued with the player’s will and can change the outcome… with their ideas of the best solution being mutually exclusive. The player endeavours to survive in a dying town, trying to juggle stats and resources, explore the world, get to know its characters and save as many lives as possible. Conceived as an “ethical simulator”, Pathologic Classic HD never shies away from putting them in an uneasy situation.

Features
  • An indie cult classic.
  • 12 days in a plague-ridden town. Time is running, and mostly it’s running out; numerous events unfold, whether you’re there to witness them or not.
  • 70+ hours of real-time gameplay without grinding or repetitive quests. As time goes by, more and more things happen, inviting you to participate and change the course of events.
  • 3 playable characters with 3 unique storylines. The Bachelor’s, the Haruspex’s, and the Changeling’s plots are interconnected, but every side of the trilemma is represented separately via unique events, quests, dialogues, and subplots.
  • The plot is critically acclaimed and often regarded as the high point of the game. It’s not just about the fate of the dying town—it’s about an ideological conflict, represented by a multitude of characters and factions, each with their own idea of what life, death, and miracles are.
  • An open-world game. While the plot is there to grab you, the town has no artificial boundaries: you are free to explore it from day one, carving out your own story.
  • Survival is tough. The dying town demands that you constantly keep an eye on your status, maintaining a full belly and decent immunity. That will require tough choices.
  • Communicate, barter, rob, or steal. There are many ways to acquire your bare necessities, each of them with its own benefits and drawbacks.

The atmosphere of bleakness and despair without cartoonish evil or bad guys. Playtime is over—there will be no jump scares or simple solutions. You will have to do it the hard way.

Screenshots
Buy Pathologic

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Not a Remake

The new Pathologic will be different from the original one—that much we have already said. But on the scale of “totally new characters” to “just kinda retexturing the Polyhedron a bit”, what scope of changes are we talking about here?

Short answer: …is pointless, is it not? “Well, many things will change, but we’ll preserve the core concepts and, like, characters and stuff” just doesn’t cut it. Not anymore. We feel it’s long past due for us to give you the long answer—which will also inevitably have to be compressed, since the truly detailed explanation takes ~70 hours and demands you play the game itself. Still, we are going to try. We’ve even ordered an additional pack of bullet points to go with the customary verbosity.

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First thing first: it’s not final, but it’s a true, real, honest-to-god screenshot

Continue reading Not a Remake

Classic Ice-Picks! (Not Really)

At the end of October, we are planning to release the original Pathologic on Steam.

Not the Remake. The original game. It will, however, feature a number of enhancements, such as improved graphics and visual effects; cloud saves (and other modern-ish stuff it was deprived of previously); and a completely new translation produced by an in-house team from scratch.

Now may be a good moment to reiterate that this is not the remake, which is still in the works, but rather a thing that we heartily call “Pathologic Classic HD: Now Comprehensible”.

Now, we know it may be a bit confusing—

Continue reading Classic Ice-Picks! (Not Really)

Knock Knock I’m Back

The long and winding story of Knock Knock PS4 pricing has finally come to a close. It’s been an enlightening experience; we’ve come to realize that it is essential to research anything that seems obscure to you in excruciating detail (unless you’re the Lodger). Also that PSN only has three regions.

The current price is 8,99 EUR, and it’s final. If you’ve been waiting for the pricing situation to resolve, there’s no more need to wait until dawn: now is the perfect moment to finally buy the game. Thank you for your patience—and have a good spook!

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Please Don’t Buy Knock Knock

Yesterday, Knock Knock arrived on PS4. It’s a very important breakthough for our studio: the first Ice-Pick game on consoles ever!

Please don’t buy it.

Not yet. Not if you live in Europe, anyway.

The thing is, due to certain complications, the current price of the game is thrice as high as we’ve planned. Regional prices are a very important matter—and the current price tag is simply unfair for certain economies. We’ve misjudged the flexibility of the PSN service, and now, as a compromise, we’re working on lowering the PSN price of Knock Knock to €5 across all Europe. It will be updated on September, 18th.

We suggest you refrain from buying the game until then—it wouldn’t make sense to pay more since we’re unlikely to be able to provide you with additional benefits.

If you live in Europe, have already purchased the game, and feel unhappy with the price situation, please contact us at support@ice-pick.com and we will try to figure out something.

The North American price of Knock Knock will remain unchanged, so you’re welcome to try the PS4 Knock Knock experience right away.

Thank you for your attention and for the patience.

Be vigilant

And Here The Path of Erratic Logic Begins

So, er, we kind of knew there are some people interested in our endeavours and possibly frustrated with some aspects of original Pathologic, but we’re floored. We never thought we’d manage to collect more than $60,000 in our first few hours—more than 1/4th of the required sum! (Things are moving so fast that we actually had to correct the number while writing this update. More than once.)

Thank you so much! Each and every one of you. We don’t want to say something posh and cliche here, like “it’s an honor” or “we’ll do our best to be worthy of the faith you’ve put in us”. Just bear in mind that there’s a bunch of folks somewhere in Russia who keep refreshing the Backers page, reading every name and smiling giddily.

Thank you. There’ll be updates with more substance very soon.

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(We’re also very grateful to The Chinese Room, Tale of Tales, and Brian Fargo for their support. We love their games, and it’s nice to know the feeling is mutual.)

Oh, and here’s another nice thing: a feature by Adam Smith of Rock, Paper, Shotgun on what exactly and why exactly we’re remaking (or rather reimagining). Hopefully you’ll find it insightful!