Ice Lakes was released exactly one year ago, April 19th. The past year has been awesome and a big thanks belongs to the community who have played the game, who have given lots of constructive feedback and suggestions how to improve the game, to those who have made videos and streams to all social channels and finally to all others who have been involved in the Ice Lakes community. It has been a privilege to see how much joy our game has given to so many people. Thank you!

Year of Ice Lakes

During the past year the game has evolved in many ways. Almost each update have included new content or feature that have expanded the game. Five new maps, new jig types, almost ten new fish species and fish fights are some of the most distinguishable features that were added in the content updates to mention a few. Then another major feature we added was a full VR support for VIVE and Oculus Touch. This was not a small task, because it required rethinking game mechanics to work with the VR controllers. It also required rebuilding big parts of the game and remaking the graphics to work with the VR. We are very happy that adding VR version to the game has increased the dedicated playerbase. Furthermore, VR also made the game available to completely new audiences. For example, the game is now playable in multiple VR arcades around the world so that people without access to VR or even frozen lakes can go and experience ice fishing.

Update Announcement

Even though we have new projects in development, we want to improve and expand Ice Lakes further. We have a new updates coming in the future and now let us introduce some of the features we are going to release this year. First there will be some smaller updates that will take care of some of the minor issues and bugs that have been found from the game. After that we have a bigger new content update coming, which will be something little bit different. Even though winter never ends in Ice Lakes, we thought that something different (and little bit crazy) might cheer up the dark winter theme in the game. Two new maps that are currently coming to the game are Tropical Freeze and Polar Storm (names may change). In Tropical Freeze players are thrown into sunny paradise islands where, because of drastic climate change phenomenon, a sudden cold atmosphere has frozen all waters. The fishermen around the world are gathering to experience ice fishing in the tropical paradise. This might be a once in a lifetime opportunity to go ice fishing in the middle of calmly waving palm trees. Polar Storm, on the other hand, is from the other end of the spectrum. This map is located to polar region, where the bravest fishermen are exercising their passion on small ice rafts. There might be occasional whales and nuclear submarines you might encounter as well. When there are new environments, there will be new fish. New fish species will be added to new environments, but maybe also to the old ones. VR fish fights will be improved. Currently the VR fish fighting is not as complex as in the standard version of the game. We are trying to make it similar to the standard version without handicapping the gameplay. Night mode is also one big feature we have been thinking. Fishing during nighttime is not as easy in real life and usually you get even less fish than during other times of the day. It would be a hardcore mode so to speak.Therefore this should also be the hardest difficulty in the game. This would affect also the old levels and the entire appearance of the game. These are couple of things we have in store for the future of the game. Give us a feedback what you think and keep on fishing! With these notes we end this announcement and congratulate our one year old game that we are very proud of. Happy birthday Ice Lakes!

[ 2017-04-19 11:09:04 CET ] [ Original post ]