''Icy Tower'' is a

freeware Freeware is software, most often proprietary, that is distributed at no monetary cost to the end user. There is no agreed-upon set of rights, license, or EULA that defines ''freeware'' unambiguously; every publisher defines its own rules for the f ...

video game Video games, also known as computer games, are electronic games that involves interaction with a user interface or input device such as a joystick, controller, keyboard, or motion sensing device to generate visual feedback. This fee ...

by Swedish game developer Free Lunch Design. It is a

platform game A platform game (often simplified as platformer and sometimes called a jump 'n' run game) is a sub-genre of action video games in which the core objective is to move the player character between points in an environment. Platform games are charac ...

set in a tower, where the player's goal is to jump from one "floor" to the next and go as high as possible without falling and plunging off the screen. The higher the player's character climbs, the faster the tower's floors move downward and the harder the game becomes. By default, the player controls the character using a keyboard.

Gameplay

The player starts the game on the tower's ground floor. To climb the tower, the player must jump from floor to floor (default control: spacebar). The character can pass through the floors from below but lands on them when falling from above. Once the player has landed on a floor, they can move across its surface using the arrow keys. By moving across the floor, the player builds momentum for the next jump. The character can also bounce off the vertical walls on the left and right edges of the tower, allowing them to switch direction while maintaining momentum. If a player builds enough momentum, they can climb several floors in a single jump. Extended sequences of such multi-floor jumps are referred to as ''combos''. A combo ends when a player makes a jump which covers only one floor, falls off a floor and lands on a lower floor, or fails to make a jump within a certain time frame (about 3 seconds). At the start of the game, the tower's floors are stationary. When the player reaches floor 5, the floors begin to move slowly downward. Every thirty seconds, the floors' downward speed increases and the game tells the player to "Hurry up!" If the player misses a floor and falls off the bottom of the screen, the game ends. It also ends if the player is standing on a floor that moves off the bottom of the screen. The goal is to reach the highest possible floor and accumulate the greatest number of points. Points are awarded based on the highest floor reached and the player's combos (if any). Because the tower is of infinite height, it is impossible to reach the top floor. When the game ends, a replay of the game may be saved for later viewing.

Floors

The horizontal length of each floor depends on the player's progress, the version of the game, and a random factor. The floors' appearances change every 100 floors until floor 1000. * Floors 0 - 99: Stone * Floors 100 - 199: Ice * Floors 200 - 299: Wood * Floors 300 - 399: Metal * Floors 400 - 499: Chewing gum * Floors 500 - 599: Bone * Floors 600 - 699: Vines * Floors 700 - 799: Pipe * Floors 800 - 899: Cloud * Floors 900 - 999: Rainbow * Floors 1000 and above: glass

High scores

''Icy Tower'' records players' best results in built-in high-score tables. Scores are recorded in several categories including highest score, highest floor and longest combo. Players may also publish their scores in online high score lists which may require players to provide game replays to verify their results. The official ''Icy Tower'' list is on Free Lunch Design's web server.

Development

Free Lunch Design created ''Icy Tower'' using the

C programming language ''The C Programming Language'' (sometimes termed ''K&R'', after its authors' initials) is a computer programming book written by Brian Kernighan and Dennis Ritchie, the latter of whom originally designed and implemented the language, as well as ...

and the Allegro game library. Its designers were inspired by ''Xjump'', a game for the

Linux operating system Linux ( or ) is a family of open-source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991, by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged as a Linux distribution, which ...

Ports

On March 14, 2007, a press release was published on the Free Lunch Design website announcing a partnership between FLD and mobile game developer Xendex Entertainment for the

porting In software engineering, porting is the process of adapting software for the purpose of achieving some form of execution in a computing environment that is different from the one that a given program (meant for such execution) was originally desi ...

of ''Icy Tower'' to the mobile environment. ''Icy Tower Mobile'' (''ITM'') was released on October 6, 2008. Due to the then-current limitations of mobile platforms, the game lacked several features in its PC counterpart, such as recording or sharing replays, and changing game characters. On September 24, 2009, a Free Lunch Design game named ''Icy Tower Facebook'' (''ITFB''), developed on the Adobe Flash platform within the development framework of the

Facebook Facebook is an online social media and social networking service owned by American company Meta Platforms. Founded in 2004 by Mark Zuckerberg with fellow Harvard College students and roommates Eduardo Saverin, Andrew McCollum, Dustin M ...

social networking website, was released. It allows players to compare their results with results of their friends within the Facebook system. Players can also personalise their in-game avatars and unlock additional game levels (so-called ''towers'') corresponding to various game styles in the PC version of ''Icy Tower'' by exchanging them for ''coins'', the game's

virtual currency Virtual currency, or virtual money, is a digital currency that is largely unregulated and issued and usually controlled by its developers and used and accepted electronically among the members of a specific virtual community. In 2014, the Europe ...

. In November 2012, an official continuation of Icy Tower, ''Icy Tower 2'', was released for iOS and Android. The producer estimates that on November 23, 2012, the number downloads of Icy Tower 2 downloads surpassed one million. There are also unofficial, player-developed ''Icy Tower'' ports for the

Nintendo DS The is a handheld game console produced by Nintendo, released globally across 2004 and 2005. The DS, an initialism for "Developers' System" or "Dual Screen", introduced distinctive new features to handheld games: two LCD screens working in tan ...

and

PlayStation Portable The PlayStation Portable (PSP) is a handheld game console developed and marketed by Sony Computer Entertainment. It was first released in Japan on December 12, 2004, in North America on March 24, 2005, and in PAL regions on September 1, 2005, ...

game consoles.

Reception

''Icy Tower'' ranked high in the "Most Popular" ranking of the "PC games" section in the

Download.com CNET Download (originally Download.com) is an Internet download directory website launched in 1996 as a part of CNET. Initially it resided on the domain ''download.com'', and then ''download.com.com'' for a while, and is now ''download.cnet.com'' ...

software directory website; its average monthly number of downloads was "more than 20,000" in 2006, amounting to over five million . The total number of Icy Tower downloads was estimated at over 11 million in 2008. In terms of the number of websites devoted to the game, it is most popular in

Czech Republic The Czech Republic, or simply Czechia, is a landlocked country in Central Europe. Historically known as Bohemia, it is bordered by Austria to the south, Germany to the west, Poland to the northeast, and Slovakia to the southeast. The ...

Germany Germany,, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It is the second most populous country in Europe after Russia, and the most populous member state of the European Union. Germany is situated betwe ...

and

Poland Poland, officially the Republic of Poland, is a country in Central Europe. It is divided into 16 administrative provinces called voivodeships, covering an area of . Poland has a population of over 38 million and is the fifth-most populous ...

. Central European countries are also home to a major portion of top Icy Tower players. According to Johan Peitz, the author of the game, the reason behind the popularity of Icy Tower is that it allows players to compete in several different categories, for example in striving for both high floors and high scores. Online Icy Tower communities allow their members to exchange high scores, replays and comments about the game and its gameplay. Additionally, players frequently compete against themselves in online competitions. Icy Tower tournaments usually consist of a number of rounds, each lasting one or more days. In every round, contestants are required to record one or more replays with a result in a specific category of the game. Players have also organized live meetings, which took place in Cracow and

Warsaw Warsaw ( pl, Warszawa, ), officially the Capital City of Warsaw,, abbreviation: ''m.st. Warszawa'' is the capital and largest city of Poland. The metropolis stands on the River Vistula in east-central Poland, and its population is officia ...

, Poland and

Prague Prague ( ; cs, Praha ; german: Prag, ; la, Praga) is the capital and largest city in the Czech Republic, and the historical capital of Bohemia. On the Vltava river, Prague is home to about 1.3 million people. The city has a temperate ...

, Czech Republic. On May 30, 2007, an official Icy Tower website operated by Free Lunch Design was launched, available at icytower.freelunchdesign.com.The site has subsequently been relocated to itc.freelunchdesign.com. On June 3, 2009, the day of ''Icy Tower'' 1.4 release, an additional, complementary site has been opened at icytower.com.

Add-ons

The internal structure of ''Icy Tower'' allows for making changes to the character, soundtrack, sound effects and game palette through downloading and installation of repackaged resource files.Since ''Icy Tower'' 1.4 it is no longer possible to change the game palette using a custom character. Since version 1.2, ''Icy Tower'' allows for the use of skins to create additional custom characters which can replace the three default characters provided in the game package. Making a new character is done by creating an image file of a specified structure, containing the various poses needed to animate the character. It is also possible to create a more complex add-on using

WAV Waveform Audio File Format (WAVE, or WAV due to its filename extension; pronounced "wave") is an audio file format standard, developed by IBM and Microsoft, for storing an audio bitstream on PCs. It is the main format used on Microsoft Win ...

sound files, which will modify the game's soundtrack and sound effects.

Tools

There are a number of tools to help players train, change the game physics, or analyze their own results.

Notes

References

{{reflist, refs= {{cite web, url=http://icytower.freelunchdesign.com/highscores.php, archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070703164910/http://icytower.freelunchdesign.com/highscores.php, archive-date=July 3, 2007 , title=Highscores, publisher=Free Lunch Design, work=Icy Tower Community, access-date=December 30, 2009 {{cite web, url=http://www.facebook.com/posted.php?id=44804922041&share_id=137379454290&comments=1#s137379454290, title=Links on "Icy Tower", date=September 24, 2009, publisher=Facebook, access-date=October 4, 2009, quote=It's finally here: Icy Tower for Facebook! The game is limited to 5000 players during the initial test phase, so claim your slot now! {{cite video game, title=Icy Tower, platform=PC, version=1.4, developer=Free Lunch Design ( Readme file named "''Icy Tower'' v1.4"). {{cite web, url=http://www.cure.se/kultur/johan/johan.shtml, archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070211051538/http://www.cure.se/kultur/johan/johan.shtml, archive-date=February 11, 2007, title=Intervju med Johan Peitz, date=September 28, 2005, publisher=cure.se, first=Lukasz, last=Serafin, language=sv, trans-title=Interview with Johan Peitz, access-date=December 30, 2009, quote= ..I got the idea from ''Xjump'', an old game installed on the school computers. I expanded and improved the gameplay, packaged it neatly, and there you are – the first version was ready. {{cite web, url=http://www.freelunchdesign.com/pr/PR.FLD.20070314.pdf, archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070324233623/http://www.freelunchdesign.com/pr/PR.FLD.20070314.pdf, archive-date=March 24, 2007 , title=Free Lunch Design Takes Games to the Next Level, date=March 14, 2007, format=PDF, publisher=Free Lunch Design, access-date=July 26, 2007 {{cite web, url=http://www.icytower.mobi/wywiad.html, title=wywiad z twórcami Icy Tower Mobile - Xendex, date=July 29, 2008, first=Piotr, last=Maliszewski, work=ICYTOWER.mobi, publisher=Icy.pl, language=pl, trans-title=interview with the creators of Icy Tower Mobile - Xendex, access-date=December 26, 2008, archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20081216100744/http://www.icytower.mobi/wywiad.html, archive-date=December 16, 2008, url-status=dead {{cite web, url=http://www.freelunchdesign.com/smf/index.php?topic=3026.0, title=I'm porting IT to the DS, date=December 23, 2008, work=Free Lunch Design Forum, access-date=September 9, 2009, archive-date=October 6, 2011, archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20111006164527/http://www.freelunchdesign.com/smf/index.php?topic=3026.0, url-status=dead {{cite web, url=http://www.pspsource.de/download.php?view.1412, title=LUA Icy Tower v0.6, date=February 4, 2007, work=Downloads / LUA-Spiele, publisher=PSPSource.de, language=de, access-date=September 9, 2009, archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120302005709/http://www.pspsource.de/download.php?view.1412, archive-date=March 2, 2012, url-status=dead {{cite web, url=http://www.jonas-kyratzes.net/readarticle.php?article_id=17, archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070107232056/http://www.jonas-kyratzes.net/readarticle.php?article_id=17, archive-date=January 7, 2007, title=Interview with Johan Peitz, date=August 20, 2006, first=Jonas, last=Kyratzes, access-date=December 30, 2009, quote=Icy Tower ... features the possibility to play it in different ways, you can either aim for score by doing combo jumps, or you can aim for height by rushing towards to top all the time. {{cite web, url=http://www.freelunchdesign.com/smf/index.php?topic=1404.0, title=NEWS: Icy Tower climbs the charts, date=February 27, 2006, work=Free Lunch Design Forum, access-date=December 26, 2008, archive-date=December 13, 2007, archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20071213162909/http://www.freelunchdesign.com/smf/index.php?topic=1404.0, url-status=dead {{cite web, url=http://download.cnet.com/Icy-Tower/3010-2099_4-11032219.html?tag=mncol, archive-url=https://archive.today/20120710135453/http://download.cnet.com/Icy-Tower/3010-2099_4-11032219.html?tag=mncol, url-status=dead, archive-date=July 10, 2012, title=Icy Tower specs and Arcade Game specifications, publisher=Download.com, access-date=September 16, 2009 {{cite web, url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lp2Cz4GVA6I, title=Icy Tower Mobile Edition, date=May 30, 2008, publisher=YouTube, author=Handsonmobile, access-date=December 30, 2009 {{cite web, url=http://icytower.freelunchdesign.com/links.php, archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080201023452/http://icytower.freelunchdesign.com/links.php, archive-date=February 1, 2008, title=Links, publisher=Free Lunch Design, work=Icy Tower Community, access-date=December 30, 2009 {{cite web, url=http://www.freelunchdesign.com/icy_scores.php, archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070506222814/http://www.freelunchdesign.com/icy_scores.php, archive-date=May 6, 2007, title=Icy Tower Highscore List, publisher=Free Lunch Design, access-date=December 30, 2009 {{cite web, url=http://compactiongames.about.com/cs/freeactiongames/a/icyContest.htm, title=Holiday 2003 Icy Tower Contest - Win a copy of Call of Duty, year=2003, publisher=About.com, work=Computer Action Games, access-date=July 26, 2007, archive-date=July 12, 2007, archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070712233727/http://compactiongames.about.com/cs/freeactiongames/a/icyContest.htm, url-status=dead {{cite web, url=http://compactiongames.about.com/od/gameindex/a/contest2004.htm, title=2nd Annual Icy Tower Holiday Contest - 2004, year=2004, publisher=About.com, work=Computer Action Games, access-date=July 26, 2007, archive-date=August 26, 2007, archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070826043959/http://compactiongames.about.com/od/gameindex/a/contest2004.htm, url-status=dead {{cite web, url=http://www.freelunchdesign.com/smf/index.php?topic=1905.0, title=ICY TOWER NATIONS CUP 2006 r., date=November 22, 2006, work=Free Lunch Design Forum, access-date=July 26, 2007, archive-date=November 1, 2007, archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20071101012126/http://www.freelunchdesign.com/smf/index.php?topic=1905.0, url-status=dead {{cite web, url=http://www.freelunchdesign.com/smf/index.php?topic=1718.0, title=Icy.pl board users meeting - Cracow, 15.07.06, date=July 14, 2006, work=Free Lunch Design Forum, access-date=July 26, 2007, archive-date=February 10, 2007, archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070210120513/http://www.freelunchdesign.com/smf/index.php?topic=1718.0, url-status=dead {{cite web, url=http://www.freelunchdesign.com/smf/index.php?topic=2803.0, title=Icy Tower players meeting - Warsaw, 05.07.08, date=May 18, 2008, work=Free Lunch Design Forum, access-date=December 26, 2008, archive-date=October 21, 2008, archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20081021142703/http://www.freelunchdesign.com/smf/index.php?topic=2803.0, url-status=dead {{cite web, url=http://www.freelunchdesign.com/smf/index.php?topic=3711.0, title=Icy Tower players meeting - Warsaw, 28.08.10, date=August 26, 2010, work=Free Lunch Design Forum, access-date=November 26, 2010, archive-date=October 6, 2011, archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20111006165433/http://www.freelunchdesign.com/smf/index.php?topic=3711.0, url-status=dead {{cite web, url=http://www.freelunchdesign.com/smf/index.php?topic=3214.0, title=Mods for Icy Tower 1.4, date=July 5, 2009, work=Free Lunch Design Forum, access-date=September 17, 2009, archive-date=October 6, 2011, archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20111006164756/http://www.freelunchdesign.com/smf/index.php?topic=3214.0, url-status=dead {{cite video game, title=Icy Tower, platform=PC, version=1.4, developer=Free Lunch Design ( Readme file named "''Icy Tower'' custom characters"). Platformers Side-scrolling video games Freeware games 2001 video games MacOS games Windows games Flash games Java platform games Video games developed in Sweden Video games scored by Adam Gubman GameStick Games