Hello there,

thanks for tuning in to another of my newsletters. November was packed with fun stuff happening (besides developing games), and ended up with a showing of a playable demo of Icy Tower at DREAMHACK - the world’s biggest gaming festival. Read on!

Invest in change

A few years back I made the game Polar Panic. A game where you help a polar bear to survive as long as possible while the ice is melting. This year that game suddenly got a revival and was picked up by a national initiative called “Invest in Change”. The game was shown both at various political events as well as conferences as a showcase on how to use games to raise awareness of climate change. A serious topic for sure, happy to be able to help!

Podcasts

I had a lovely chat with Phil Szomszor about how I go about making games for pico8. This episode of Retro Titans is already live so listen here and let me know what you think.

About a year ago I was in another podcast and it is finally live! Hosted by the prestigious software engineering, hear me go into the technical bits of picoCAD. As always, feedback is welcome!

DREAMHACK

So, DREAMHACK! A massive 3 day event with over 50000 visitors. Not everyone was interested in indie games, but we had a good amount of people coming to play every day. We made an effort with our booth and set up a sofa to get a bit more living room feeling.

Reception was great and a lot of people came back again and again to check the scores and play again.

It was great talking to both new and old fans and we got a ton of great feedback. Main take aways:

• The gameplay is still highly addictive and was loved by old and new players alike.

• The response to the new kickback mechanic was very good, but we need to review how it is earned so it is more intuitive and easy to understand.

• Lots of smaller things to improve to make the game even better. Everything from button prompts to deadzone ratios on gamepads.

• The game is super stable and ran for 12 hours straight everyday without a single hiccup or issue.

Here’s a screenshot of the new tree trunk theme that was revealed at the event:

We took the opportunity and collected some stats over the course of the event - here’s some fun stats!

• A new game was started 5 425 times!

• Visitors jumped 278 772 floors in total and made 5 340 combos!

• Best result of the event was 490 floors. Set by a seasoned Icy Tower player (hey Elias!) who came back every day to set the record.

• We broke 10 000 wishlists on Steam just when the event started!

Massive thanks to everyone who came to the booth. Was great meeting you and chat about the game and indie development.

Last bits

Don’t miss Steam’s winter sale that starts December 18. I’ll be doing massive discounts and get ready for new releases in 2026. Check out the games!

All the best and take care!
Johan