Review: New Ice York (2017) [pixietails.club]

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====== Review: New Ice York (2017) ======
Original post: https://misthold.dreamwidth.org/7632.html

**[[https://magicdweedoo.itch.io/new-ice-york|New Ice York]] (2017)** is an adventure RPG set in a frozen New York City. You play a detective trying to track down the villain responsible for freezing New York. 

Unfortunately this was a complete mismatch almost from the start. The story is an good concept and I like how easy the controls are, but I dislike almost everything about this game. 

First, there was bad punctuation in the intro. Not a deal breaker, but not a great sign. Then, as I moved throughout the game, I kept finding more typos and punctuation-- not sure if it's the "style" or just bad editing. <cut text="More words and 1 image|

Second, the art is a scribbly, doodle-y style in shades of blue, which is actually a pretty neat idea. BUT, the pattern choices for some buildings literally made my eyes sore, and the character designs are hideous. Also, why is the librarian wearing a bikini? idk. 

A Steam review mentioned that this style is "counter-culture art," which is cool! It definitely reminds me of 1990s punk zine art. Not my thing, but interesting.

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Third, the actual gameplay was simple and boring. Now, apparently the first chapter is the slowest and least exciting, which is definitely true. The building designs have huge floors filled with tiny furniture, so you spend a lot of time moving across empty floors. There isn't much interaction with anything. You can only interact with walls and people, move from building to building, and get phone numbers. Maybe you can pick stuff up later? 

Since I ditched it after 15 minutes I guess I'll never know how the game develops beyond the drudge that was the first chapter, but reviews seem to think that it's quirky and unusual. </cut>

There's no comments at all on the Itch.io page which makes me think I'm not the only one who wasn't thrilled with it. There are some good reviews on [[https://store.steampowered.com/app/855530/New_Ice_York/|Steam]]. Also, it won the 2019 Freeplay award for excellence in design. A mixed bag, I guess.

Price: $6.00

Available for Windows and Mac OS. I played the Mac OS version. Play time guesstimated from Steam reviews, where it seems like most people finished at 5-6 hours.