Originally posted to the fourth 72 hour game development competition from December 17, 2004 to December 20, 2004.
Cold Comfort
a "custom ice" game by Team Michi & Tesa
for the December 2004 72 Hour Game Developing Contest
Michi: azquilina@gmail.com
Tesa: cold-comfort@regna.nu
"The Cold Comfort Ice Cream Parlor is a nifty place to be. Get your ice
cream just the way you want it, custom made to order, and invent a name
for your treat as well!
Hired help wanted."
Tom Khas loves ice cream so much that he has taken on a job as an ice
cream customizer at the Cold Comfort Ice Cream Parlor. Their ice cream
servings are so massive that they have to be prepared in a sub zero
environment, and due to sub par hygiene standards, it's only befitting
that the preparations are made outside the customer's view.
Contents
--------
1. Settings
2. Controls
3. Gameplay
4. Customer satisfaction
5. Bonuses
6. Scoring
7. Gameplay tips
8. Requirements
Settings
--------
On the title screen, use arrow (or numeric keypad) up/down to highlight
the game options, arrow left/right to choose among the alternatives:
Difficulty:
Easy: For beginning ice cream composers. You will want to practice
a few rounds on this setting and master the controls before
moving on. For the first few levels only one ice cream order
will be waiting at a time.
Medium: Here the challenge begins. More of everything, including two
outstanding orders at any one time. All scores will be
doubled.
Hard: Frantic ice cream action. Three orders to be filled, insects
galore and tonnes of random balls. For the pro. All scores
will be tripled.
Hardware:
Decent: A reasonably modern computer with a reasonably modern graphics
card. All graphic settings will be on, and the frame rate will
be optimal.
Poor: This setting should allow the game to be enjoyed fully on most
machines with graphics nearly as good as when using the "decent"
setting. There might be some flickering.
Crap: The frame rate is halved, no attempts are made to be nice to
other processes, graphic caching is off, ice is not scratched,
etc. It might not look nearly as good as the other settings,
but it should damn well run!
Clipping:
Smooth: The default setting. You should probably leave it here.
Safe: Should you experience weird graphic glitches when objects
leave the screen, switch to this setting. It'll help. Much
in the same way as amputating your leg will help your
sprained ankle, but it'll help.
ALT-ENTER (at any time) will toggle windowed / full-screen (experimental)
mode.
Begin a game by hitting space when "start" is lit.
Exit the program with space when "quit" is lit.
Controls
--------
Guide Tom Khas with the arrow keys (or numeric keypad) as he skates
around the preparation floor. Bump into ice cream balls to push them in
the right direction (preferrably onto the correct ice cream container).
Press space to throw ice cream scoops. The scoops can be helpful in
pushing the ice cream in the right direction and are also good for
dealing with vermin.
Arrow left/right: turn Tom left or right
Arrow down: brake
Space: throw scoop (hold to throw continuously)
Gameplay
--------
Tom Khas' goal is to serve ice cream treats made to order as fast as
possible and with maximum customer satisfation. If the customers
become too disgruntled with him, he might just lose his job.
Cold Comfort Ice Cream Parlor has sixteen superb flavours to choose
from, served in dishes, cones or glasses, depending on the size of
a customer's order. The dish fits two balls, the cone fits three
and the glass fits four.
Once a customer has placed his order, the order details are pinned
up, and the ice cream container arrives on the conveyor belt. Balls
will be piped in from the freezers and Tom Khas has to hurry up and
fulfill the order as soon as possible. If he's really quick, he might
even manage to decorate the treat with a topping. Customers love
toppings!
The gnomes in the freezers work hard to make sure Tom gets the correct
flavours with which to build his treats. Sometimes (more often as the
difficulty increases) they will mess up, or just throw in a random
ball for fun. Chances are Tom will mess up too, and leftover balls
will slide around the floor. As only a limited amount of balls can be
present in the room at any one time (this number too will increase as
the levels progress) Tom might find himself with a roomful of unusable
flavours. He can then utilize the waste chute in the upper right corner
to get rid of the offending balls. However, doing this will incur a
score penalty.
Work would be much easier if Tom was left alone to do his job.
Unfortunately it's not only our customers who delight in our lovely
ice cream. Ice cream ant spiders live in, eat, and lay eggs in the
balls of milky goodness, and they do not approve of Tom trying to steal
their homes. As the game progresses in difficulty, more and more ant
spider commandoes are sent to reclaim missing balls. While generally
harmless, a swarm of angry ant spiders with its own agenda will surely
get in the way. A tough and hardy breed; nothing but well-placed
super-sonic ice cream scoops will crush them dead.
Customer satisfaction
---------------------
Happy customers is what this business is about. In the panel in the top
left corner of the screen there is a satisfaction meter. As orders are
fulfilled, this will update to display our reputation on the streets.
Happy customers (indicated by a green face on a completed order) will
move the meter to the right, angry customers (red faces) to the left.
A merely satisfied customer (yellow face) will not move the meter at
all. Should the meter reach the far left, Tom will be instantly fired
with no severance, and replaced by a scantily clad, buxom blonde in
a future sequel.
Customers these days expect perfect service, instant response times
and way too low prices - the bastards. If Tom takes too long a time to
fill an order, the customer starts to get impatient. He will rewrite
his order on angry red paper to make sure you prioritize his important
treat. Should you still delay, he will leave our establishment, slam
the door on his way out and never return - the bastard. The container
associated with his order will be crossed out and must be returned, all
evidence to Tom's foul-up destroyed, before the remaining customers can
relax. As long as there are crossed-out containers on the floor, the
satisfaction meter won't increase.
Too little ice cream in a container: irrevocably angry customer
Impatient customer (red note): satisfaction down
Customer got tired and left: irrevocably angry customer
Less than 50% of flavours correct: satisfaction down
Topping: satisfaction up
After every two happy customers, the difficulty level will increase a
notch. More pipelines will open to spit out balls, more balls will be
rolling around the floor, the orders will get more complex, more
simultaneous orders will come in, more ant spiders will attack. It is
a tough life, the life of an ice cream customizer.
Bonuses
-------
If an ice cream treat has been prepared exceptionally quickly, Tom Khas
gets a bonus topping to add to a later treat. A topping will only stick
to a full container and will only grant a bonus if the customer is at
least satisfied with his topped treat.
Umbrella: increases Tom's turn rate for better control
Strawberry: increases the speed with which Tom throws scoops
Wafer roll: improves Tom's acceleration and deceleration
Wafer: increases Tom's top speed
Cherry: gives an extra boost to the satisfaction meter
Scoring
-------
The larger the treat, the higher the score. Basically, Tom Khas gets
points for the size of the treat and the speed at which he served them.
This is the base score.
If he has a high overall customer satisfaction, he will also be awarded
more generously. This, like the difficulty bonus, is a multiplier.
Customers love surprise toppings, so Tom can get quite some extravagant
tips this way. This is also a multiplier.
Multipliers stack, so a topped, quickly served, four flavour treat on
hard difficulty will rake in points by the tens of thousands.
Minor points are awarded for killing ant spiders, as well as adding
balls and toppings to containers. Points are lost for wasting ice cream
down the garbage chute.
The all-time top score is remembered and displayed on the title screen.
Gameplay tips
-------------
For those who have grown up with modern gaming where the trend is to
make everything linear, long-lasting and way too easy, the job as ice
cream customizer might seem a bit daunting at first. Remember then, with
practice comes perfection and with perfection comes satisfaction. Here
are a few initial tips to help improve your gameplay:
* Study the behaviour of the ant spiders and arrange so that they
help Tom instead of obstructing him.
* Remember that you can be in two places at the same time. Where
Tom is physically, and at the impact point of his scoops.
* Avoid the walls. The key to successful bouncing is momentum. If Tom
bounces off a wall, his speed will be halved. Unless you have
served a couple of wafer rolls, this will hamper progress noticably.
* For the same reason, avoid braking unless absolutely necessary.
Should you be too close to the object you want to hit, it is often
more effective to make a bigger turn in the opposite direction and
come at it with full speed than to brake and make a narrow turn.
* When you have multiple containers in play, strike a compromise
between grouping them for easy defense - you must always be ready
to protect them from incoming stray balls - and spacing them out
for easy targeting. As your aim grows better and the floor becomes
more frantic, you will want to keep them as close to each other
as possible.
* Never return a partially filled container, particularly not in the
early levels when there can be only a few balls on the floor.
Chances are the next order will not use the left-over balls and you
will have to waste time trashing them on the other side of the room
before the pipes can give you the desired ones.
* If all else fails, cheat: on the title screen, type "tesa" on the
keyboard (make sure the window is activated first) to toggle auto-
acceleration. In cheat mode, arrow up (or numeric keypad 8) will
increase Tom's speed rather than him doing it automatically, giving
precision control.
Requirements
------------
Cold Comfort has been tested on Windows 98 and Windows XP with nVidia
graphic cards. Direct X (8.0 or later) is required. 32 bit graphics are
preferred, although 16 will work (albeit look crap). Changing bit depth
while the game is running is bad, mmkay, so don't do it.
Have fun. And remember, the customer's eyes are upon you.
Michi & Tesa