Christmas.
The time of year that always seems to have me digging up somewhat obscure 8-bit computer
games like Icicle Works, developed by Mr. Doug Turner and distributed by Statesoft in
the UK in 1985.
Or at least this ZX Spectrum cassette tape release was.
Commodore distributed it for the Plus/4, 64, and 128 machines in the US, where it had this
magnificent superhero cover art.
Quite the contrast to this goofy-looking bloke on the Spectrum release.
Regardless of the version though, there is a distinct lack of screenshots on the packaging,
or any description at all,
making it a mystery to the consumer as to what the game looks like
or even what the genre is!
How helpful.
The insert inside the case describes Icicle Works as an arcade adventure, which could
mean literally anything when it comes to 8-bit computer games.
And then there’s the description of the gameplay and hehe, yeah apparently it features
exploding polar bears and penguins that kill you on contact.
I’m sure this text is making it sound more violent than it actually is, but man, this
kind of vague absurdity with ‘80s games is one reason
I will always love collecting them.
Plop in the tape to start the loading process, and you’re greeted with the usual kind of
Spectrum light show and loading screen imagery slowly drawing itself line by line.
Some time later you get a menu screen letting you change your preferred control method from
among the usual suspects, and well, here we are!
Icicle Works!
It’s... not what I was expecting.
In fact I wasn’t sure if this was even the right game initially.
Y'see, when I was looking for Christmas games to cover this year, I chose Icicle Works
because I saw some screenshots of a little guy in a Santa hat wandering through snow
that looked cute.
But this is, uh.
Well it’s not quite that.
Hrm.
Screw it, let’s hop on over to the Commodore 64 version, and instantly this is way better!
*way betterness ensues, with chiptune music*
Bouncy SID chip music, animated menu graphics, and just an overall
more pleasing presentation all-around.
Ahhh, this is what I was hoping for.
My bad for not looking up how different the Spectrum version was before I bought it, I
guess. I probably should've expected that being that the Speccy is what it is, but yeah
Anyway, Icicle Works!
Turns out it’s a Boulderdash clone, more or less.
But this one is not so linear in the way you progress through it.
In Icicle Works, you wander around the North Pole collecting presents that have been mysteriously
scattered throughout the snowy landscape.
And for some reason, that landscape includes tons of deadly falling rocks.
Anyway, each one of the packages you find contains a piece of one of Santa’s toys,
and your goal is to collect enough of the pieces to complete the toy in each level
because Santa sucks and he can't do it himself!
Once you’ve done that, you can collect more of them for bonus points, or finish the level
by using one of several exit doors.
These doors will bring you to various levels depending on which one you pick, so you aren’t
necessarily following a strict linear path through the game.
Instead you can hop around from level to level in the order of your choosing, which helps
the replayability factor.
However, you can’t just lollygag your way through them, since each level has a strict
timer that is constantly counting down to your impending death.
And naturally, there are hazards that will instantly kill you for daring to come close
to them, like the previously mentioned exploding polar bears and deadly penguins.
But like Boulderdash, your most frequent foes are the falling boulders, or snowballs in
this particular case.
Thankfully this is one Boulderdash-like that is somewhat forgiving with the physics,
giving you a split second to maneuver out of the way of a boulder
instead of it smashing you without warning every time.
Icicle Works also includes something a little more interesting in the form of icy water.
Once this is let loose, it’ll flow throughout the level and gradually limit where you can
walk since you can’t step over it.
So yeah, as if the stingy timer and Santa’s potential wrath wasn’t enough pressure,
you also have to worry about being trapped by rapidly-moving bodies of water.
Mix this in with all the physics puzzles and fast-moving evil penguins and such, and
Icicle Works becomes a tricky game indeed.
Compounded further by the way that the screen moves around,
it can be little tricky going from edge to edge for each part of the level.
Sometimes it gets a little out of hand. But yeah,
even though there are only 13 total maps, you will be hard-pressed to get through them
in one go since you have so few lives to start out with, and you have to restart the whole
game once you run out of them.
Eerghghgh.
Not that I recommend using a trainer, but I totally used a trainer to get this footage
because ain’t nobody got time for that!
I mean it though, I didn’t have the time, because Icicle Works gives you practically
none to icicle work with.
And so that’s the game: an experience of dashing and boulders, except the boulders aren’t
boulders and the dashing is cut short by polar bears and penguins filled with TNT.
Straightforward stuff this Icicle Works, and it's not that bad of a game really for 1985,
if you’re into this type of thing.
However, I’m left with one big question though: why is Icicle Works
called
Icicle Works?
There are no icicles to speak of throughout the game, unless you count small elements of the user interface.
So what is Icicle Works! Is it the name of Santa’s compound?
Is it the name of the company you work for, who’s presumably been hired to collect his
lost toy fragments?
Heck this was 1985, maybe it inspired by the Liverpool-based band The Icicle Works.
They had some hits at the time, so maybe they were just on the mind and it just
sounded like a good name for a Christmas game.
Or maybe it was based on 1960 short story, "The Day the Icicle Works Closed,”
by Frederick Pohl?
I think that’s where the band got their name too, but whatever
if that was the case, I’d expect this game to be about the economic collapse of
the world of Altair Nine.
Dang, now I wish it was, that’s a far more fascinating theme than yet another Christmas
cash-in that relies on the ineptitude of Santa Claus’ North Pole operations.
Oh well, Icicle Works!
It’s icy and it works, so that’s good enough for the holidays, I guess.
*jazzy musical interlude*
And if you enjoyed this icicle-y work of LGR then perhaps you would
like to see some of my others.
There are other Christmas game reviews this month and every December, as well as plenty
of other things every Monday and Friday throughout the year.
And as always, thank you very much for watching!