Hello, Explorers!

We have some incredibly exciting news to share: We're going to the Tokyo Game Show 2025!

For the first time, players will be able to go hands-on with an early demo of our game. We are beyond excited to finally share what we've been building and to see your reactions.
If you're in Tokyo from September 27th to 28th, find our booth in Hall 5 and be among the very first in the world to play Lysward!

Can't make it to Japan? Don't worry, this is just the beginning. Follow along right here for exclusive updates and all the insights from TGS25 - we’ll have news soon to share.

Your support means everything. Please help us build the hype by wishlisting Lysward on Steam!

We’ll see you in the next update, Explorers!
Snowcastle Games

Hello, Explorers!

Today’s update is very special: Meet Kiran, the character you’ll play as in Lysward. After escaping the Notus facility with no memories and a strange device fused to his forearm, Kiran awakens in a desolate cave, forced to survive a desert that wants him dead. His name is pronounced “Kee-ren”.

Kiran’s concept art.

Kiran’s visual journey from concept to final character was a long one. His first iteration was created as a style test for our art and animation teams, a placeholder that allowed them to explore movement and tone. 

Old concept.

Creating Kiran demanded more than just concept art: It required weaving his entire story into his visual identity. Our art team worked closely with our skilled narrative designer, Hannah, and the talented artist Jeleynai, using every story beat and gameplay need as the foundation for their concept art. This incredible collaboration began with broad exploratory sketches, each iteration bringing us closer to a character who feels authentically shaped by his harsh world.

Every detail from the functionality of his Amri sleeve to the wear and tear on his clothing had to reflect his harrowing escape and fight for survival.

But a protagonist’s design isn’t just about aesthetics: It’s about making players connect with their struggle. Through dozens of iterations, we refined Kiran into someone players immediately understand yet still want to uncover.

We had to hit a lot of notes, from the Amri-sleeve on his arm hinting at the function we had from the writing, through his outfit needing to fit where Kiran enters the story in the game, to how his face looks to convey who he is as a person. When you first see Kiran, you should feel his history before he speaks a word. That’s the power of thoughtful character design.

We’re thrilled with the result and can’t wait for you to step into his shoes. What do you think of Kiran? 

We’ll have a closed playtest coming soon, so stay tuned and wishlist Lysward. 

We’ll see you in the next update, Explorers!
Snowcastle Games

Hello, Explorers!

Today, we have a very special reveal. Meet Gjorna, your mentor and ally in the unforgiving world of Lysward. And in case you’re wondering, the pronunciation of her name is “Yor-na”.

Character Concept Art.

Gjorna is no ordinary guide. She's a resourceful Hogbunny fugitive, desperately searching for her missing partner, Orren, after escaping the cruel experiments of Notus Haven. When your paths cross in the desert, you'll work together to uncover the terrible truth behind Notus' exploitation of the land... and what they did to both of you.

Now, if you’ve played Hogworld, EARTHLOCK, Ikonei Island, or read our comics, you might have noticed that Gjorna is a Hogbunny, but her visuals are very different from the others. This happened because we felt Lysward demanded a fresh take on Hogbunnies so they could fit in this environment.

Hedda and Gnart variations.

To achieve her final visual, we’ve tested and experimented a lot. We needed more expressive animations, which led to proportion changes, while the art style evolved to match the game's mature themes. After countless iterations, we arrived at her final design: a perfect balance of grit and personality that fits Lysward's harsh environment.

Gjorna will be your most valuable company in the desert. Every clue she shares reveals more about your shared, painful past and the dark secrets of Notus Haven.

What are your thoughts on Gjorna? Let us know in the comments. 

Wishlist Lysward to help us grow our community!

We’ll see you in the next update, Explorers!
Snowcastle Games

Hello and welcome to Lysward!

To those of you who are new here, we're Snowcastle Games, an independent game developer based in Norway. You might know us from the nostalgic JRPG EARTHLOCK or the cozy Ikonei Island. We're now working on Lysward, a single-player survival adventure set in the desert.

Yes, desert! We’re pretty sure you’ve seen Norwegian people making games about desert before (if you know, you know).

We’re explorers by nature so we decided to step outside our “snowy” comfort zone and create a game set in a harsh desert where survival hinges on your ability to adapt, find resources, and create deep relationships with your crew.

So climb on board and let’s explore it together.

The desert is unforgiving

The name “Lysward” is a fusion of two elements: “Lys,” the name of the Sun in the EARTHLOCK universe, and also a Norwegian word for “light”; and “ward,” symbolizing a journey or movement. We chose this title to evoke a sense of exploration and adventure.

Lysward is set in a vast and unforgiving desert within the fantastical world of Umbra. If you've played our other games, you might recognize a few familiar elements.

The planet Umbra doesn't turn, so the sun is stationary in the sky. This bathes one part of the world in perpetual daylight and makes the intense heat your enemy number one. The sun is also the source of a powerful magic called Amri.

You'll play as an escaped experiment from the facility that was both his home and prison. You will have to navigate this treacherous desert, where the sun's relentless heat can quickly overwhelm you. A key way to ensure your survival is to search for remains of advanced technology left behind by ancient civilizations.

To endure the relentless heat, you’ll need to explore the sands, scavenge for resources, and craft tools and technologies to help you on your journey. Master the art of survival, and the desert will reveal wonders beyond your imagination.

Exploring the sands

As we announced here, we're leveraging many of the tools we developed for EARTHLOCK 2 in the creation of Lysward. One of the most important gameplay elements is the Speeder, a small but fast vehicle that’s not just your ride across the sands, but also a mobile base of operations for you and your companion. While it offers heat protection, the Speeder can be damaged and will require repairs.

Join the adventure

If you liked what you saw here, please consider adding Lysward to your wishlist. It shows us how much interest there is in the game and helps with visibility.

We will be having a closed playtest soon, so don’t forget to join our Discord community if you want to be part of it!

See you soon!

Snowcastle Games

Hey Voyagers,

It’s been a while since our last update, and we know you’ve been waiting for news. Let’s get to it.

Our Creative Director, Bendik, has an important message to share with you.

At Snowcastle Games, we’re committed to creating engaging and fun experiences for our players. When we began sharing our vision for EARTHLOCK 2 in 2024, your feedback indicated our vision for the game wasn't quite meeting your expectations, so we took one step back to understand how to improve that experience.

We know how important EARTHLOCK is to many of you and how much a huge part of our community enjoys RPGs, so to honor the original EARTHLOCK and deliver the sequel you deserve, we’ve determined that EARTHLOCK 2 must be a proper sequel, establishing the EARTHLOCK series as a true trilogy that meets your expectations.

This means we are reworking our original plans for EARTHLOCK 2 and resetting the development to create a trilogy of games that truly honors the EARTHLOCK universe. Now, this doesn’t mean the effort we’ve invested so far will go to waste. Much of the inspiration, system, and tools from EARTHLOCK 2 have been carried over to serve as the foundation for a new project called Lysward. The team is very excited about this new adventure in the EARTHLOCK world which we will share much more about in the weeks to come! Join the Discord server to join future playtests and betas.

We understand that this means a longer wait for the sequel you were expecting. However, we believe this change is necessary to deliver the best experience and a true continuation of the EARTHLOCK story. We want to make sure it's something we're all proud of.

We'll keep you updated on the progress of both Lysward and EARTHLOCK 2 as we move forward. And if you’re into survival games, make sure to wishlist Lysward now to know more about one of our next games!

Thanks for your continued support. 2025 will be a very important year for us and we appreciate you being with us on this journey.

Snowcastle Games.

We are delighted to announce the official launch of Ikonei Island: And Earthlock Adventure on PlayStation and Xbox Series X | S! The Blooming Beginning, a 1.5 update, is also available now on Epic and Steam.

A massive thanks to our publishers, Jetpack Collective and The Iterative Collective, for their support throughout this journey!

Share this news and help us spread the word! #GameDev #GameLaunch #IndieGameDev

Big wins for Ikonei Island! We're thrilled to announce that our cozy game has won 3 awards at the Norwegian National Game Awards:

🏆 Game of the Year

🏆 Best Fun for All

🏆 Best Technology

Huge thanks to our incredible community for your support! Hop onto this award-winning adventure today.

We have awesome news, Castaways: Ikonei Island has been nominated for 7 categories in the Spillprisen Award, including Game of The Year!

We’re more than proud to be nominated along with other amazing games!

Check the full list here: https://www.virke.no/konferanser/spillprisen/

Hey, Voyagers! 🧭
When we first started developing EARTHLOCK 2 in 2019, we had a specific vision for the game but as we were developing it, we found that it didn't work as intended. We made the painful decision to stop the production and instead started working on Ikonei Island so that we could get enough time to rework the core vision for EARTHLOCK 2.

The rework of the vision is now done and we are super stoked with the new concept.
Today, we're eager to begin sharing this with you!

What is EARTHLOCK 2? 🗺️
A band of voyagers stands at the precipice of danger and glory. What lays before them - a vast desert of mystery and possibility. Explore and transform the sands into an Oasis full of life, and you will surely grow more powerful. Your trusty Desert Ship may start as a humble mode of transportation, but with time and effort, it will become your mobile base of operations, and instill fear into your enemies in the desert. Rise to become the most formidable Explorer of Umbra!

---

Creating Biomes and Desert Ships. ⚒️
We augmented Unreal’s Landscape system by making it dynamic and developed a full ecosystem simulator; together, this enabled a fully dynamic game world. It changes over time and responds to what the player does. The game world starts as a blank canvas, a desert, and you’ll get to change it over time.

We also spent some time developing features for base building and then we noticed that in a large, open world, building new bases over and over again as you explored it would be less fun, so we decided that a mobile base would do the trick. That’s when we came up with the concept of a desert ship

Umbra World Map

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The expedition awaits! ⌛
Just like a pirate ship is good for sailing in the sea, a Desert Ship is perfect for exploring the desert. Your Ship is your mobile base! Driving your Ship doesn’t always have to be a solo experience - having a crew of friends to join your expedition and travel across the Desert can make this experience even more fun. Use the riches collected from the Biomes or dropped by enemies and turn your mobile base into the most formidable Ship the citizens of Umbra have ever seen!

Check this update to learn more about the Desert Ships.

Desert Ship prototype

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If you're familiar with the friendly environment of EARTHLOCK, brace yourself for a stark contrast. In EARTHLOCK 2, the scorching sun and the dunes render life nearly impossible. Nearly. Biomes full of life and dangers emerge amidst the vast sea of sand. Tend to them well enough and you’ll be compensated with riches and treasures.

You can learn more about Biomes in this update.

What mystery lies ahead?

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Thank You For Your Support! 💛

We’re excited to hear what you think about all this news, Voyagers! Wishlist EARTHLOCK 2 now to support the development and stay updated with the latest news.

Join our Discord to discuss EARTHLOCK 2 with fellow Voyagers.
Follow us on Social Media: Twitter | Instagram | TikTok | YouTube

Wishlist Earthlock 2 here: https://store.steampowered.com/app/826640/EARTHLOCK_2/

As we approach the end of the year, it's time to reflect on the milestones we've achieved together and share some important updates.
🐸Ikonei Island Launched on Steam and Epic🐸

We're thrilled to announce the successful launch of Ikonei Island: An Earthlock Adventure on November 9th, now available on both Steam and Epic platforms. We worked hard to implement the “Friends’ Pass”, which also functions as a demo! The “Friends’ Pass” allows a group of up to 4 players to play indefinitely on the host’s island, provided the host owns the game. We hope this fosters a sense of community and collaboration among players.

We are not done with Ikonei Island yet - On December 14th, Ikonei is celebrating “Lystide”! Players will be visited by “The Spirit of Lystide Past” - so make sure to check out the Hamlet!

Your support has been instrumental in making this launch a success, and we're excited to continue building and expanding Ikonei Island in the coming months.

Earthlock's Epic Store Free Week

Our first title, Earthlock, was originally released in 2018. We have seen a huge boost in activity since it was available for free on the Epic Store for a week in November. Over 5.9 million people claimed the game! We hope you enjoyed revisiting the world of Earthlock. Be sure to check out our comics on Steam and Epic if you want to delve further into the Earthlock lore.

Earthlock 2 Delay and Updates

We have restarted the Earthlock 2 project and with that put the date to TBA. For the last year we have been in pre-produciton totally redesigning the main concept and direction of the game. We are super excited to share this new vision for E2 with you and will be doing so in the upcoming months.

Our team made the choice to switch from Unity to Unreal Engine a couple of years ago. This has been a huge undertaking, and we have learned a lot about the engine, and the way we work as a studio. Another major challenge we have taken on is working on our first multiplayer game in Ikonei Island. We have grown as a studio tackling these challenges, but it has cost us more time than initially anticipated.

However, for the last year, we have gone back to pre-production working on the core vision and redesigned the main concept for the game. We feel we have something really good now, and we have been presenting this to publishers and investors lately. We even won an award for the most anticipated game at an investor event in Malta at the end of November.

We are working on making this vision presentable to the community and will begin posting about this soon. We’re excited to share these new features and more news about the development process going forward, so wishlist Earthlock 2 to keep up to date!

Speaking of new features… What’s this?

As we wrap up the year, we want to express our gratitude for your unwavering support, feedback, and enthusiasm. Our community plays a pivotal role in shaping the future of our games, and we look forward to embarking on new adventures together in the upcoming year.

Wishing you a joyful holiday season and a fantastic New Year filled with exciting gaming experiences!

Best regards,

❄️Snowcastle Games❄️