Welcome, Explorers! 

If you saw the latest news from us, you already knew that today we’re launching a new update for Lysward’s demo. 

Since the demo launch, you’ve given us a great amount of feedback - and we took that seriously. We’re building this game for you, after all. And one thing you guys said was that Lysward didn’t feel survival enough. 

You wanted survival? YOU GOT SURVIVAL!

Lysward is now harder than it was before. The desert is more brutal, the heat is more unforgiving, and to top it all off, there are storms and dangerous creatures roaming around. We won’t hold your hand, and you will die many times before you learn the ways of the sands. So if you’re looking for a more chill survival game, Lysward might not be for you.

This update touches almost every system in the game, from the very first minute you wake up to how you survive and construct.

What’s New:

• Death camera: Dying feels a whole lot more impactful now, thanks to new third-person death animations you’ll have in-game. We hope you will have as much fun with it as we had making it. We dare you to share your death cams on social media.

• Base building: We have it! But in this update, we’re bringing just the first module you can build. We will bring more updates to base building in the near future; we’re polishing the experience to be the best it can be.

• New onboarding and initial cave: We’ve completely reworked the opening experience and initial cave area to give you a more engaging entry into the game, especially when it comes to the shadow and sun mechanics.

• Research tree: Unlock new technologies, blueprints, and buildings through our fresh research system and updated progression mechanics.

• New creatures: New wildlife and threats have migrated into the desert. Can you pet that dog? There’s only one way to find out.

• Memory Chamber: We felt the players needed to test a bit more of their newly learned ability before coming back to the desert, so we remodeled the memory chamber to offer you that chance.

• Mother Tree Leaderboard: See how close you can get to the Mother Tree compared to players worldwide. Join the leaderboard and beat the devs’ time!

Note: Simplified Chinese has been removed from the demo. We’ll be adding localization updates in the future.

There are other exciting new things in the demo, but we’re not gonna spoil everything for you. Go discover them.

Pardon our dust

We are pushing this update out specifically because we need your feedback. And since this is a major update, you will encounter some bugs, balance quirks, and temporary placeholders.

For example, while the game will be voiced by our official voice actors, for the newly added situations we are currently using temporary internal team voice-overs as an addition - no AI voices involved. We’ll be swapping these out for professional recordings down the line, but we wanted to get these new features into your hands as soon as possible rather than holding back the update.

For the complete list of known issues, please check this thread in our discussion forums.

So go on and try out base building, break things, push the mechanics to their limits, find all the ways you can die in Lysward, and let us know what feels great and what needs work. 

Jump into our Steam Community Hub or hit up our Discord to drop your bugs, thoughts, and suggestions.

JOIN DISCORD

See you in the desert,

Snowcastle Games

Hello Explorers,

A new update is now available for the Lysward Beta! Thank you to everyone who has reported bugs and shared their thoughts; you are directly helping us shape the game.

Here’s what’s new in this update:

• A new inventory is in place, fixing the bugs of the old one and showing more relevant stats (like health, amri, heat resistance, etc.)

• New itembar, making it much easier to deal with consumables and throwing items (Sunlight/Item interactions)

• Better onboarding and introduction of the sunlight/shadow mechanics

  Improved dialogue system, including word highlighting and tooltips

• More desert VFX, like gusts of sand and dust plumes

• Improved creature behaviour

• Improvements to the quest system

• Compass improvements

• Several crafting and research improvements

Important thing: old saves will not work with this new update, so you'll have to start a new game.

We've also seen many requests for stackable items, and we want to explain why we're not doing that. By limiting how much you can carry, we aim to make every journey into the desert a meaningful decision about risk and reward, encouraging strategic planning over hoarding.

We are super proud of this update, and we hope you enjoy the open beta! This is just an early experience of Lysward, and one small step in our ongoing journey. Please keep your feedback and bug reports coming via our Discord Server or the Steam Forums.

Thank you for your amazing support. Wishlist Lysward to keep up with the latest news!

See you in the desert!

Snowcastle Games

Explorers, the moment is here!

The Lysward Beta is officially live, and we're thrilled to invite you to step into this scorching desert. To mark the occasion, we’re also releasing a new gameplay trailer:

A quick but important note: This is an early look at a game still actively in development. You will encounter bugs, unfinished areas, and features that are still being balanced. We’re releasing it in this state for one reason: to build it with you.

You can join the beta by clicking this button on our page. It'll give you immediate access:

Here are some known issues you can find in the game. We’re aware of them and are working to get them fixed as soon as possible. You can find the full list (and report new bugs) on our Discord or Steam forums:

• Quest-problem: Walls Behind Me - Search the oasis camp: If you have already found and read the book hidden in the camp, you have to re-read it to progress this quest.

• UI problem: There are scaling issues when playing in Windowed Fullscreen.

Your feedback is absolutely essential. You’re not just playing; you’re helping us shape the future of Lysward! Wishlists are super important for indie devs, so wishlist Lysward to also support the development!

Are you ready? Let’s play!

Snowcastle Games

Hello Castaways,

We have an important update to share: We have reached a mutual agreement with one of our publishers, Fundamentally Games (Jetpack Collective), to part ways. This means that their publishing rights for Ikonei Island: An Earthlock Adventure have now returned to us.

We’re grateful for their support during our time together, and we’re now looking forward to steering the game’s future. We remain fully committed to continuing to make Ikonei Island the best game it can be, so stay tuned for more adventures ahead.

Lastly, our partnership with The Iterative Collective, our publisher in Asian territories, remains unchanged. They’ll continue to support Ikonei Island in their regions as always.

As a thank you for your ongoing support, Ikonei Island is 50% off from November 24th until December 1st. This is a great opportunity for new Castaways to join the adventure as we intend to roll out improvements and bug fixes to make the experience even better. We’ll have more to share soon.

With gratitude,

The Snowcastle Games Team

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