EARTHLOCK is Two Years Old!
We are very excited to celebrate our 2nd birthday with everyone who has been working on Earthlock. Snowcastle Games would like to thank everyone who has been holding up with us on this challenging, and yet very inspiring journey!
Our fans and their support is what kept us going and believing that we can always achieve and do more! We have a lot more planned at Snowcastle Games for the Earthlock universe! So keep your eyes and ears open!
We have very exciting news to share with you! Snowcastle has launched its own Twitch channel and we will officially start streaming on Thursday! Follow Snowcastle Games on Twitch to know when we go live or follow our social media for updates. Tune in, and enjoy our company! We will be waiting for you in the chat room :)
EARTHLOCK Summer Sale is HERE!
Summer is approaching! We've put up EARTHLOCK on sale with a 40%+ discount on the Nintendo eShop and XBOX for you to enjoy! Happy #SummerSale from Snowcastle Games!
We were excited to participate in a speedrun from Professor_Palmer running EARTHLOCK at RPG Limit Break last month (May 2019). Four of the Devs stayed up till 4:30 am to watch and give insight into Earthlock’s development and support the event!
Check out RPG Limit Break here: https://www.rpglimitbreak.com/event
Right NOW, our physical release of EARTHLOCK for the Nintendo Switch goes on sale! Make sure you are there when the game goes live so that you don't miss out on this amazing JRPG.
What the critics say...
Earthlock from Snowcastle Games is an absolute nostalgic joy to play. Originally launched as "Earthlock: Festival of Magic" over a year ago, the game has undergone significant improvements with a sort of "Director's Cut" on PC and the Switch, as well as other consoles. Feeling at once both reverential for classic 16-bit JRPGs and novel due to its western stylized setting and systems, Earthlock is a grand start to an RPG trilogy, and well worth the meagre price of admission. - MMORPG 8.5/10
More than anything, it is a joy to exist in Earthlock’s painterly world. This throwback to PlayStation-era JRPGs ranks among the best role-playing experiences that there is to be had on the Nintendo Switch so far. And, while it can be seen that its inspiration has held it back in certain ways, the refreshing approach to turn-based combat and the strategising that underpins it will hopefully help the game to be remembered as a classic in its own right. - Nintendo Insider 8/10
A beautiful game which features a host of challenging boss battles require tactical thinking, useful characters, and a big world to explore, Earthlock delivers a solid experience which scratches the turn-based RPG itch. Its fourteen hours of game play swells thanks to a ton of side quests, hidden bosses, and lots of things to craft and collect, and is a true indie delight for any fan of the genre. - Gaming Trend 8/10
Pre-Order at superraregames.com
- Snowcastle Games
EARTHLOCK is One Year old!
Earthlock was released one year ago, after Snowcastle decided to go back and improve Festival of Magic into the game we originally envisioned it to be. This month we celebrate not only the release of Earthlock, but also our fans for sticking by us, through thick and thin, and helping us grow with the world of Earthlock. Snowcastle Games would not be what we are without your amazing support! At Snowcastle Games, we have big plans for the Earthlock universe, so stick around!
In the meantime, Earthlock will be on it’s biggest sale ever! The sale timings will differ for each platform, so keep an eye on Twitter and Facebook for updates:
Twitter - https://twitter.com/snowcastlegames
Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/SnowCastle/
Current Sales! :
55-60% off PS4 Europe
52-68% (ps+) off PS4 Americas
55% off Nintendo Switch US
55% off Nintendo Switch EU/Australia
Come experience the first installment of the Earthlock trilogy!
Thank you all!
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This year was the first year we attempted to do an Advent Calendar Giveaway event. We had over 50 winners including the winners from the Mega Giveaway at the end. We are still shipping prizes and emailing codes to the winners, and we never expected it to turn into something as big and wonderful as it did.
At Snowcastle, we wanted to say thank you to everyone that participated, and a special shout out to all of our developer friends that willingly offered up their games as a prize each day. We are lucky and happy to have such an enthusiastic and warm community that surrounds us. Also, we will be continuing this as a yearly project, and improving it!
Warm Regards,
The Snowcastle Games Team
Below is the list of our friends & developers who helped make this possible:
Fishing: Barents Sea - Misc Games
Manual Samuel - Perfectly Paranormal
Among the Sleep - Krillbite Studio
Mutant Year Zero - The Bearded Ladies
Fugl - Team Fugl
Amphora - Moondrop
Limbo/Inside - Playdead
World to the West - Rain Games
Satellite Reign - 5 Lives Studios
Owlboy - D-Pad Studio
Steamworld Dig 2 - Image & Form Games
Shiftlings - Rock Pocket Games
Pode - Henchman & Goon
Milkmaid of the Milky Way - Mattis Folkestad
Eggggg - Hyper Games
Yonder : The Cloud Catcher Chronicles - Prideful Sloth
Stardew Valley - ConcernedApe
Amnesia/Soma - Frictional Games
Dreamfall Chapters/Conan - Funcom
With the festive season upon us, we've banded together with other developers to give something back to our communities.
Our friends across the globe have been kind enough to contribute all kinds of goodies for prizes in the Snowcastle & Friends Advent Calendar!
Without spoiling any of the gifts we have planned, we can promise a well rounded and exciting lineup of amazing giveaways in the coming days!
Follow the link to sign up and be sure to share it on social media using the hashtag #SnowcastleCalendar to increase your chances of winning.
Best of luck and happy holidays! Snowcastle Games
by Bendik Stang
Entrepreneur, Founder/CTO @SnowCastleGames, Indie Game Dev. Also passionate about Interactive Stories, App Dev. Tech Geek. Father of 4 evolving neural networks.
Cut your losses and move on!
We have all heard it:
So you did not make a perfect game.
Make a new one! Get over it!
The following is the story of another way.
On Sep. 1st, 2016 we launched Earthlock: Festival of Magic after five years of struggle with the classic indie startup challenges: Too little funding, no revenue and big ambitions.
Just before running out of cash, we managed to secure a wonderful deal with Microsoft for an exclusive launch with Games with Gold and launched the game on Xbox One 12 months of continuous crunching later.
Along the way we had to make painful cuts to the project. The cuts were the least we could manage when juggling the opposites of getting the game out before funding ran out while making a game we still could be proud of. And equally important — a game that would sell enough to support production of our next game.
Something did't feel right
Six months after initial launch, we had published the game on all major platforms. It was early 2017 and we had eagerly moved on to pre-production of our next title in the Earthlock universe. But the uncomfortable feeling of leaving behind a game that wasn’t quite there in terms of quality, was growing. Editorial reviews and user scores seemed to mirror our own assessment. The game had promises of something great, but didn’t quite deliver. Sales, although respectable, were not quite where we had hoped either.
EARTHLOCK is now live on PC, Mac, Xbox One, Playstation 4 and Nintendo Switch and we are getting some amazing reviews. As of now it is only available in English and Japanese, but by the end of May we expect to release the following additional languages:
Simplified Chinese, Russian, French, German, Italian, Spanish, Polish, Arabic, Polish, Brazilian Portuguese and of course, Norwegian!
So for those of you who have heard of or played the original version of this game called Earthlock: Festival of Magic which is no longer available for purchase, what are the differences? Here is a run-down:
Extended and upgraded, this is in many respects a brand new game.
Keeping all the best parts from EARTHLOCK: Festival of Magic, we have spent the last year improving them in every way while adding loads of new stuff:
⁃ Craftable weapons and equipment
⁃ New abilities in the overworld
⁃ Numerous new side quests
⁃ New scenes, new creatures and new NPCs
⁃ In addition to all the strange plants you now can grow trees to bring kittens and other cute critters into the world
⁃ Treasure Maps to discover more treasures
⁃ The ability to sell as well as buy stuff
⁃ Loads of new animations, story additions, smarter NPCs and tweaks of every kind to make the game even more engrossing, enjoyable and replayable!
