Icebreaker: A Viking Voyage

Ice Breaker: A Viking Voyage, alternatively known as Ice Breaker iOS, is a puzzle physics game to be released for iOS devices. The game will also be the fourth installment of the Ice Breaker series, retaining its core gameplay.

Despite high demand for its release to Androids, Ice Breaker: A Viking Voyage is to be exclusively developed for iOS devices at the moment. Developing the game for other devices may be considered after its planned release.

Controls
Drag Finger - Slice

Levels
Ice Breaker iOS will feature an explorable map, where levels will be accessed from. Also available on the map are side quests, and found at places where the map ends are bosses. The exploration map would be based off of ones found in 16-bit platformer games such as the Super Mario Series.

Navigation


Navigating through the exploration map is designed to be simple yet add more of a sense of adventure to the game's experience. Upon tapping a particular level, the longboat on the map moves to the selection. Tapping it again once the player's longboat is over the level will initiate the start of it. Alternatively, the play button at the lower left side of the screen can be clicked to begin playing the current level.

Completion of a level unlocks the level on the current path that comes after the completed level. Some paths of the map split, with one path having one set of level and another path having another set of level. When there are forks in the path like this, completing a level that branches into two separate paths will unlock the level that is at the start of each of the separate paths.

Sidequests
Some levels have multiple objectives, called sidequests. These levels will not only have the objective of getting the Vikings back to a longboat, but secondary objectives such as also getting a Shepard's lost goats back to the Shepard's longboat.

Completing more than one objective in a level will open other levels, or advance the player farther down their current path. The player will also gain symbols on that level based on their completion.

Unlocked and locked levels
Levels the player can play are seen in full colour, while levels that are yet to be unlocked are the same colour as the map, and appear as drawings. Unlocking the necessary levels to get to an un-unlocked level will add colour to that level's icon, with the path to that level being filled in.

Genres
Branches in paths have levels which usually are of different genres, but all revolve around a type of element. This is so that if the player finds one path difficult, they can take another, easier path. This has been done to give players freedom so that if one player is stuck on one path they can play the level of another path. Nitrome has stated that by diversifying the map, they could "cater to as wide an audience as possible".

Materials in levels
It was silently revealed that the icon of each levels would have objects in the icon that would appear in the level. For example, a level icon that has a crow on it would have crows in the level; a level that had green moss on it will have Moss in level; a level that has a part of the icon made up of black blocks featuring skulls on them will feature runes; etc..

Gates
As seen on level pack 2's map, some maps have gates on them that appear as a shaman over two grey brick like structures. It is not known whether these are actual levels are can only be passed by giving the shaman at the gate an item, or paying collected coins. Nitrome has not said anything about these "gates". As seen on level pack 2's map, the wall of the gate extends vertically off the map, but will not continue over a path (for some gates), as seen on level pack 2's first gate.

Features
Ice Breaker iOS will presumably have much of the features the previous Ice Breaker game had.
 * From the site and seen from the images, much like how Cave Chaos 2's art was greater than the original Cave Chaos's art, Ice Breaker iOS's art is much more detailed and contains more colour than art from the previous games.
 * The game will have "Beautiful Water Physics" (named on the site). This indicates that water will no longer act as a .gif (as seen in previous games), but will may ripple, splash, bend, or act differently depending on other objects.
 * Also featured in the game is a "Custom Rope Engine" (as named on the game's website). From this, it is possible that ropes will be given more freedom with their actions, such as being able to bend and stretch.
 * The game will incorporate Box 2D physics into levels.
 * Side quests - Relating to a The Legend of Zelda side quest where the player can collect chickens to for helpless villagers, Viking Voyage will have side quests which have two objectives. Side quests will have the player's vikings and some sort of other mechanic in the level. One outcome will be to only get the vikings back to the boat, while the other will be to get the vikings back to the boat and (with the provided tools) also perform another task. For example, one side quest has an objective where the player has to cut ice so that they can get the vikings back to the longboat and the goats also placed on the ice back to a longboat commanded by a Shepard. By just saving the vikings and leaving the goats stranded, the player will advance in the level but fail to complete the secondary task. Through getting the vikings and goats to their specific longboats, they will unlock a new route on the map to explore. Many levels have two objectives, some not at first apparent.
 * Found in some levels (and first silently revealed in the goat side quest mentioned above) are coins. Not much has been revealed about them, except their appearance. Presumably, the player can cut ice as to slide vikings past coins, and possibly obtain extra points. It is currently unknown whether coins serve for just extra points or another purpose.
 * Nitrome plans to include level packs with the purchase of Ice Breaker iOS. They also hope to release purchasable level packs after the release of the game.
 * The game's resolution will differ between iPhone that the game is played on.

Resolution
As covered in update 3, the resolution of the game differs from Apple tablet used.

Previews
On July 12, 2012, Nitrome added an extra tab for iPhone on Nitrome.com, and a website for the game.

Preview sprites
Sprites of characters were provided with the third Ice Breaker iOS update. These sprites are listed in the below gallery. As the resolution of the game is different depending on Apple tablet used, two different images are provided with the update: a large sprite and smaller sprite.

The large sprite for that character is the sprite of the character seen when the game is played on an Apple tablet that supports retina display (these tablets being iPad, iPhone 4, iPhone 4s, and iPhone 4th generation). The smaller sprite is the sprite seen when the game is played on a non retina iPhone and non retina iPod Touch (these "non retina" iPod Touches being iPhone 3s and iPhone 3rd generation).

Regardless of what Apple tablet Ice Breaker iOS is played on, the smaller sprites are used on the map.

Website

 * Main Article: Ice Breaker iOS website

Level packs
Nitrome revealed in their first Developer Diary that Ice Breaker iOS will consists of level packs, each pack containing levels for the player to play. Three packs are planned to be included with the first release of the game, with Nitrome hoping to release other packs after the release of the game.

Level pack 1
Level pack 1 is the first level pack to be included in Ice Breaker iOS, being included with the purchase of the game (along with level pack 2 and 3). Level pack 1 serves as a tutorial to the game, and consisting initially' of 5 levels. Nitrome has stated that "more will be added soon, but we [Nitrome] don't want to split how", indicating that this level pack will have levels that can be unlocked. Completion of the initial five levels brings the player to a "story" (likely consisting completely of text and image) that leads them into the "main adventure".

As only level pack 2 is mentioned to have a map, it is possible level pack 1 will lack a map entirely.

Level pack 2
Level pack 2 is the second Ice Breaker iOS level pack, being included with the purchase of the game (along with level pack 1 and 3). Level pack 2 consists of 36 levels that are spread across a map.

Level pack 3
Level pack 3 is the third Ice Breaker iOS level pack, being included with the purchase of the game (along with level pack 1 and 2). This level pack's levels have not been revealed yet, but it has been revealed that it will have a "similar number of levels as the second pack". As Nitrome has also revealed in their first Developer Diary, "It's looking like there will be 80+ levels for launch", level pack 3 will probably have more than 36 levels.

Trivia

 * The features section of the game claims that one of the features are "Set Pieces". It is currently unknown what this feature is.
 * Although not named directly, the maps in Ice Breaker iOS are possibly heavily based off the Grand World Map in Super Mario Galaxy 2, as both maps have designs in the background, a level icon that shows some of the elements in that galaxy, and also separate maps of differing lengths (being the Super Mario Galaxy 2 version of Ice Breaker iOS level packs).