Design - AMADE128/Snow-Bros GitHub Wiki
Page Content
Narrative Structure
The plot of the game is that King Scorch cursed the brothers Nick and Tom by turning them into snowmen, and he also captured the princess twins, Teri and Tina. The brothers may pass all the levels in order to defeat him and rescue the princesses.
In the one-player version, one of the brothers is the kidnapped, while the other sets up to rescue him.
In the Mega Drive versions, the 20 extra levels makes the controls switch from the brothers to the two princess (in this version called Puripuri and Puchipuchi) after the brothers get kidnapped by a new adversary.
In the ending, after the brothers slay the boss, the 2 princess are rescued by the brothers.
Level Analysis
The level structure for the game is similar every 10 levels. The platforms change position every level, but the enemies remain mostly the same. In every tenth level there’s a boss with unique mechanics, after defeating him, it changes the environment and you start a ‘new’ pack of levels.
We can see how the first levels of the game works: the introduce a number of enemies in certain positions, most of the times simetrical, and on the next levels you can find some kind of enemies. We can see that level 1 only has 1 type of enemy, on level 2 introducing another one, on level 3 another... Then you have a few levels with some distribution of this 3, and in the tenth level, you find the first boss fight.
The difficulty in the game is mostly based in the type of enemies that spawn in the screen. The number of them isn’t that important, cause some enemies are still easy in groups, but others can be a nightmare. Also, the distribution of the platforms is part of the challenge, sometimes there are platforms you can’t reach if you’re not up on an snowball. The items are specific and you found one of this every 2 or 3 levels. Also, there’s a chance of spawning an event, that can grant you an extra life for your adventure. The types of boost are explained here:
Objects
Potions are dropped by enemies when they die, the type of potion is random, although the green ones are usually rarer and are only found at some specific levels.
-Red: increases the mobility of the character.
-Blue: improves the firing power (from 7 shots necessary to 3).
-Yellow: increases the attack range.
-Green: it turns you into a balloon, being able to fly around the room and killing any enemy you touch.
Also, the enemies can drop food, which is worth score. Obviously, there are many ways to get score (killing enemies, picking power-ups, making combos...) Here’s a table with the events and the scores:
*If before hitting an enemy with an snowball, the snowball bounces in a wall the score will be like a full combo (8000 pts. per kill).
On some screens, when cleaning the level, a special icon appears. when you take it, 4 characters will appear which we can hit. If we manage to snowball 4 of them, you’ll earn an extra life. It is difficult to get all 4 on the same screen, but they can accumulate for when they come out again.
Enemies
The enemies appear in crescent order, making the first ones easy to dodge with predictable moves and the lasts ones with less predictable moves and special abilities. All the enemies in the game (except the bosses) are described here:
Red Demon: The first to appear, only move between platforms, slowly and predictably (first appear: level 1).
Yellow Troll: Faster than the red demons, they differ only by the ability to jump between platforms through them (first appear: level 2.)
Frog: They move from left to right, when they stop, they throw a fireball that crosses the entire screen (first appear: level 3).
Sorcerer: They are fast and unpredictable, they turn into a whirlwind of fire that cannot be destroyed, throwing fire daggers and moving around the screen (first appear: level 17).
White Troll: Faster than the yellow ones, they throw incendiary bombs that leave fire in the area, making it difficult to create snowballs (first appear: level 31)
Blue bat: They move freely diagonally, but are vulnerable in full flight (first appear: level 42).
Sumo wrestler: It is placed on the upper platform throwing fireballs, 4 for each batch. It only moves from side to side of the platform it is on (first appear: level 24).
Flying pumpkin: Appears when it takes a long time to finish a level. It is indestructible, it can only be slowed with the balls and its power grows as more time passes, generating ghosts that are also indestructible (first appear: every level where the player takes too long).
Bosses
Every tenth level there’s a boss, making it a total of 5:
Level 10: This type of blue gremlin is the easiest one of the bosses. He’s always in the right part of the screen, jumping from the floor from one platform, throwing balls towards us, when they hit the screen, a mini-version of the boss will run towards us. We can turn them into snowballs and send them back to the boss. The boss last 6 snowballs.
Level 20: This boss is in the middle of the screen, throwing bombs that go freely and, after a few seconds, enters in a fury stage, coming towards us. We can send them back to the boss. This boss last 7 snowballs.
Level 30: The 2 birds fly freely for all the screen, throwing eggs that, when they hit the ground, they turn into chicks that run across the screen. Each one of the bosses need 3 snowballs to be taken down.
Level 40: This 2 ogres throw fireballs with his own life, chasing us all around the level. Additionally, there will be enemies falling from the top of the screen, making it harder. Each one of them lasts 7 snowballs, a total of 14.
Level 50: In this level we can find 2 heads in each side of the screen, and the 2 princess tied in the top of the screen, where a few spikes are placed. The 2 heads throw bubbles along the screen, which contains power-ups, fireballs, enemies,... When they hit the spikes, they drop what’s inside on the floor. If the bubble is empty, we can be dragged inside and damaging us with the spikes if we don’t get free on time. We have to turn the enemies into snowballs and send them back, lasting 10 hits. The hardest part of this is the reduced space we have, counting that most of the time we’ll have fire on the screen and the spikes descend with the time.
Collision Layout
In all the levels, we have a floor, 2 walls and the top of the screen. Along with this, we have some platforms, that can be trespassed by the player, but not for all the enemies. With that, there are always exceptions, like some enemies can go through them (like the blue bats or the yellow trolls). The platforms remains static all the time.
In the last levels, we have a new mechanic, with some holes in the floor of the level. If an enemy or yourself falls into that holes, you’ll fall from the top of the screen without taking any damage.
Controls
In the PC version, we have 6 buttons in the gameplay: the 4 for the arrow keys for the movement, and the other ones remain for jumping and throwing snow. It can be configured, but the game configures it for the space and the ‘d’ keys. Along with that, we have more controls for the menu, options, etc. And as we said before, you can configure the controls as you want, so it won’t be a problem.
Mechanics
Player
The first mechanic is how the player interact with the enemies. Instead of ‘killing’ them, he throws snow towards him, and with enough consecutive hits they turn into snowballs, allowing the player to push it (an snowball can push another snowball), and if an enemy gets in the way of the snowball, he dies. With that, you can kill faster all the enemies, granting also more score for making combos. Also, the player can jump through the platforms.
In addition, the player has 3 seconds of invulnerability every start of level, granting a little immunity time. The player can get power-ups, explained a pages above, and can get extra lives.
Also, the player starts with 3 lives, when they drop to 0, the player loses all the progress and has to start from the level 1.
Non-Player Characters
The abilities of all the enemies explained above are so variable, like throwing fireballs, going from platform to platform, being invulnerable and throwing fireballs, flying,... The mechanics the npc have are: -Can’t go through platforms (except some of them). -Can’t pass through snowballs (even the enemies that are freeing are counted as).
- Special abilities (fireballs, flying, immunity damage, passing through platforms, etc) explained above.
- Summoning more enemies (this just the bosses). -They can’t pass through another enemy.
Also the bosses are more complex than enemies, taking more hits to be defeated (the values stand from 6 to 10 snowballs, made from enemies). Also, all the enemies stand 7 hits before turning completely into an snowball. If they don’t get hit in certain time, they’ll start freeing from the snowball. Also, with the blue potion effect, enemies just stand 3 hits before turning into an snowball. The bosses will stand the exact same amount, no matter the effect.
The first enemies are the easiest ones, but if you keep going, more difficult and with more abilities will appear, increasing the difficulty through all game. This system can also be seen in the bosses, making the first one the easiest and the last one the hardest.
Room
The room has 2 walls that can’t be trespassed, the same is applied on the floor. The roof is a barrier too, until you kill all the enemies, then the player can jump to the next screen. The level design doesn’t change at all, just a little bit the design or the color, but after every boss, the environment changes radically, despite the gameplay is the same. In the lasts levels, holes will appear on the floor. If an enemy or the player falls into one of these, they’ll appear from the top of the screen without taking damage.
The platforms are generated for every level differently, so the number and the positions won’t stay the same. Sometimes, some platforms will be too high for the player to reach, so he has to make a snowball to reach it.
Not all the enemies can pass through the platforms, but some of them like bosses or bats can.
Score and Healing
There are so many ways to get score, practically everything you do in the game gives you score. The exact amounts of them are explained above, but the better way to get it is killing all the enemies in one single blow, giving you X amount of tickets (depending on how many enemies you killed) worth 10K each of them. Enemies also drops food, worth points depending on which food randomly drop. Also hitting basics, killing enemies, picking up power-ups,etc.
About the healing, you start with 3 lives. When an enemy hits you, doesn’t matter what, you’ll lose one live. The only way to gain new ones is by an event that randomly occurs in the first levels explained above. If u complete the event (consist about making snowballs from 4 characters, each one of them dropping a letter for the word ‘SNOW’) you’ll get an extra life. The maximum amount is 4, but if you lose one live through the adventure, the event can appear again.