Boklin - The island of the Dead
Your opinion about Boklin?
Hello everyone!
You have been numerous to visit the page of Boklin, thanks to a post of itchio on Bluesky and Twitter, and we do appreciate that you took the time to click on the link to discover our game! Thank you so much! If you haven't played it yet, Boklin is a free 1st person adventure/puzzle game that won the 1st prize in Yaz Jam 2024. A walkthrough is available on the page of the game, there is a html version if you don't want - or can't play - the Windows version, and the game is not too long.
We need your help!
If you found an interest in playing Boklin, or if you follow us (The Icehouse) on itchio, we would really appreciate to receive more feedback from different players!
The Icehouse collective has already posted quite a lot of free games on itchio, trying to please a large majority of players with story-rich games, even if some of them might be too prototypal to your taste, or too difficult because of the puzzles, but we think you can find something for you. However, we generally lack of feedback to help us improve our creations!
We have had over 170k views, but comments remain so rare!
Picture: Bionic Slammer
Please share your thoughts about our games!
We would really like it if you, as a player, could take a minute to write a comment on one of our games that you liked the most - or that you didn't like! - in order to tell us why, and how we could do better in the future. We make our games for fun and with passion, but sharing our creations is much more interesting for us if we hear what you have to say about them!
If you enjoyed Boklin, would you like to see a longer and improved version? On the contrary, if you disliked it and it isn't what you expected to see, we want to know too! That is, for example, the kind of thing you could tell us!
Picture: ASA 2079 by BlurredGames
We take this opportunity to attract your attention on our new releases: Bionic Slammer (a 2d-hd metroidvania), Francium Prologue (first episode in a series of funny/silly adventure games), Francium At The Dump (following Francium Prologue), and Zly.ii: The Hacked Station (a 1st-person adventure game with challenging puzzles, that can remind of Myst, a famous series of games from the 1990s).
You can find all of the games of the Icehouse collective on itchio, on our dedicated front page, right here: https://the-icehouse.itch.io/
There are also members of the collective who cannot post their games on our itchio page because of permissions issues, but we support them and we recommend you to play their creations too! You can usually find their games in our collection named "More Icehouse and Friends games", right here: https://itch.io/c/67993/more-icehouse-and-friends-games
Picture: Jinx o'Clock by Hexenwerk
The Icehouse collective recent releases:
- Boklin: The Island of the Dead (Windows, Webgl): https://the-icehouse.itch.io/boklin
- Bionic Slammer (Windows, Webgl): https://the-icehouse.itch.io/bionic-slammer
- Francium Prologue (Windows): https://the-icehouse.itch.io/francium-0-prologue
- Francium At the Dump (Windows): https://the-icehouse.itch.io/francium-at-the-dump
- Zly.ii: The Hacked Station (Windows): https://the-icehouse.itch.io/zlyii
- Jinx o'Clock (Windows, Linux, Webgl): https://hexenwerk.itch.io/jinx-o-clock
- Only in Yazoria (Windows, Webgl): https://the-argonauts.itch.io/only-in-yazoria
- ASA 2079 (Windows): https://blurredgames.itch.io/asa-2079
- Caesura: Sparles of lie (Windows): https://beckoningcat.itch.io/caesura-sparkles-of-lie
All of these are good games that require some attention, and there's a bit for everyone in this list (adventure, platformer, action, comedy, dark, 2d, 3d...)
We hope you find a game that you like and that you will write a comment! Thanks in advance!
Picture: Caesura by Beckoning Cat
Comments
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Boklin is actually quite good but the particular very low poly art style seen in the main promo image and the game itself is likely a promotional problem. Add to that the lack of side images on the game listing and the entire opinion of potential players boils down to the single low poly looking header image.
It just doesn't look anywhere near as detailed as some other more popular examples of the adventure genre by other Icehouse creators and others in the specific category on itch such as colorbomb, much less the work of bigger puzzle adventure developers.
But even if you did manage to improve on detailing of graphics, it is admittedly just a niche genre these days and will likely never have a huge audience again even if done really well. Cyan has 93% positive user reviews on their VR remake of Riven, and 88% metacritic and even then that game, though a triumph in the category and the best work Cyan's done in years, and maybe ever, is still struggling to reach the break even mark as the remaining adventure genre audience is just... small.
I worry about this myself on my own projects. My upcoming title 'Miniature Multiverse' now is a $1500+ production and 75% of the cost is raw materials. I have a TON of cardboard, chipboard, cardstock, sculpting tools, paints and clay and mini supplies and so many types of materials meticulously being built into over a dozen sprawling mini worlds.
Other costs include $200 for the Steam and Epic release fees, and a $150 ad spend going into launch when the time comes. It all is dwarfed by the personal cost of nearly a year of work altogether.
And I cannot help wondering if it has even a chance of making back the production cost. Much less justifying the time put in.
My goal with game dev assest packs here is to diversify, to have a fallback funding source in the event none of the indie game release coming up go well. I haven't seen that fallback go amazingly well itself either but it has raised a few hundred ($) by now which is more than many itch creators can claim.
For a long time the fallback had been Etsy and it was most of my focus past three years but that did as much as it needed to, it is now on hold having raised a total of thousands in cash, and I am genuinely hoping I can keep things moving and make itch viable the next few months without that, focusing directly on going all in on game dev and asset creation, not printing services. It is a gamble and may not work out but I hope it does. This is what I want to be doing.
Matthew Hornbostel,
Matthornb.itch.io
Hi Matthew, thanks a lot for your detailed comment! You're right, Boklin's lowpoly art, and the genre of the game itself (adventure/puzzle), clearly don't make it a promotional game /or a game that can compete with other commercial games such as Cyan's! Apologies if the original message posted made you think that. Boklin is a free game and will remain such, and there is no objective of making it a big project. The message posted on the devlog was a call for comments and feedback regarding the current game (and our games in general) because we have had a lot of visitors on the page, but no new comment were posted. It's always interesting to read players feedback, and that's what we want to see more! We wish you the best of luck with your own games and projects. We know very well the difficulties of making a living for small indies, we are in the same situation. Regards, Simon