Our last prototype got international recognition. The French media group Yellow Media SAS and their web television channel "Canal Jeux Vidéo" wanted to promote Snow Hard to their readers and viewers. So after intensive and creative polishing, we didn't just improve every aspect of the game but also ended up with a French speaking version of the game!

Other notable changes in this prototype:

- We invented a new way of making smoke effects in 3D games that we have named UV-animatex.

- A stunning intro.

- Improved graphics.

- Ice crystals that shimmer in the snow.

- Moving clouds.

- New enemies.

- Enemy alert arrows that warns the player of enemies that are not in front of him/her.

- Intelligent shadows.

- Rag dolls

- And really a lot of other cool stuff...

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IN MORE DETAIL:

Along these astonishment improvements we have a myriad of bugs fixed and features that too deserve recognition;

Completely new innovation, named UV-animatex, that allows the game to use graphical special-effects with little or no impact on performance.

An example is the chimney-smoke that is so beautiful it makes you wanna smoke again!

- New sky with clouds and gusts of wind, making you aware how time flies by...

- Optimization of the script-, and physics-engine.

- Rag-Doll-effect makes killing ever more amusing.

- Collisions with the world have never worked better.

- New character-controllers!

- Cinematic cut-scene introduce you to the story and mood of the game before even had a chance to throw your first snowball.

- A variety of shaders making the game more dynamic, alive and dramatic.

- A health-screen that flashes upon taking damage as well as gradually freeze over with snow and ice which slowly melts away should you avoid further damage.

- Death have never been more sad.

- New game-controls are easier to use and displayed as part of an in-game tutorial, providing you with valuable information as you go along.

- The game has become more of a challenge.

- New enemies forcing you to take cover and alter your tactics.

- Oh-Bot troopers who threaten to swarm your snow castle and tear it down, peice-by-piece.

- Oh-Shit-Bot, far smarter than his fellow comrades – he will find you wherever you are.

- Oh-No-Bot, freaks of nature that throw snowballs, larger than cars, in your direction!

- Your friend that never talks, The Castle, needs to be protected or else the enemies will destroy it.

- Mana is now more challenging to acquire but heavenly awarding to use.

- Light-maps and shaders create a gorgeous environment filled with moonlit snow and shadows so god-like you will have a hard time living in a world without them.

- A new set of features will help you wage snowball-war.

- A catapult will provide support-fire to make the Oh-Bots pay for every inch in blood as they make their way towards the castle.

- The sprinting-ability lets you cover great distances at the expense of drained mana.

- Snowballs are now more accurate in timing and distance.

- Warning-arrows informs you of the position of your enemies.

- High-score system is now local and more true to your single player-experience.

- Most notably, every letter is now in French.

With this release we show the world what talent and commitment we have among our ranks. Putting the pieces together that have been under way for months into a tasteful balance, like a mad watchmaker adding components into a machinery of awe. M5 is the pearly gate to the world of Snow Hard. Welcome!

Discover:

- Breathtaking environments

- New character (Claire!) and new enemies (Oh-bots!)

- Instinctive AI-behavior that makes use of the enviroment

- A challenging mana-system

- Better throwing system

- Collision and physics that would make Aristotle put on his churchgoing clothes in his grave, and dance.

- Inspiring HUD

- New animation and animation system.

Be inspired, be amazed and be Snow Harden...

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MORE DETAILED INFO:

First and foremost; a myriad of improvements have been made to make gameplay easier, faster, smoother and in general alot more enjoyable. In short, Snow Hard has been dramatically optimized and now look alot more like a a true game. In this enterprise, some features are so intriguing that they deserve special aknowledgement.

Features: Realistic behaviour and activity from enemies as they gang up, dive for cover, crouch, help each other and single out the most potent threat visible to them. The overall goal for the enemy is to take the castle, likewise your allies goal is to help you defend it.

Fancy-targeting has given way to greater gamer-controll and manual aiming. Gamers can, and need to, develop skills to take on the new intelligent enemy with both accuracy and speed. As everything moves faster the battles become more fierce and intense, only the most determined warrior will survive this maelstrom of upgraded enemies.

New types of enemies will make your fighting alot more complicated; ordinary oh-bots make up the brunt of the enemies forces, ”oh-oh”-bots will prove a harder nut to crack than the average foot soldier while the kamikaze-bots try to break your lines with their furious close combat-attacks.

Revision of the system which allows greater flexibility for tweaks and attributes of the enemies and allies; targetting, throwstrenght, throwaccuracy and movement speed.

New level wherein the graphical model, though it will get alot prettier, finally has been defined.

"Mana”-system is used to activate special attacks such as clusterball, seekball and ”ball”-time. It refills, like health, over time but can be boosted by the ”mana” dropped by fallen enemies.

Feedback-system for arcade-like highscore, registred after you´ve finished playing, showing how great a snowballwarrior you really are...you got to earn respect.

Feedback-system for loss of health showing the HUD freezing over as you become ever more damaged and cold.

Since picking snowballs before, during and even after battle has proven to be rather tiresome and boring, ammo has been set to infinite. Your going to need it.

Better collisionsbodies makes collision seem alot more naturalistic. Characters are now aware of their environment which helps them follow the laws of physics.

Sprinting enables you to cover distances at great speed but without the ability to return fire.

Crouching makes you alot harder to hit for your enemies.

Much like other recent third person action games, Snow Hard now features a cover-system. You can make use of cover to get an tactical advantage over your foes, but of course the AI will do the same to you.

Action-combos may be boldly unravelled and explored at the leisure of the seasoned gamer.

New GUI especiallly concering the choice of weapons which now are being displayed within the mystical Diary of Claires mother.

A journal-system that records the gaming-session helps us to quickly discover bugs and errors in the gameplay. Thus, the possibilities for future improvements have radically grown.

Thus we can conclude that REEP contitnues to give the world what it badly needs – an even better Snow Hard, widening the horizons of the gaming world, stretching the limits of what is possible to conduct on a computer.

Sincerely /REEP