Polar Guide

A short side-scroller horror-survival  rpggame about a researcher on her expedition through the snowy woods.  Although with a help of a well experience navigator and mercenary hired by her labs, their expedition might not go as planned. A more survival focus with slight horror and suspense.

GAME MECHANICS:
Manage your warmth timer, otherwise members of your party will get left behind due to the cold. Navigate between paths with furnace to recover your warmth timer or the hostile paths where you encounter wild animals that can get in your way.  Routes, mobs, obstacles, and loot in maps are (sort of) randomized.
Losing members will lose access to their skills:
Researcher - crafting / journal
Mercenary - shooting
Hiker / Hunter - Looting / Destroying obstacles
CONTROLS:
[Arrow Keys] to move. [SHIFT] to run. [Space] to jump. [Enter] to interact characters / objects. [I] for inventory. [Q] for journal, report = save. [Q/ESC] exit journal. 
[UP] arrow to enter paths. [R] to reset the map. [Z] for melee attacks. [X] to shoot.  [A] to use heat packs.
NOTES WHILE PLAYING
-Mobs will spawn ontop or you'll spawn onto objects, but is part of the gameplay to get around it; controls may need time to hang of, but speedrun is possible
-Camp Checkpoints loads very long
-Sprites flashes while moving or transition between actions
-actions images may not fully animated properly
-bigger animals have iffy hitboxes
-may need to spam around the path to enter
-ending scenes may be glitchy (except for ending4)
-There's no indicator if you're making progress, but you are making progress each time you enter a path, [r] will not  make you gain you any progress. Please read the [REMINDER] in journal  or talk to researcher if you're lost on the gameplay.
10ProgressPoints to the First Camp, 15PP for the Second Camp, 20PP for the Ending
-A Little Easter Egg reference to a friend's game 

PLAYTIME
30min - 1 + hr for other endings

ENDINGS
 4 endings depends on the members in the party
1st ending slight diff, 2nd/3rd ending similar, 4thending diff

CREDITS
RPGMAKERMV - GAME
SOUNDS - Freesounds.org
MOREDETAILEDCREDITS

Many thanks to my Beta-Testers!!

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Game made for RPG Maker Horror Game Jam#7: Polar Expedition within 1months; optional challenges includes:
1 - Land of Ice and Snow: The game is set in some cold, snowy area.
2 - Don't Freeze: The game includes a mechanic that requires the player to maintain body heat (such as by heat sources or finding shelter from the cold etc).
3 - Blood on the Snow: There's a scene in the game where the player character finds bloodstained snow.

This is my first attempted / finished game (n joining a game jam)-- while playing around more with the side-scrolling format;  it was a learning experience and I had more fun working on it than I expected. Writing was not my forte, so the dialogues are a bit lackluster and a pain. I thought more about the game mechanics than the story, beside the general concept with the theme of exploring a snowy area, possibility of getting lost n something supernatural I suppose. Hope it turned out decent enough n the scruff was part of the charm!
(here's some stuff that meant to be at the endings, but for some reason wont trigger properly!

Thank you if you give it a play!
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