Video Game / ICY

"Survive the Ice Apocalypse!"

''ICY'' is a single-player Role-Playing Game developed by Inner Void Interactive, an Italy-based video game developer. It was released in 2015 for PC, and a remastered version called ICY: Frostbite Edition was released in 2017.

The story takes place a century after civilization was destroyed by a second ice age, in a frozen region called The Vale. You control the leader of a clan of nomadic hunter-gatherers, and embark on a quest to rescue members of your clan who were kidnapped by mercenaries. Along the way you have to contend with bloodthirsty raiders, feral mutants, hostile wildlife, and the harsh climate.

Not to be confused with _iCEY._, an Action RPG.

Tropes found in ICY and ICY: Frostbite Edition:

• Action Girl: Every female follower qualifies, as they can wield weapons and fight in combat alongside you. You can choose to play one as well. Finally, the leader of the Wolf Pack, Lynx, is a woman.
• After the End: A hundred years before the story, a climate change caused the world to plunge into a second Ice Age. The crops died, the countries of the world waged war on each other over control of the dwindling food supplies, and these three combined factors ended civilization.
• Amnesiac Hero: The player character was trapped in a landslide a year before the events of the story, and has no memory of his life before that. It's revealed he was an agent of Eden, and he remembers a few conversations with his friends, but that's it.
• Arms Dealer: Robert and Morgan both qualify. The former is a good friend who doesn't judge people for their heritage, while the latter is more villainous though ultimately can be reasoned with.
• Asshole Victim: Some dialogue options allow you to consider the Garden this when you steal their seeds and accidentally destroy their greenhouse - they were an Untrusting Community after all.
• But Thou Must!: At one point Vernon gives you a mission to attack another nomad family that got too close to Eden, and there is no way to peacefully resolve this. You will end up killing innocent people.
• Cannibal Clan: One side quest involves rescuing a kidnapped hunter from one of these.
• The Cassandra: Demetra is one, being filled with a sense of dread right before Hector died and slavers attacked them.
• Cargo Cult: Windtown is one. It is a town built around a barely-functioning wind power turbine, and the inhabitants believe the structure is a gift from God. This is implied to be a Christian denomination, as one quest from the town's leader involves collecting bibles and other religious artifacts from an abandoned cathedral.
• Celibate Hero: Lampshaded by the item description of Golden Ring, which states that you can not use it to marry anybody, and tells you to stop trying. Subverted in the ending where you join the White People, which states that your character became a parent.
• Cultural Posturing: The White People, a tribe that uses white tattoos made with an unknown substance to resist the cold, includes members who are more than happy to tell others about how bad technology was.
• Child Soldiers: Eva is only a child, but she fights in battles with the rest of the nomad family. In the ending where you support Boris she becomes a field agent for Eden.
• Den of Iniquity: Morgan's bar in Ammo-Nation is one. It's a strip-club owned by a sleazy weapons dealer and frequented by his mercenaries.
• Driven to Suicide: You first meet Mobolaji after racist bandits murdered his wife and daughter, and if you save his life he initially wants to wait in the snow and die next to his daughter's grave. If you talk him out of this, he'll join your nomad family.
• Family of Choice: Your nomad family is this; only a few of the people in it are actually related by marriage (Carlos and April, Irma and Goran) or blood (Irma and Goran's children), yet your followers are all committed to you and to each other ... well, except for Bentrand. It's implied all nomad families are like this.
• Greater-Scope Villain: The Red Horsemen are this, being a clan of pillagers feared throughout the entire Mantle region. This faction is also The Ghost, as you never fight against them in the story and the only one you meet is a Defector from Decadence named Fang.
• Going Native: If you join the Ice People, then you and most of your followers become committed to their culture.
• Happily Married: Carlos and April are in love with and committed to each other. It ends in tragedy.
• Hired Guns: Morgan surrounds himself with these to keep himself safe. Additionally there is a group of three mercenaries called The Wolf Pack who work for Vernon in exchange for high tech gear.
• Hoist by His Own Petard: Late in the game you get a mission from Vernon to steal seeds from the Garden so Eden can use them, and the way you end up doing this is by holding a Garden citizen for ransom. The Garden guard will give you the bags of seeds, but plant a bomb in one of them. Mobolaji ends up throwing that bomb into an important building in the Garden, shutting that community down.
• Incurable Cough of Death: Hector, the leader of the family before you, is coughing visibly when you meet him. He dies the next day.
• Karma Houdini: Morgan proves to be this; if you fight off his failed attack on Eden he still escapes with his life, and Eden is more prosperous if you use the promise of wealth and power to gain his cooperation. Additionally Bentrand and The Wolf Pack can become this if you so choose.
• Knowledge Broker: The Keeper is able to survive and prosper by being this, but when you meet him he gives you the information for free because your enemy betrayed him.
• Mammoths Mean Ice Age: Mammoths are featured in the game's artwork, and some hunting events involve them, despite the fact that this game takes place in the future.
• Mental Health Recovery Arc: Going on an adventure isn't enough to cure post traumatic stress disorder: Mobolaji spirals into mental instability after your family settles down and he can't distract himself from the trauma of losing his family - it takes years before he smiles again.
• Mentor Archetype: Jerome, one of the oldest members of the party. He provides advice to you on numerous occasions.
• Mutants: These are enemies that are might attack your party during scavenging and foraging missions. Demetra suggests that they're sapient, but they might not be.
• The Mourning After: There is an event where either Carlos or April is killed. The survivor is in mourning for the rest of the game.
• Nothing Is Scarier: The Red Horsemen. They are built up as a regional menace, and even with the best gear your party is so much weaker than their scouts that the game won't even let you try to fight them. Yet they're never actually met so this reputation can't be tested.
• One-Woman Wail: The introduction song features this.
• Papa Wolf / Mama Bear: A number of events give you the chance to play as one by protecting your nomad family and by making anyone who dares to hurt them regret being born.
• Pacifist: The ideology of The White People includes strict pacifism. However Janeve does not adhere to this while in your party, being more than willing to use bows and melee weapons to kill any foes you meet.
• Practical Currency: Bullets are the in-game currency, and can still be used for firearms.
• Properly Paranoid: A number of characters show intense levels of preparation, yet given the nature of this setting such precautions are reasonable.
  • When you meet Fang, he is living alone in an isolated cabin. Robert is the only person who knows his location.
  • The Keeper surrounded his house with landmines and has a sniper fixed on anyone who comes close to it.
  • The Wolf Pack lives in a cabin in a secret location, and said cabin is surrounded by a fortified fence and watched with a guard tower.
  • Boris he keeps his hideout rigged with explosives linked to his heartbeat so anyone who kills him dies too.
  • Vernon is determined to keep the location of Eden a secret from the outside world, even ordering you and Commander Malcolm to wipe out an innocent Nomad Family that unknowingly got too close to the location. This paranoia is proven justified When Eden's location is leaked to the outside world and Morgan leads an army of mercenaries to try and conquer it.
• Rape and Revenge: There are two examples.
  • When he tells you his backstory, Fang reveals that he tortured three men to death for raping and murdering his lover.
  • Demetra reveals to you that she was raped before joining your nomad family and that she cut the rapist's eye out. Later on, when your family actually meets the rapist, the rest of the family is clamoring for his blood and your dialogue options allow you to demand his death. Depending on your choices, this encounter ends with you injuring the rapist and Demetra cutting his other eye out.
• Rape as Backstory: When Demetra tells you her backstory, she reveals that a man raped her repeatedly in her original home and that she stabbed him in the eye before running away.
• Rape Is a Special Kind of Evil: When you confront the man who raped Demetra, the rest of your party clamors for his blood. Most of your dialogue options allow this to be your reaction as well.
  You [Speechcraft Option]: "I'll kill you with my own hands. And if your 'friends' try to stop me, I'll kill them too. You deserve no mercy, not after what you've done."
• Real Men Eat Meat: Hunting animals will quickly become your nomad family's primary source of food. While you can buy fruits and vegetables from traders, that is far less cost-effective and you'll burn through bullets trying to feed your party that way.
• Red Shirt: Joseph, whose main purpose in the story is to be killed early on to show how high the stakes are.
• The Remnant: Eden is the last remnant of the civilization of the ancients, having been founded to safeguard the knowledge of mankind.
• Revenge Before Reason: This proves to be the case with Morgan. He sent your family and Tanya's old family into a death trap without adequate preparation, getting a member of the former and most of the latter killed. Yet the best ending for Eden and The Vale is if you convince him to work with Boris. Fighting his army head-on wastes lives and resources.
• Sadistic Choice: The Killer Tree presents you with one. While your group is escaping from it the tree's roots grab April and Carlos. You can run to save one, the other, or throw an incindeary bomb at the branches to free them both. If you pick the third option the game chooses who dies for you; April dies if she injured her leg in this, and Carlos dies if she did not.
• Second Love: In the ending where your nomad family joins the White People, the widower Mobolaji falls in love and remarries.
• Shameless Fanservice Girl: Janeve, because she is one of the White People, walks around without any clothing because that tribe uses tattoos with an unknown substance to keep themselves warm. She's aware that outsiders have a nudity taboo, as when you first meet her she accuses her of staring at her breasts.
• Slavery Is a Special Kind of Evil: Only raiders and bandits engage in slavery. None of the proper factions in The Vale, not even Morgan, would stoop to that level.
• Sliding Scale of Gameplay and Story Integration: There are examples of this integration in the story. For instance Janeve can not equip armor or firearms because her tribe's religion prohibits both, and April loses her special combat ability to increase morale after her husband Carlos dies.
• Smoking Is Not Cool: The description of the lighter states that it's combined with cigarettes to craft lung cancer. In truth both lighers and cigarettes are Shop Fodder in this game.
• So Long, and Thanks for All the Gear: If a party member dies or leaves, whatever gear they equipped goes with them. Exaggerated with Bentrand if you kill him for betraying you. Despite his body being on hand, your party apparently won't strip the gear from him.
• Team Dad: As leader of your nomad family, you invoke this trope.
• Technophobia: The White People, a tribe that uses tatoos to resist the cold weather, rejects industrial technology out of the belief that it caused the disaster.
• Token Minority: Mobolaji is the only black person in the nomad family, and in-story black people are rare in this region. Later in the story another black character, Trevor, is introduced.
• Token Religious Teammate: April, who is a Christian. She is the only teammate whose religious beliefs are mentioned, and it's implied her husband Carlos is an atheist.
• Unproblematic Prostitution: Downplayed. An exotic dancer in Morgan's bar states that she likes working there because it warm and because Morgan's guards protect her from perverts.
• Untrusting Community: The Garden proves to be this, only allowing outsiders into a small trading area in the front.
• Vengeance Feels Empty: Averted with Tanya. If you kill the Wolf Pack, Tanya relishes avenging the members of her old nomad family that they killed. TJ notes it's the first time he's ever seen her smile.

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