REVIEW | Diefrosty

LifeisXbox’s Diefrosty review | Diefrosty is a puzzle game developed by Ulon and published by Gagonfe. In Diefrosty you play as an ice-cuby character who’s goal is to kill himself. Your character has exactly 50 lives, and it’s up to you to find 50 ways to get rid of those by solving 50 different puzzles. This 8-bit-like game even has multiple ways to complete puzzles, but… is this intentional, or not?

Most Memorable Moment

Despite this being an issue with the game, I did find it quite fun to try and execute. Later on in the game there’s this bush that breaks after 3 or-so seconds after standing on top of it. If I do this same thing, but with a vault on top of the bush, I’ll be able to kill myself before I’ve even completed the puzzle.

ℹ️ Reviewed on PC | Review code provided by PR/publisher, this review is the personal opinion from the writer.

What we Liked!

• Neat concept | In Diefrosty there are over 50 levels to beat, and they have all one goal in common; get yourself killed. Get crushed by a vault, jump into a wall of spikes, melt yourself with extreme heat, or get shot at by a gun, it’s all up to you, as long as you get yourself killed!!

Mixed Feelings

• Memorable music & lack of sound-effects | This game’s 8-bit music was pretty memorable and quite enjoyable, which is a very nice achievement in my opinion! One disappointment, however, is the fact that there was a lack of music. The main-music and in-game music felt a little too similar with each other and… that’s about it for the music. I also found there to be a lack of sound-effects within the game, which could’ve added a little more value.

• Level design | There aren’t that many new, and unique elements introduced throughout the game, but the elements that do get introduced do add a lot of value. Because of this, there was a bigger focus on level design, instead of new obstacles. But because the level design is so well made, every level still feels pretty unique!

• Lovely art style | The art style in the game looked quite nice, but just like the music, there wasn’t enough of it. All of the 50 levels looked exactly the same. It would’ve been nice to see some new sprites after a few levels, or maybe a different colour-palette to keep it from looking exactly the same.

What we Disliked

• A few issues | Diefrosty is available in two languages; English and Portuguese. I played the game in English (obviously), but the grammar felt a little off… It wasn’t too big of an issue, though – I was able to understand everything properly, and besides the grammar, there weren’t any spelling mistakes that I’ve noticed. Though, the game does have a bigger issue later on. There’s this puzzle element that looks like a bush, and it will break after about 3 seconds if you stand on it. This bush allowed me to kill myself in ways the developer did not intend, allowing me to skip entire puzzles. Just push a vault on a bush, touch the bush, and stand under the vault before the bush breaks, and… you’ve just skipped an entire level. This may not be an issue at the beginning of the game, but once the bush becomes available as an obstacle, it is…
  
• No replayability | There’s sadly no replayability in Diefrosty at all. You could go through the game again and find more of those unintentional skips, but besides that, there’s no side-content. It would’ve been great to see some kind of collectibles that could maybe add some story to the game, which would’ve been a great element in my opinion.

How long to beat the story | 1 to 2 hours
How long to achieve 1000G | 1 to 2 hours