Stay Frosty (Atari 2600 Indie Review)

Stay Frosty
Platform: Atari 2600
Developed by Spiceware
First Released in 2007
Cartridge Available at AtariAge

There’s no substitute for charm, and Stay Frosty is a charmer.

While I finish up work on my 2023 Christmas project, LCD Games of the 1980s IX and X, I wanted to get everyone into the Christmas spirit. Like an Atari indie where you play as Frosty the Snowman? And a pretty good one, too. The object of Stay Frosty is to use your body to melt all the fire. That would be a good idea if you’re made of asbestos. If you’re a snowman? Eh, it’s probably not the best idea, hombre. But, Frosty is a fall-on-the-grenade type of snowman (not literally.. I don’t think HIM falling on a grenade would save anyone), and over the course of 32 levels, you have to walk into the various little flames and shrink them until they’re all extinguished. As you do this, your body melts. But, you can restore yourself by walking into the sheets of ice on the playfield. It’s kind of an action-puzzle-platformer, and it’s a LOT of fun.

Do snowmen feel pain? If so, this game is Mortal Kombat levels of sadistic.

There’s a twist, of course. The sun comes out as you make progression, which further melts you AND the sheets of ice that you need to restore yourself to full health. I was worried early on that Stay Frosty would be too easy. Hah. The formula makes for an excellent think-on-your-feet type of puzzler. I should have hated this game since movement physics are similar to those of ice levels in any generic platform game, with slippin’ and slidin’ because everything is cold and frozen. But, it just works here. Everything you need to know about Stay Frosty is that movement physics didn’t bug me at all. Well, except one aspect. This:

Single-space gaps in platforms are the one monkey wrench in this otherwise fine-tuned entertainment machine. It shouldn’t be as hard as it is to just allow yourself to fall through a gap. Even heel-toeing it, sometimes I would skip right over the hole and end up on the other platform. Once it happened so many times I screamed in agony. This matters a great deal because in later levels, or if you want to play the game’s second quest which has the weather get hotter faster, you need to be able to reliably fall down the pit. Even after completing the first cycle of 32 stages, it wasn’t what I would call “reliable” so much as “hold your breath and pray to the baby Jesus that gravity holds up its end of the bargain.”

Moving platforms are tricky too, which these are. But hell, it’s a platformer. The whole point is the trickiness.

The gap issue is my only major complaint, and it’s not even THAT major. It’s a medium-sized complaint. A whine, really. Otherwise, Stay Frosty is really good, and not just for what the Atari is capable of doing. I mean this is a clever game that actually offers satisfying platforming shenanigans while also featuring some deceptively deep puzzle design. You don’t have to actually grab every sheet of ice. The focus is only the fireballs. You have to plan for the rate of melt and how many ice sheets you should hop over to save for later, and how much they’ll be melted by time you need them, and how much body you’ll need left to defeat each fireball. And while you’re doing all that, you actually have to hit your jumps. And it’s FUN and it’s fresh. In a just world, this would be a holiday classic you pull out during the Christmas season between watching Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer and the Frosty cartoon. It’s wonderful. There’s even a sequel that adds a lot more nuance. But hey, I have to save that for next year when I’m crunching for content right before my big Christmas special feature.
Verdict: YES!
Stay Frosty is Chick-Approved and Ranked on the Indie Gamer Chick Leaderboard