Ice Palace

It was mostly well received by critics but failed commercially.

Publication is recorded by Creative Sparks. The recorded date of publication is 1985. It is associated with United Kingdom. Recorded genres are action-adventure game, action game and puzzle video game. It is recorded in the collection of Netherlands Institute for Sound and Vision.

• Title — Ice Palace • Publisher — Creative Sparks • Designer — Paul Norris • Released — 1985 • Genre — Action-adventure game • Modes — Single-player • Platforms — Commodore 64

The wicked Ice Queen has murdered the good king and placed the kingdom under a terrible spell of forever winter. The young prince of the now frozen realm ascends to the Ice Palace to collect the scattered and hidden pieces of his father's crown that can be used to vanquish the forces of evil. Once the whole crown is found, the Ice Queen can be destroyed. The player is required to navigate through a honeycomb like maze and find the seven pieces of the golden crown, whilst fighting off enemies and avoiding traps. With each piece of the crown found, the player is taken to the next level. During an encounter, the player must use verbal commands to find the crown pieces. The player has limited time to find the whole crown before the holy candle melts and the game's good-and-evil meter degrades to evil.

The game's author Paul Norris later said "the pursuit of technical excellence in a game can be a waste of time" as "technical brilliance is all well and good... but the most important lesson that I have learnt is never to lose sight of the final product." Crash reported Norris "reached this conclusion after spending far too much time developing a superior scrolling routine for Ice Palace when a simple page scroll would not have detracted significantly from the overall effect of the complete game." Norris later created a similarly themed game titled Wicked. Ice Palace was re-released in 1986 as a budget title.