Polar Peril
STORY!
Polar Peril is a puzzle adventure game for the Gameboy. You must push, slide & dive your way through arctic mazes so you can mail a very important letter.
CONTROLS!
Z , X, Enter, Shift, Arrow Keys
INFO!
- This game was created in GBSTUDIO and is intended to be played on a Gameboy, Analog Pocket or GB emulator.
- Originally this game was made for the GBCompo25
How 2 Play!
- Download "Polar Peril.GB"
- Download Sameboy or play on your Gameboy, GBC, GBA or SGB with a flashcart.
Credits!
Produced by: Howdy Riceball
Story, Art, Programming: Z. N. Garland
An Original Soundtrack & SFX by: Beatscribe
Playtesting & QA by: Beatscribe & The Drifter
Font & UI Frame Asset by: 2bitcrook
HOWDY RICEBALL © 2025
Download
Click download now to get access to the following files:
Development log
- inspiration can come from anywhere!13 days ago
- From Concept to Reality (Newsletter Excerpt)48 days ago
- Polar Peril Game Design Decisions & Inspo in Newsletter!75 days ago
- Polar Peril! A sokoban adventure game for all ages!Sep 09, 2025
Comments
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What a CUTE game! Makes me want to make my own puzzle game for the Gameboy. Thanks for the inspiration :]
YES!!! please do! We need more Game Boy games... Especially if they are puzzle games! ^_^
Very nice and cute game! The bear in particular is simply adorable. 🤗 Our German-language review can be found at 07:41:48. English subtitles are also available. Subscription to our YouTube and Twitch channel is welcome. 🙂
oh sweet!! Thank you so much for playing my game :D
Such a great game. Unfortunately, you can't replay the last level because you can't go back to the previous one. The entrance is blocked.
Thanks much for playing! If you press start you can reset any stage. Hope that helps 🤠
This game is so cute and fun! Thank you for making it.
i appreciate it very much 🔥🤩🤠
Absolutely adorable and fun! 5/5
thank you so much!! 🤩🔥
Great fun game! Love the music, visuals and variety in gameplay, also the secret was fun to find!
Tysm! I'm glad you found the secret :D
Aaaah, I love this cute Sokoban game!
Collecting 🍙 is so much fun! Even though it’s set in the cold Arctic, it gave me such a warm, cozy feeling, meow~! (ฅ•ω•ฅ)
Thank you so much!! I enjoyed your playthrough :D
Really cute!
tysm!!!
Fun puzzle adventure game.
Cute and fun game :D in the last level I unlocked the gate with only 2 keys instead of 3 and got an audio bug (unlock sound) while pushing the last block. This game is so wholesome, love it ^^
I'm glad you enjoyed it :D Definitely going to have a post jam version with all the bugs fixed. I appreciate your support! :D
Mild spoilers below:
It's an incredibly nice game, and I love it to bits, buuuuut, there were some little bugs that I thought were silly and wanted to share
So, here they are, in no particular order:
First, the sliding on snow softlock!
You can get softlocked really easily if there's an abomination near some ice. If you slide off the ice into the abomination, you'll crash into it. This also gives you temporary invincibility. Trying to slide further will cause you to softlock, stuck standing above it all for the rest of eternity
Second, crash storage
A bit nitpicky, but when you crash into the wall, little things on the side of the screen show up. You can actually keep these around by getting a game over or switching screens while you crash. Interesting, but doesn't do anything much, and disappears as soon as you crash again. I do bring it up though because it's a forced encounter of the bug when leaving the ice rink.
Third, the water ghost
If you go under the water, you'll have a couple seconds where the polar bear leaves a hole and goes under the water. During this, walking onto land again is possible, and even lets you speedrun grabbing this riceball
This is also the only way (that I know of) to die underwater!
Fourth, the idle slide
If, when crashing after a slide, you quickly move another direction, you'll slide while idling, simple as that.
Fifth, snowball scam
If you talk to a snowman when you have 1 snowball, they'll say you've recieved 2 snowballs, but your total will say 2 snowballs instead of 3! The snowmen think they can get away with scamming me of my snowballs... (I'm mostly sure this is unintentional, since snowmen have dialogue if you already had 2 snowballs)
Sixth, Ice hitboxes
The abominations walk through ice most of the time
But then this guy politely waits for you to move it?! Unplayable
Seventh AND eighth, Walking on ice and broken buttons
Yeah, this just kinda happens here
Ninth, Repeating win noise
Just push an ice block towards a wall after completing a puzzle, fun sound
Tenth, push to win mechanics
Apparently, on the room before you finally escape the snow, the game just forgets to reset the buttons states when you reset the room, letting you complete the puzzle, reset room, then push a block to instantly unlock the gates.
Oh, and a bonus eleventh one, turns out winning the game doesn't reset gates, so you can just run through the game ignoring all puzzles after winning once. You can fix this by gaming over tho, so be careful
anyways, here's some silly graphics stuff to end it off.
a bed hat!
a see-through tree!
A weird looking corner
Alright, thanks for reading, and byeeee!
Thanks for playing! I made the game in a very tight period of time for a game jam, so I am looking forward to doing more polish and bug fixes for a post jam update. I appreciate the list!
You have the cutest art style! Love the sliding animation and water parts of puzzles was interesting, too!
TYSM Kii!
Man this game is really good I enjoyed this game playing this a lot!
ayooo!! Thanks so much! Appreciate your help playtesting ^_^
sooo cute!!!
Tysm!!! ^_^
I am not sure what I am missing. All key blocks are covered but the gate does not open.
oh that's interesting, you must have encountered some kind of bug. I'll try to look into what happened, the start button lets you reset a puzzle in the mean time though until I can finish fixing the bug
Hey there! I reset the room multiple times, And left the room to the previous one, hoping it would really reset.
Everything up to that point has been really well done and without any issues. It has great presentation, interactions and puzzles.
Best of luck with the jam! It is great stuff!
Thanks so much and bummer that it bugged out on you, you might have found away to solve the puzzle that wasn't intended or im really not sure, but I appreciate you bringing it up cause I want to find the bug and fix it in the post jam update
Ahh.. Ok... I solved it a different way and was able to continue and finally got to the post office. Really great job!
Thanks I'm glad you were able to progress!
For people wandering: play with: Z, X and arrow keys.
Thanks for this, I somehow forgo to add in the game description, added now.
Wow, nice little gem here! Mechanics are really well done, and graphics are cute! Huge fan of Mole Mania, and I'm so happy to discover this new little gem to have fun with! Congrats!
Nice! I'm glad to hear this game can be mentioned with Mole Mania! That's one of my all time favs
I appreciate your kind words though!!
aw this was so cute!
that means so much! Thank you KC! I have Marron's Day on my games to play next list on Steam and I can't wait to play cause I know I am going to thoroughly enjoy the game! ^_^
This was so adorable and fun. I loved the grumpy neighbor who keeps telling you to not do things, haha! Great job! :)
haha thank you for your kindness, I had fun writing the grumpy lines because we have a neighbor who has his own handwritten signs all over his lawn about "staying off" and "keep your dog away from my grass" so I was glad to include some inspiration from real life.
I love the details like the icy dust coming off the blocks! It’s really fun and challenging!
Thanks Beat!! Your original soundtrack definitely helped meld the game into a full experience with all that chiptune / math rock fusion
Hey your music for this game was HOT! I still have the songs stuck in my head, I told Rice that I want an OST Lol
thanks!!