FreezeME is a 3D Collect-a-Thon Platformer by Rainy Night Creations, which deliberately throws back to earlier games in the genre, and takes particular inspiration from the 3D Super Mario Bros. games. It was released for PC through Steam on December 10th, 2015, and then ported to Wii U on February 4th, 2016, Xbox One on September 2nd, 2016 and to PlayStation 4 on November 15th, 2016.
One day, a little girl known only as R is out playing with her best friend M, who is a dog. However, the evil Fat the Cat seeks to create a dog-free world, and kidnaps M! But he didn't count on R having a magical camera that allows her to freeze anything she takes a picture of! Armed with the ability to stop things in time, she sets off to rescue her best friend and liberate the land from the evil Fat the Cat.
FreezeME is divided up into four worlds. The main collectibles in each world are Golden Cubes, which R has to collect to progress. Each world contains 10, at least two of which will be gotten from beating a boss and collecting 150 Red Pigcoins. Each level also contains a number of Green Pigcoins, 10 of which can be exchanged for a Golden Cube. The overworld, Hubbiton, also contains unlockable challenge levels that reward R with five Green Pigcoins each. Finally, there are a number of hidden salamanders in each world that can be photographed to gain secret unlockables.
This game contains examples of:
- Anti-Frustration Features: Fat the Cat's Den has a teleporter close to the actual Fat the Cat boss fight to avoid having to go through the platforming gauntlet to get there more than once.
- Big Bad: Fat the Cat seeks to create a dog-free world and, for that purpose, kidnaps the dog M, setting off R’s quest to rescue her pet.
- Breaking the Fourth Wall: This game is pretty aware of its existence as such.
- Call a Smeerp a "Rabbit": One Green Pigcoin in Chilly Cool Mountain requires you to collect an NPC's pet "guinea pigs." Said guinea pigs look like small regular pigs with googly eyes and thick blue fur.
- Cats Are Mean: Fat the Cat, natch.
- Fat Bastard: Fat the Cat.
- First-Person Snapshooter: Played with. R does use a magic camera, but rather than take pictures with it, she uses it to freeze things in time.
- Floating Platforms: Tons of them.
- Hailfire Peaks: Each of the levels combines more than one archetype together:
- Sunshine Valley: Green Hill Zone with Palm Tree Panic
- Chilly Cool Mountain: Slippy-Slidey Ice World and Big Boo's Haunt
- Giantbits Islands: Slippy-Slidey Ice World, Shifting Sand Land, and Palm Tree Panic, all wrapped up in a Space Zone
- Fat the Cat's Den: Lethal Lava Land mixed with Death Mountain
- Hub Level: Hubbiton, natch.
- Human Cannonball: Each level has one or more cannons you can use to shoot yourself around it. Some are necessary to reach new areas.
- 100% Completion: Getting all the Golden Cubes is necessary to free your friend.
- Interchangeable Antimatter Screws: Every cannon needs a screw to fix it, and no matter where the screw comes from, it will fix any cannon.
- Law of 100: A variant where you have to collect 150 Red Pigcoins to gain a Golden Cube—possibly due to the size of the levels.
- Messy Pig: One of the pigs claims he has a degree in manure manipulation, but he's stuck playing a pointless NPC because the only open positions in the game are for baddies.
- One-Letter Name: R and her best friend, M.
- Pig Man: Most of the residents of Fat the Cat Land are pigs. Some of them are more "Pig Waddling Heads" than they are Pig Men, but Piggleston is a fully anthropomorphic pig.
- Sliding Scale of Collectible Tracking: Each level tells you before you enter it which cubes you've found. The game doesn't tell you how many Green Pigcoins are left in a level, but if you approach the green object that trades you Green Pigcoins for Cubes, it will send green lines out towards the coins.
- Shout-Out: Giantbits Islands is one big shout-out to Super Mario Galaxy.
- Video Game Flight: Once you gain the "rage" ability, you gain the ability to fly as long as your health is full. You can't fly too much higher than you start from without losing your momentum, but you can glide pretty effectively.
- Warp Whistle: Each level contains several teleporters you can use to get around the level.
