Cold Front

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## General Information

### Upload Date

August 2, 2022 (Windows)August 3, 2022 (Mac)

## Miscellaneous

### Developer/s

Studio Investigrave

**Cold Front** is a short 2.5D RPG Maker horror/narrative-driven game with visual novel/adventure elements following the story of two childhood friends, Augustine and Winnie, suddenly being trapped in a freezing blizzard even though it's the summer. The two have to work together to escape the chilling dangers they are suddenly forced into.

The game may include certain themes of blood, gore, violence and disturbing imagery.

## Plot

*Augustine and Winnie have always been together their whole childhood. Ever since elementary school up until now, when they have graduated high school. They were inseparable.*

*But now that Winnie got accepted to his university, he is soon leaving town. The two decide to spend their last day together before his move.*

*Not long after they hopped into Winnie's car, they suddenly find themselves trapped in a freezing blizzard.*

*... It's currently July.*

The game begins with a prologue introducing little **Augustine** getting to know **Winnie** for the first time after he just moved near Augustine. The game then skips all the way to the two friends post-high school, who have not talked for a whole 6 months. They finally reunite in a short car trip, where Winnie updates on his broken leg from last winter, but they soon descend into a small fight. Suddenly, they look back to notice their car standing in the middle of a freezing blizzard. They manage to get out of the car and find themselves with completely different clothes. *The outfits they wore last winter*. Augustine freaks out but Winnie tries to remain positive, until they find two dead bodies that look exactly like their child selves, with big scratches on their body. Then, out of nowhere, a monstrous mash of two random animals appears behind the two friends, who begins chasing them. Winnie, however, gets an idea and gets Augustine to stomp on the ice below them to crack it open, making the monster fall down. But the crack was expanding more than expected, and Augustine almost fell into the cold abyss, barely holding onto Winnie's hands. The latter, tears falling from his eyes, claimed that he couldn't feel his hands, and that he couldn't hold on much longer. In the end, Augustine slipped from Winnie's grip and into the deep hole, as Winnie reached down desperately. Augustine, injured, somehow finds himself in a copy of Winnie's home, where they met for the very first time. Trying to find a lighter, he gets surprised at Winnie standing behind him, who fell into the hole with him after he didn't hear anything coming from below. As they reunite once again, Augustine's past doubts and fears of Winnie come flooding back, and here is when the player can decide Winnie's and Augustine's fate:

### Ending 1

If the player decides to push Winnie down the stairs, he will slowly wake up in the car from the beginning, overthrown and flipped upside down. He finds out, with this, that he and Winnie got in a car crash and fainted, leading to the main events of the game. Winnie died on the spot, and Augustine moved on with his life, strangely living in peace rather than sadness and regret. He is finally free of what was once his best friend turned enemy. After the final cutscene, the credits roll.

### Ending 2

If the player decides to not push Winnie down the stairs, the latter will take notice of Augustine's disconnected state from reality because of his fears. He begins to have an honest and intimate conversation with Augustine, letting him vent out all of the past feelings he's been bottling up. He's always been jealous of Winnie because of how he stole in his position in everything, of how he looked like he was using Augustine to his advantage and how he was trying to get rid of him now that he was more popular than him. They finally have an actual together moment and manage to fix their relationship, actually becoming *best friends* ever since they first met. Now together, they decide to defeat the monster that's been taunting them ever since they first got out of the car, which was a representation of their trauma and regret from their deepest memories. At least, according to Winnie, who also thought they were re-living their deepest memories together because of a near-death experience in real life. Turns out that he was right, because after they managed to destroy the beast, they both woke up in the overthrown car, with Winnie actually living and Augustine fracturing his left leg. The two, despite this, can finally live honestly and happily, even if Winnie had to move for university.

## Cast

* Augustine (protagonist);
* Winnie (deuteragonist).

## Trivia

* Cold Front was developed for a Korean RPG Maker horror game contest, and was fully finished in under a month. Precisely 25 days.
* The monster chasing Augustine and Winnie is actually a mix of their two iconic plush selves; a bear and a reindeer.
* The events of the game, according to Winnie and then confirmed at the end of the whole game, are actually a shared flashback of mixed memories that Augustine and Winnie are reliving together during a coma because of a car crash. The house is a metaphor for both their first meeting and when Winnie broke his leg, and the monster is a metaphor for their trauma and regret.
* According to the Itch.io concept art, Augustine and Winnie were originally supposed to be enemies that hated each other's guts, but their relationship was changed to feel more three-dimensional and relatable to the audience.
* An official Cold Front playlist can be found on Spotify.