A short winter story with long-lasting appeal
This time of year, with the temperature dropping and the dayling dwindling, everything seems to be gray. Just… gray. Gone are the snowy days we used to have in November and December, replaced with rain and gloom. GRAY.
And so, it’s a story about a snowman that brought me hope, and affected me more than I could have expected.
Snowman Story, by developer Odencat, isn’t long. It clocks in somewhere around 2 hours; it’s perfect for an afternoon playthrough with the family, and unfolds more like a storybook than a typical video game. There are some puzzles here and there that break up the conversations and exploration between scenes, but everything moves forward at a consistent pace. Even those puzzles are designed to be short enough to complete without much fuss, as the developer doesn’t want to diminish the effect of the story.
I use the term “story” here because that’s just what this game feels like. It has elements of books we read and tales we tell around Christmas, with a cast of characters that help relay simple morals and cause & effect relationships. There’s love & friendship, there’s a push towards environmentalism, and there’s an understanding of death anf finality. The story takes us through this existential realization (that snow melts and our snowman will do the same soon) before ultimately landing on a note that, well, is best experienced and not revealed here.
Snowman Story is great. It’s simple, it’s easy to share, and it’s infinitely playable with family. This little snowman’s tale is heartwarming — perhaps to the detriment of a being that needs the cold to survive.
This review is based on a Steam code sent to SideQuesting by the publisher. It first appeared on the SideQuesting 2023 Holiday Livestream on December 17th.
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