Snowman Story Nintendo Switch Review 6/10 "A very specific festive adventure" ☃️ @OdencatGames #IndieGame #GameDev

As this was a child-friendly game, I thought I’d take the opportunity to play through with my three-year old son, a boy who is very much caught up in the magic of Christmas. As it pans out, whilst this is a very cute and noble game as a bittersweet Christmas fable, the simplicity and repetition end up stagnating any sense of flow, and ultimately mute the eventual emotional payoff.

The game begins with a young boy befriending a snowman that he names Chris, and laments the fact that Chris will be gone once the Spring comes. As the boy goes to sleep, Chris the snowman awakes, and having heard the boy’s comments - decides to head North, where he believes he will be spared the thawing of Spring through Christmas magic.

A 2D pixel art adventure presented through a top-down perspective, the game contains wonderful dialogue, charming visuals, and lilting music, but plays out in an extremely formulaic fashion. You’ll mostly find yourself clicking through dialogue as Chris meets various animals, and dream-sequence memories that tell of the histories of previous snow-people and their eventual demise that is broken up by simple sliding puzzles.

If this game was a lot shorter, it would have had a lot more impact. I was reading the game out to my son (three years old) as I played, and he was initially invested in the story, but as it went on...and on...we both lost interest. 

It wasn’t so much a case of ‘Oh wow, which animal will we see next!’ as ‘...how many animals are left to meet?’ because the game recycles so many story beats that it wears itself out, which is a shame as the well-meaning narrative and presentation is the perfect setup for a snappy Christmas tale. I can’t help but feel that the ‘rule of three’ would have been enough here.

SUMMARY
A wonderfully simple tale that is too simplistic for adults and too overlong for kids, Snowman Story feels a little bit adrift in its message, but is nonetheless full of festive joy.

6/10

⛄💧MELTING💧⛄