Wow, what a journey this one was...
All right, time for a little backstory. There I was, browsing the DigiPen Game Gallery, catching glimpses of my projects for the next few days. Then, I see one thumbnail that looks familiar. The game is titled "Snowfall." I've never heard of it, but there was something about the art style...of course, I thought. I've seen art like this before. I clicked on the game, and sure enough, I see only one name credited with creating Snowfall. Andrew Nack, solo game designer extraordinaire. Needless to say, I was excited.
Then I read the description of the game. It read: "Instead of giving the player a fun experience, the game focuses on making the player as frustrated, angry, and depressed as possible while still maintaining a quality game experience." I tell ya, that got me thinking. First off, I wondered what exactly he meant by "quality game experience," because usually if a game makes me frustrated and depressed, I would alt+f4 out of it and judge its quality to be quite poor.
The game's description whetted my appetite even more. By this time, I was dying to see what this game was all about. Impatiently, I downloaded the game, ran the file, and was greeted by a title screen with no music or sound whatsoever...I didn't recall any of Nack's other games doing that, but hey, maybe this one's different...
I started the game and, still without any sound, was greeted by a character I presumed to be me being held by a character I presumed to be my mother in the middle of a snowstorm. And then......nothing happened. At this point, I was definitely feeling the frustration and depression that was promised to me, but I had my doubts that this was the way Nack intended it to happen. So, I looked up the game on YouTube to see if anyone else was having the problem (don't ask why I went to youtube before google. That's just how I roll). I found a video of the game, with Andrew Nack explaining the game as he played it, and sent a personal message to that account explaining my problem. I then caught a glimpse of my own inbox and the 61 unread messages that had piled up since I started my channel in 2008 and realized that the course of action I took might not have been the best one. I then composed an email to Andrew Nack and swiftly received a reply suggesting I play on a different computer and see what happens. If this were any other game by any other designer, I probably would have given up long before this point, but I was determined to get frustrated and depressed by whatever tricks Nack had up his sleeve. So, I went into my attic and searched for my old junker laptop with a Pentium processor, 11'' screen, and a staggering 1.9GB of free hard drive space.
At this point, I was quite pissed at...well pretty much everyone and everything, really. I was almost determined to slam my laptop closed with enough force to concuss the mice probably living in my wall at the first hint of anything in the game I didn't like. All the stars were aligned perfectly. I was hunched over on an uncomfortable piano bench, straining my eyes and having my thighs burned from the frankly ridiculous heat the old Pentium was giving off.
Then I heard the first few notes of the main theme...
dunnnnnnnn.....dunnnnnn.......
Then I heard the sounds of the storm blowing....
whooooshhhhhhh whooossshhhhhhh
This was it. The moment I was waiting for. I was finally going to experience Snowfall. And experience it I did. Not only did the game hold my attention until its completion, but it held my attention enough for me to play it three times in a row.
I'm going to do my best to avoid spoilers in this review, but do note that doing so is going to severely limit what I can say about this game. I guess you'll just have to experience it for yourself when you play it upon my recommendation...oops, did I speak too soon?
Anyways, I guess there are two questions one must ask when reviewing Snowfall. First off, how well did it adhere to its mission statement of frustrating and depressing the player, and second off, how well was the game designed?
My answer to the first question is...well...I guess it did what it sent out to do. After I played it for the first time, I felt like crap because of how the game ended, whereas my second and third playthroughs made me feel like crap while I was playing the game, but gave me a rather satisfying ending...I guess.
Playing this game made me feel similar to how I felt when I played Spec Ops: The Line, and if you've played that game, you know exactly what I'm talking about. Just like in Spec Ops, the area in which Snowfall excels is in player choice. You're given tons of choices throughout the game, most of which have a rather large impact on the story. You're given 3 paths to follow, which I'll call the paths of good, evil, and humanity. Each have their pros and cons, and you're pressured to make decisions very quickly, so your brain is not going to have an easy time getting through this game. Strangely enough, the game manages to make you think that time is of the essence when making decisions, but tends to give you enough time to think things through as much as you need (with one very annoying exception that I'll get to in a bit).
It's rare that I find a DigiPen game that's all about the narrative. The last game I played that I can remember really being all about the narrative was Be Good. Yeah, remember those days? That was a long time ago. Snowfall does nothing objectively wrong, and the things I really disagreed with (for example that there's only one opportunity to die, which will come to you after only a moment of hesitation and completely negate the progress you've made thus far), might be the things that make the game so beautiful in the end (Andrew Nack would probably respond to that criticism by saying I was meant to feel frustrated, and ask me if I enjoyed the game regardless, to which I would have to answer yes, because of how well written and designed the game was).
So yeah, Nack hits that narrative ball right out of the park with this one. The only game on the list that I've played that rivals it in terms of narrative is Oniro (I didn't mention that game before because it was all about the mechanics and puzzle solving at heart. It just had a really good narrative as well). The mechanics do exactly what they need to do and serve the narrative perfectly. Also, I don't even need to tell you about the other aesthetic elements like visual and sound design. Come on...it's Andrew Nack.
This game gets my seal of approval for, if nothing else, boldly going where no game (*cough* except Spec Ops: The Line *cough*) has gone before. If you're tired of playing just another puzzle game or just another shooter or whatever it might be, this game will be the breath of fresh, moldy, smokey air you were looking for, you crazy masochist. All I'll say in terms of criticism, though, is that it wasn't quite as impactful as I think it was meant to be. I mean, what can you expect from a game that's only about 10 minutes long?
Well, that was quite a wild ride I just went on. It's games like these that really make me glad that I took on this project last January. That's all I got for now. Until next time, stay unconventional.
Links
Snowfall (DigiPen): https://www.digipen.edu/?id=1170&proj=26418
Snowfall (Andrew Nack's website): http://www.andrewnack.com/snowfall/
Andrew Nack explains his game: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c6kn9Z6IecY&feature=player_embedded#t=1
