A Good Snowman

This game is from Draknek and friends, the group that did Sokobond and A Monster’s Expedition. Draknek games are pure puzzles (no coordination required, no time pressure), and this game in particular seems designed to provide an incredibly chill experience. This game’s mechanics are almost absurdly simple: you roll snowballs in order to build one or two snowmen per level. But “simple” doesn’t mean “easy”; some of the later levels are fiendishly tricky! There is something amazingly satisfying about creating a snowman which goes beyond the satisfaction you usually get in block-pushing games of this sort. Once you’ve finished the main campaign, there is an additional “dream-world” set of levels. My one criticism is that it’s easy to get lost trying to understand what you have to do in the dream levels. Basically, every snowman you made before becomes a single snowball in the dream levels, and you have to position three of these snowballs close to each other to create a new snowman. Now, when you move the snowball, it shrinks instead of expands. You also often have to redo the original levels of the non-dream world to position the snowmen closer to each other. If you get stuck, watch an online video to show you how everything works. This criticism aside, this is a beautiful game and a great introduction to the genre of sokoban-style block pushing games.

First of all, the little guy who builds the snowman is adorable! I just completed the fifth and final level. I didn’t even realize there were more “achievements” besides building all of the snowmen when I played this last year. I enjoyed the problem-solving brainwork involved with the initial level. Then to start again to build without leaving the “room”… Uff, I could almost hear the gears grinding. But then… to build the snowmen for the “dreamt” achievement… now THAT was a huge challenge. This has been a great five days of fun.

This game is charming and tightly executed. [SPOILER]What really sets it apart are the meta-puzzles after completing the main game. Such a clever idea, I’ve rarely played puzzle games that feel like they have so many layers to them. It also manages to feel open-ended without being so open as to seem impossible (e.g. Corrypt).[/SPOILER] The perfect phone puzzler. One of thing I’ve noticed is that I have no sound or music. I would have muted it anyway, so no big deal for me, but it may be some kind of bug.