A Good Snowman is Hard to Build Review

 AAA titles have to sell well. Today, mainstream games require bigger budgets than ever before; making big revenues absolutely vital. For the majority of the time, to pry our money from our wallets, developers will rely on tried and true formulas, but will intend on spinning it slightly to attract interest – they're less concerned with reinventing the wheel, more so just giving it a shiny new paint job. Indie devs, however, play the game differently. Brand recognition, sequels, and Roman numerals don't tend to sell in the independent market, but creativity does. A Good Snowman Is Hard to Build comes from Alan Hazelden and Benjamin Davis, and at first glance, looks to have enough creative energy to set it apart from even the most imaginative indie titles.

The premise of A Good Snowman is Hard to Build is simple but beguiling: you play as a monster who likes building snowmen in a deserted park. The game is, in simplest terms, a puzzle game in which you have to roll three snowballs through snow patches until they are of ascending size, (small, medium, and large) then find a way to stack them up. The easiest way to categorise it is as a cross-breed between the boulder puzzles from Pokémon, and the ancient game Towers of Hanoi - if you push around the snowballs too recklessly, they get stuck, forcing you to reset; and you will be hitting the reset or undo button often in this game. However, it is not enough to push them into the right place; the snowballs need to stack up, and this is easier said than done when any untimely misfire could result in one of your snowballs growing too big, or being in the wrong place at the wrong time. The puzzles require a good deal of thought on your part, but just as soon as you get the knack of it, the game ramps up the difficulty, meaning the game never really lets you get used to its mechanics; resulting in an ever present challenge. However, because of the game's short length (about 2-4 hours, depending on how quick you are), it gets tough much faster than you would expect, which is likely to cause more than a few headaches. However, you will be more inclined to try again than give up, as the puzzles have more than one solution, and there is always an opportunity to say, “ah, but what if I try that?”. A Good Snowman is Hard to Build will punish you without doubt, but it's just addictive and intriguing enough to keep you coming back.

However, the real heart and soul of the game isn't the puzzle element, it is the hero. What makes this game so interesting is how well presented the 'monster' is. He is nothing more than a faceless blob with stubby limbs, but he ambles around so humanly that he is nothing short of completely endearing. His status as a monster comes into question also when you realise that this character looks to terrorise nobody, and only builds snowmen for companionship; indeed, there is even an option in the game to hug your completed snowmen. Everybody seems to have abandoned him for being different, which calls into question; who are the real monsters of this game? The charm of the puzzles might start to wear thin for some, but his won't, and it's pretty likely that you'll play through to the end of the game just to see if he gets a happy ending, long after frustration starts to set in.

Yet, this game wouldn't be half as tolerable or cute if it didn't look so good. The package is wonderfully wrapped together with its cartoon-style presentation, employing warm colours to bring the monster's world to life, and to generally make the game's aesthetic feel welcoming. Also, it must be noted that it doesn't overdose on colour as other subversive games do as a response to the brown and green colour palettes of big releases. It presents itself in a moderate style, doesn't try to be over the top or reinvent the wheel, which makes it look more appealing as a result. Both the completed snowmen and our hero are certainly lovely-looking enough to make the Grinch's heart grow three sizes larger.

However, the true icing on the cake of this game is its wonderful soundtrack, which reacts dynamically to the actions of the player. During normal play of the game, you’ll hear simple, pleasant sounds, such as a gentle breeze, or the sound of birds chirping, which really makes the player feel at peace, giving this wonderful sense of equilibrium. However, variations in the sounds emerge. If you decide to take a break, you can sit on a park bench and look at your snowmen or the view around you, which gives this amazing piano track with an ethereal yet downbeat tone. However, the absolute pinnacle of the whole affair is the deep and foreboding track that provides a deeper insight into the story it tells. This may seem like a light hearted puzzle game, but this piece of music suggests more; it provides a cold and lonely atmosphere, suggesting that even though our hero may be building his snowmen for companionship, he is still truly alone. The music, the graphics, and the story (small and implicit as it may be) elevate this game into something else beyond a mass of code and assets – it would not be an unfair assessment to call it a piece of art.

While some say that you can't put a price on true art, though the developers behind this game have certainly tried. While it's certainly fair to say that this game has a lot of value regardless of price, $12/£8.99 for (on average) three hours of gameplay is going to seem steep to most people; especially those just interested in the gameplay and not an 'artistic experience'. In honesty, this is a fantastic game bursting with worth but $12 may just have been a little too high a price. Thankfully, Hazelden and Davis sold this game with an interesting gimmick – the price of the game will change on their website depending on the temperature that day in London; meaning players might be able to nab this for a little lower than originally asked for, which makes this game easier to recommend.