Mission In Snowdriftland


Game's cover

About the Game

Mission in Snowdriftland was an online game that was created back in 2006 from the german developers studio Extra Toxic with the help of none other than Nintendo. The concept idea was that from December 1st 2006 all the way to the Dcember 25th a level will become available for anyone visiting the site. This meant that clearing level 1 on Dec 1st, would ve not unlocked level 2 unless the date was during or after December 2nd. The hub-world of the game also acted as a calendar similar to the ones found in stores that count the days up until Christmas. Each level back then had a different Nintendo property being advertised right next to the game. Picture a website split in 2 big boxes and a bigger bozed below them. The first box on the left was the game that the players were playing, the boz on the right had an advertise of Super Mario, Legend of Zelda, The game boy and other, and the final box was pretty much the continuation of the website that had credits, text and others.
The magic of the game, was that it was only meant to be live up until January 7nth 2007 and then it was gonna be removed for what was meant forever. Four years later the game made a comeback ofr a few weeks as Nintendo Advertise their Indie support project. Once that was done the game was once again removed. It's community began researching various sites on the web in order to bring back the game for themselves and for the newer generation of players. A decade later in 2018 the game surfaced through flashpoint as it was made with flash, and every flash game was installed in flashpoint to continue their support even after the discontinuation of Flash games. The game though always required connection to the web as it was a meassure the developers implemented back in 2006 for security purposes. Certain individuals including the youtuber Nick Robinson made a documentary where he even contacted one of the developers of the project to talk about it. The developer himself was excited that people cared about a game he and his team made 14 years ago and he talked about the cycle of development about the game where he also revealed how they were finishing levels a few hours before they had to publish it and also how they re the owners of the IP and not Nintendo. A year after Nick's initial video, (October 2021), the youtube posted a new video in which he announced that the developers contacted him again with the announcment of the revivall of the game which was gonna be available to download online through Steam on December 1st 2021. The name of Nick Robinson and few others are listed in the credits as special thanks.

Story of the game

Game screenshot Game screenshot
The game is simple 2D platformer that resembles alot the original Super Mario bros. The plot of the game is simple and playfull. Chubby the snowman is desperate to find a job as him being a snowman makes it hard for him to be employed
for any video game role. Plenty of levels have flashy enemies, edgy lords placed in fires and a snowman just won't make it. At the same time, a penquin called Pix, robbed the companys game files and moved towards some snowy mountains
were he made his hideout. The CEO of the gaming company was lost and depserate to find anyone strong enough to withstand and survived the cold of the mountains and to restore their stollen items. To his luck,
there was a snowman down to the reception who was complainning how he was struggoling to obtain a job. Needless to say, his quest for job was finally complete and so, Chubby the snowman was set to his adventure in order to restore the stolen game files.

The story of the game is very simple, and very straight forward. Games were stolen and the snowman was sent to receive them. The plot is given to the player with a small video that acts as the prologue of the game.
The cutscenes, are drawn in a very nice way and they also introduce the players to the main cast.(in a way) There is no official dialogue in the game as all the words are given to the players in the form of text.
Once Chubby the snowman is send to his adventure, the player does not receive any extra dialogue or story elements. However, once the final level is cleared the player gets two pictures with dialogue that explain
the player the aftermath of the adventure. very similar to how movies based on a real story are being told aftre the movie and before the credits.


Gameplay

The game consist of 24 levels and 1 boss level. Chubby the snowman himself, does not come with special abilities other than moving and jumbing. Once again the Super mario influence is beeing shown. All the level consist
of enemies, hearts and 24 snowflakes. Collecting all 576 snowflakes will unlock a secret level placed in the middle of the callendar. Chubby starts with 3 heart points that resembles how many times he can receive damage.
Being hit by any enemy will result on him losing one heart but, around the levels there is a few that collecting them will restore the lost heart. Hearts placed in boxes, fully restore the health of the snowman and add
one more additional heart to the total of Chubby hearts. These hearts stays permanently with Chubby. There are a few dangers that one shot Chubby such as water, lava and toxic waters. The enemy variety is decent for the
game it's size and every new location always adds new stuff to the game. For example enemy penguins are introduced in the first levels, however, in the later leves they do exist but they also receive special treatment such
as increase of speed, jumping and others. More enemies appear the more the players proceed and plenty of new concepts such as spiders, birds, bees etc. The maps themselves also introduce new concepts such webs tha Chubby can
can use to climp, Spiky areas that will damage the player, moving platforms and plenty of others. Each level feels unique and each of the four areas differ from each other. Completing a level will restore an item that represents
a gaming artifact or hero from the pixel era. In the original game they use to mention Nintendo characters but as they dont colaborate with them anymore they simply alternate certain items. The collectables of the game show
pixelised characters or artifacts. For example, Sonic's rings, tetris, pacman, Super Mario, pokemon ,Megaman, Legend of Zelda and others. It's a really nice museum.

Game collectables

Final thoughts

The game looks nice and play nice, it may be a liitle frustrating playing in smnowy areas where the heroes slide a bit but its worth the pain. Its a very small game in terms of size but i believe it justifies it's price of 5 euros.
It's a nice platformer, with a decent ammount of challenge and enjoyment to be found. The enemy variety is decent and other than their looks they do add the task to avoid them. The snowflakes themselves are placed in locations that
will challenge the player in order to collect them.
This game exists in 2021 because the fans of the project were passionate for their beloved IP and as mentioned above they went out of their way to contact the developers to request that their game will still be enjoyed
15 years later. It's a Cinderella story but Chubby can now be enjoyed by anyone who wishes to experience it for themselves.

This is a video with my Honest review close to when i played the Game

This is a video showcasing and reviewing the Game

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