[Reviewed v1.6; Final version at time of review]
Snow Daze: The Music of Winter isn’t objectively the best game on this site, but it’s the one I enjoy the most. Every so often, I download this game and replay it. Which is something I would never do for many other titles, even if they were all as short as this one.
The reason for my fondness is simple. Snow Daze is made by people who understand porn and how to do the most with little. Unfortunately, developers often think it’s simple to have attractive models engage in sexual activity, and anything else is extraneous. Snow Daze proves them wrong. It has a simple premise and gameplay mechanic. Still, the presentation, focus, and tight writing elevate the experience far beyond what can be found in other games with higher production value.
Positives
Story: Simple but effective. Due to a sudden snowstorm, Jason and his family (step-family, of course) are stuck inside for a week. Jason, an aspiring magician, develops a metronome-like machine to hypnotize said family. The player’s choices decide if he succeeds or dooms himself to a life of ignominious masturbation, sexual servitude, or worse: dish washing.
Characters: Jason and his family are characterized very well. You have the perpetually busy, straight-laced mom; the carefree, preppy younger sister; the domineering older sister; and the sporty, tomboy fraternal twin.
Moreover, as the game progresses, your manipulations take their toll, and they begin to reveal new facets of their personalities, giving them additional depth.
Writing: Special care is taken with the dialogue and narrative, which pays off tremendously. The characters feel alive, which makes the main gameplay loop even more entertaining. Said gameplay involves making choices and using your knowledge of the character's past shared experiences to carefully subvert their will and instill desire and submission. It puts one in the mindset of a master thief elegantly picking a lock to expose the riches within. Additionally, like different locks mean different tumblers to adjust, each girl responds favourably to other approaches.
Presentation: The best aspect of the game, hands down. The elements of the game I've already mentioned are good in their own right; however, their masterful presentation is worthy of praise in and of itself.
For example, when Jason uses his invention to hypnotize his family, the sound of a metronome starts playing. This little touch goes a long way in immersing you in the perverse activities.
Additionally, the dialogue pulls a lot of weight in selling you on the story's events. When the characters are hypnotized, their voice actors slow their cadence and lower their voices as if they were sleepy or tipsy. Finally, the environments, bare as they are, mirror the family's subconscious; as the family becomes more corrupted, so do their surroundings.
Repetition is used skillfully to illustrate how deep Jason's hold on his family has grown. For instance, Jason uses a line as a hypnotic suggestion. Next, the line is repeated by another character to the others to reinforce another sequence of brainwashing. Finally, the line is repeated again by all characters in unison to illustrate Jason's hold on the family.
"He’s a boy. He has needs."
Taken by themselves, these small additions are simply lovely touches. Still, when taken together, you can recognize the effort of the developers to create a mood to supplement the other elements in the game. In this case, they’ve done a great job.
Neutral
Background art: Simply dull.
The game cleverly corrupts the environments as the characters are corrupted, but that doesn’t change the fact that they’re uncolored, lacking detail, and uninteresting.
Sex scenes: The art itself is well done; however, there are few, and most of the enjoyment comes from the setup and presentation rather than the scenes themselves.
Non-telegraphed choices: The gameplay of navigating various options to effectively hypnotize your family is well done. However, there are a few choices outside those instances whose consequences didn’t seem to naturally follow. To illustrate, letting your sister take care of all the chores on the second day leads to a bad end.
Furthermore, to achieve the canon ending you have to go through a specific series of choices which are almost impossible to figure out by yourself.
Not catastrophic, but there’s room for improvement.
Negatives
Lack of content: Short game with not that much content. What’s there is good and, at times, even exceptional, but even as someone who replays this game a lot, I can’t say I’m satisfied.
Conclusion
Snow Daze is a fantastic game that falls just short of greatness. However, I wholeheartedly recommend it and have my fingers crossed we eventually see a sequel that fixes the problems of the original and expands on it.
