VN - Ren'Py - Completed - Snow Daze: The Music of Winter [v1.6] [Outbreak Games]

One of the worst games I've ever played.

First of all, the MC is a complete creep. He seems not to be able to stand to get true affection, he wants to be "in control" and cries all the time around if things aren't happening by his words but by words from others.

The whole premise of the game is, sadly, that you force / hypnotize your family into doing things they don't want to do with you. So now building up of tension, no slow burn, no real affection.

This is a typical game made from the poor perspective that "being in control", "being a man", "take what you deserve" and all of that would be something good or desirable.

The characters and dialogues are quite boring and while the game not even has animations, it doesn't even do simplest things like show us an animation of the sister laying on her bed. Instead the textbox is telling it to us while she stands there.

To make this whole mess of a game the worst it could possibly be, you have a free choice of how to talk to people, but if you pick "wrong" you'll be punished with less progress with a person. Which means you can NOT play it the way you want, which makes the whole dialouge choices obsolete.

After day 3 when I said something wrong, the game suddenly just ended without any notice.

Timewaste, play one of the hundreds of better games out there. Never seen such an overrated game.

Well put together and funny. There is only 1 thing that could have been a little better. That would be the animation. I haven't tried to make a game yet so I can't really say much and everyone has different tastes so this might be just me. But it just looked like 2 pics being switched back and forth. Like I said I haven't tried making a game yet so I don't know the reasoning behind it but all in all it's a great game to play. I highly recommend to give it a try

This one hurts to give a rating, as I really feel the effort put into it is there, but the concept, and overall execution was just not interesting enough.

Audio was very distracting, normally I am a fan of having VA's, but they were so badly executed/exaggerated and overused in this with the terrible dialogue. If they had reduced the amount of voice lines given to each character to only important dialogue, or during key moaning/sex scenes it would have probably been fine, but as is, it just puts you off through the whole experience.

Not enough H-scenes, the ones they did have were extremely vanilla/cookie--cutter, and some of the more risque-ish scenes felt weird from the voices/dialogue. The raw concept was also pretty bland, typical hypnosis plot, but then the jumps between what they would be willing to do after-x amount of hypnosis seemed too uniform and direct for each given person.

I also think a more subtle 1 hypnotized character, then using said character to help hypnotize another approach would have been more believable, instead of all at once. The random change to outfits each day also really threw me off pace and made me feel weird.

Overall worth a playthrough to most people probably, but it just feels weird to me throughout the whole experience.

I played this game a long time ago. Just a decent game, nothing extraordinary beyond the fact of being finished.

+It is very well crafted and has professional voice actors.
+The design section is well polished, varied and pleasing to the eye.
+The characters have personality, although they can like more or less.

-The story is the cliché of a lifetime in these games: Son doing it with everyone in the house, with the twist that here he uses hypnosis and you have to find ways to unlock all the scenes before the end.

-Overall it's a solid game if it weren't for the fact that it's very very VERY boring. There's nothing stunning, everything feels so vanilla despite having some fetishes.

I would give it only 3 stars but seeing how the general quality of these games is, and the fact that this one is actually finished, I feel compelled to give it one more.

Fully voice acted, high quality 2d scenes, likable characters and a fun story.

I wish every eroge was as high quality as this one, its definitely a must play.

I really enjoy how even tho its a mind control game, you never fully feel in control of the girls, making the dialog always feel a bit tense and engaging, as any wrong option could lead to you being expelled from your your own household.

Don't know how to rate this one as I'm very conflicted but I'll try it to keep it short.
The premise is average incest harem but the mind control is pretty verbose which makes the situations feel creepier even tho the game I assume is trying to be meta and the lighthearted tone doesn't manage to diminish it. Thing is I can't tell if this game is trying to parody similar games where the creepy and questionable undertones that games like these usually brush aside with happily ever after endings (i.e. the characters are okay with it) or is once such game itself.

The h content leaves a lot to be desired as there isn't much and what is available is very scarce and vanilla. The production quality is pretty good with fully voiced lines and good art, the VN even has bonus and blooper stuff which is pretty rare for reny ADVNs. But I was not sold on it entirely.
Apart from the good art which made me feel the scarcity and lack of quality of good h scenes very strongly the VA kinda ruined the mood for me personally. I don't have anything against the voice actresses but 3 out of the 4 actresses were annoyingly distracting for different reasons. 2 of em had very fast and monotone delivery as if they were reading from a script while the other one had an overly exaggerated delivary, almost entirely speaking through her nose which was extremely distracting and paired with mostly cringy eyerolling dialogue it took away from the experience greatly I think. Imo just voiced sound effects would've worked much better than full voiced line in this case.
Other negatives would be the choice system which I feel was very arbitrary for a short harem VN. Most of the better h scenes were by the end anyway and they weren't that great to begin with. I wish there were more scenes with the mom for sure.
My takeaway is this could've been much much better but it kinda left me feeling like playing a different and better game of this kind which there are many on this forum fortunately; a truly sad case of wasted potential.

Note: The "Animated" on this thread is a lie.

Snow Daze is a medium-long VN in which you are a typical wimpy kid that is emotionally abused by its family and decides to hypnotize them all to be your playthings. The art is good, much better than the majority of VNs out there for sure. Sadly the scenes are scarce and very vanilla, one after each day if you make the correct choices. And even then, only at the near end do you see action, tame action. One big part about this VN is the choices and the points you get from them. Since protag is forcing his family into submission, the wrong choice can get you a bad end, a game over and forcing you to re-do all over again. And there lies the big problem, because there are so many choices that will lead you to a game over. After two bad ends, and quite a bit of time wasted, I got the walkthrough and realized that many, seemingly not excessive choices, will get you a bad end. So to avoid endless annoyances, because you will not get a good end in your first try, just get the very linear, very specific walkthrough for the correct choices. The story is nothing spectacular, your typical slow corruption using boring hypnotism in a very repetitive manner. Each girl has their own thing and personality, and their writing is fine, even good. Except for the youngest girl. The dog roleplay comes out of nowhere and it is very cringe to develop considering her personality was previously nothing related to that. All the points the game deserves, its from its art, but again, you don’t get to see much. Snow Daze is not a game that I would particularly recommend, but is nothing bad either, just obtuse with the many bad end possibilities. Also, for the true end, apparently you have to complete each girl’s ending first, not a developer decision that I would consider positive.
There is a remake being made (Snow Daze: Redaze) with fantastic art and hopefully better writing without an obscene amount of game over traps.

A quality game that shamelessly embraces the cliche premise.

High level of quality in all aspects. Good art, if you don't mind everyone being quite busty. Good voice acting, the VAs really got into their roles. Great pacing, regularly delivering sexy new content while teasing more. You feel driven to see the next scene, but the journey there is enjoyable and not just tedious filler.

The writing is perhaps the best part. It's a very "dumb" cliche plot, with characters who are largely just vehicles for fetishes, but it's handled knowingly and deliberately. The characters acknowledge the ridiculous, cliche situations they find themselves in, but the story still has fun with it anyway. Characters have just enough personality to feel unique and not completely flat, but you never feel bogged down by character development.

The ending was underwhelming, unfortunately, but the journey there was very enjoyable. Overall, a "dumb, trashy" plot handled competently and playfully.

Story- mind control/incest VN
Art- great cartoon art easilly the bast part of the game
Sound- Music is good with functional sound effects
Voice Acting- Full English VA is the best part of this game
Mechanics-Straightforward VN
Animations- none
Bugs- Minimal in my experience
Amount of content- a few hours with a bit of branching paths/alternate endings
Subjective stuff- Incest is a core and unavoidable focus of the game, there’s not much else outside of that.
Recommend playing- No
Purchased this on sale when it came to steam, that’s how good the art is. Thus far the only game I regret giving money to.

Pros

• Actually decent voice acting, though some of it can be a bit cringey.
• Artstyle is clean.
• Dialogue is fun, if a bit simple at times.
• Incest, if you're into that
• The *True* ending is a riot, though I liked the Jane-solo and Revert ending, too, minus the actual end it comes with.

Cons

• Hypnosis lends itself to a lot of the eroticism being a hit or miss, unless you're really into it.
• The sex scenes are all kinda iffy.
• Unless your name is Jason, the voice-acting actually calling MC by name can be a bit of a boner-kill.

Summary
A quality product. Not a very long game and isn't particularly hot unless you like incest+mindcontrol, but if you do, it's top notch stuff.

[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.

The art style in this was a little iffy for me at first, but it grew on me as I played and now I can't imagine it looking any other way. Loved the girls and really enjoyed how the story progressed with each of them.

If I had any complaint its only that once I got to the end I could have sworn I went for a specific ending which ended up not giving me the option for. But hardly an issue as that is what full save file galleries are for. Would love to see more in this style in the future.

The game has lots of depth, you need to think about the choices you make. The way the hypnosis has to be slowly and carefully implemented over the week keep things interesting. Voice acting is great, especially for Jane. Very high effort game overall.

Plus:
Original art, girls are hot, there is voice for each character, variety scenes, multiple ending

Minus:
The story is short

Thanks to creator and modder amanapanama

Cypress has made some fun, engaging, and lewd games for years now. No story he's made has failed to make horny and happy at the same time, Snow Daze is no different.

If you like Corruption stories this is a game you'll love.

The story is okay, the graphics have a somewhat distinct style that is charming, but not really sexy. The main problem this game has is that it is too easy to get a game over, whether it is from choices that result in instant bad endings, or not getting enough points for a hidden counter to cross a much later threshold for a good ending. The game doesn't show you how many points you currently have for each person, nor how much a given choice will give or even take away, so while you may avoid instant game overs by scrolling back, you may not know you've already lost the game until near the very end of the story.

If you have a walkthrough mod, it becomes manageable, but it is then a matter of just choosing what will get you the most points, rather than what direction you would like to go. You can choose your ending, but you cannot choose the harem ending unless you have completed the other endings first, which can be made easier by just reloading a save from where you make that choice, but it is unclear that it is an option, and it is quite possible you would not discover this on your own.

What makes this game stand out in a positive way is the voice acting. While the artwork is not that sexy, the voicework is pretty excellent on all counts, from making the characters more charming to making them far more sexy. If it wasn't for the high quality of the voice acting, this game would be far more frustrating than positively memorable, especially without a walkthrough mod.

If you install a good walkthrough mod for this game on top of this game, you can have an enjoyable playthrough, but it is unlikely that you will feel the need to play through it more than once.

The premise is okay, the story itself is nice.
Character models are bomb and the build up great...
But all the H-Scenes are underwhelming whatsoever. Especially the ending seems rushed(?) with very little content.
Dialogue and voice over based emphasis on corruption is especially fun but the actual sauce doesn't serve well enough.

Have in mind I played with the mod

+ Great art
+ Almost fully voiced
+ Full gallery
+ Good writing
+ Gets to the porn pretty fast

~ Only one or two animations

- No actual pregnancy scene, just the endings
- Some tags are a bit of a one and done (one scene of bdsm, one of spanking, etc)

One of the first games that I had downloaded from f95zone. And still one of the best that I've played to date. So much so that I had even bought the full version off of steam. I know that Cypress is currently developing a new game, and I'm anxious for the release date on that one.

Impressive Voice-over throughout. However, that’s nearly all it’s got - as images are limited well beyond what’s normally expected from this field; few and far between. Even the backgrounds are sparse and not much beyond a sketch.

We’ve got four distinct personalities to interact with continually. All of whom have audio for every line they ever utter. And yet, the voices themselves are notably similar (I had considered early on that it might be the same person simply altering their tenor for each; credits say that’s not the case).

I did find the choice options interesting and absolutely result in a satisfying alternative off what another choice might equal. Major plus for the game. In line with that, the progression is pretty much perfect - no absurd leaps into a cheap thrill payoff while at the same time not too laborious either. I remained continually interested in results of my choices going forward. Despite the fact that “mind-control” scenarios are not exactly my bag.

Due to the theme, the repetitive approach to each scenario (or initiation) might bore me a fair degree. As would the hypnotic state of the voice-over work. That, coupled with the lack of art (and repetitive aspects there) would severely challenge the range afforded within the dialogue. While the effort made on choice options is plenty impressive and rewarding, as is the extent of all the voice work done - and even the range of progression taking place - I found it all minimal on the whole; not enough art to support a true thrill; not enough surprise nor variety to truly inspire me.

-In short, there’s some pluses and minuses here. I don’t feel cheated - early on you can see where it’s going and what you’re gonna get from it. And the end results are fair (I have not completed but one of the optional endings). I enjoyed a chuckle here and there and the dialogue itself is not nearly as crappy as most of its kind. It doesn’t take itself too seriously and it’s good for a lark.

I give it slightly better than a “meh”. Not without its merits. But not good enough.