They say never set a movie in a cold place, because the audience doesn’t want to go there. Is that true for a game, too? …I don’t know, how well did Siberia do exactly, I didn’t keep track. Anyway, let’s play Snowquest.
So, spoilers abound here.
….I, uh, well, that was interesting. I finished the whole thing in about an hour and a half, so, certainly doable, though I resorted to hints during the whole bone sharpening sequence because that bit was a little obtuse. I like the way it gives subtle hints during some portions as to how to proceed like when I throw the stick past the wolf. I like the verbs that are implemented (it’s got xyzzy!) and objects seem pretty robust. Most of the stuff I tried to do had unique messages and there was only one small bug I encountered.
I didn’t realize I was a woman until the plane crash. I wonder if that was intentional. I didn’t have much to go on and the game hints you’re part of a tribe of some kind before that, which turns out to be a red herring.
So… I like what the game turns in to after the red herring, much less than what it was during the red herring. The whole survival in the snow in the strange wilderness vibe was actually pretty fun and it had some neat shamanistic fantasy type elements. And then it just takes this left turn.
My character is supposed to fly, or not fly, toward a weather station in the mountains, and I get a weather report indicating that there’s a storm coming that might kill me. So my first instinct after seeing the weather report object you’re handed is to just drive home, and then the game ends, but from an in-character perspective this isn’t a terrible way for it to end even if anti-climactic.
The heel of the piece is a charmingly hypnotic man named Sam Wolf. I thought about it for just a few minutes and I don’t think Wolf’s plan really made sense. He gave me some kind of crazy voodoo symbolism vision to trick me in to giving him my package but wouldn’t some kind of vision about how the box contained doomsday or something been more useful? Did he have control over the visions or was it random from my character’s subconscious? If the latter, how could he guess the vision would work in his favor?
It frustrates me how my character will never ever open the package. The only rationale I can think for this is ‘because that would solve everything too easily.’ And the symbolism is all, way over the top, like having that guy’s initials be S.N.O.W. was just way too heavy-handed for me.
It’s competently handled; I just liked the story it started out as better for some reason.
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