5 | BEFORE THE SNOW MELTS
5 | BEFORE THE SNOW MELTS
by: Zach Crowe
This is a Main Festival entry.
Progress:
- I reached an ending in around 40 minutes.
Things I Appreciated:
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I think the atmosphere of this story taps into a powerful feeling that is difficult to describe, akin to the feeling of summer vacation being about to end. The presentation, including the subdued musical track and painterly filter applied to the backdrops, helps contribute toward that bittersweet melancholy feeling of an ending slowly but inevitably approaching.
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Related to that, I liked the dream-like quality provided by the omission of information about where the characters live and what they are doing. The story feels believable while simultaneously being unmoored from a particular time and place, which caused me to focus more on the feeling that was being curated rather than trying to work out what was happening mechanically or logistical questions about having a long-distance relationship. The story lends itself to a more vibes-based approach to engaging with it.
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I like that there was a third party (Iris) involved to mix up some of the conversation dynamics. Given how much of the story is a slow burn, gradual approach retreading the same emotional beats as Sunday gets closer and closer, I think having 3-way conversations helped break up some of the days so that the story felt more dynamic and lived-in.
Miscellaneous Comments/Recommendations:
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I found the curly font somewhat difficult to read, and if I had been given the option to switch to a different font, I definitely would have. The white curly font on a light blue background was a consistent distraction for me, especially with how off-positioned the punctuation in the font is. I think there may have also been a missing character in the font (either an em-dash or ellipsis) which caused occasional extra-wide spaces where it seems like there should have been punctuation. Overall, I am not sure the stylization of the font is worth these downsides. But regardless, having the option to switch to a more readable font would definitely be appreciated! I also like having the option to speed up the text to reduce clicking to get the text to show up instead of typing itself at slower than my reading speed.
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The story as written does a great job focusing on subtle emotions that are difficult to express, and it has kind of a gentle build-up as the week progresses. However, I think some of the sprite expressions, being so exaggerated, undermine that. The shocked sprites felt especially out of proportion with the more subdued emotion indicated by the text. I think using the bigger emotional sprites more sparingly, and/or adjusting the expressions themselves to be more subtle, would help bring the visual art and text in closer alignment with one another.
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I found it a bit distracting that Iris’s sprites are much larger than Clover’s. This gives the sensation that Iris is much closer to the “camera” than Clover is, and I kept wondering if there was a reason why this was the case. If not, I think it would make sense to rescale Iris’s portraits to be in proportion with Clover’s, since Clover appears first and sets the expectations for what the sprites will be like.
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It was a bit hard to place the ages of the characters. From the outset, based on how the sprites looked and the tone of the story, I imagined them maybe being high school seniors, but then later they go to a bar together (this could easily be a cultural difference, since I live somewhere that the legal drinking age is 21), so I was surprised when that happened and tried to recalibrate to thinking of them as being older than the sprites and story suggested.
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The story has kind of a floaty, ethereal quality when it comes to the setting, making it difficult to tell where it is happening. The one thing that undermined that for me was the allusion to the Wizard of Oz, when the emerald city was mentioned. Having that specific mention of real-world media kind of disrupted me from the flow state of vibing with the story, because I was suddenly asking myself when and where this story was happening.
What I Learned About IF:
- I admit that I don’t know much about VNs, since I haven’t read too many of them. But this entry really helped me appreciate how much craft goes into every screen! The author is making all kinds of choices about what settings to make available, fonts to use, colors, what sprites to use, what expressions to use on those sprites, how to style the background, how to time the writing to fit properly into the display box, etc., so there are many opportunities to double down on a particular vibe you are going for, and consequently, also many ways to create a mismatch between the story and what the player is experiencing visually. I think if I were making a VN, I would find it quite challenging to have to manage all these things at once. I thought this was a good showcase in building a more understated atmosphere for a story, and showing how elements can contribute toward (or against) that atmosphere.
Memorable Moment:
- After all the build-up to the big moment, I like that instead of being a dramatic emotional climax, it ended up being simple, direct, and more subdued. It felt like a satisfying period on the statement the game was making leading up to it.