Hello! I am Powerofbeds, some random guy who plays a lot of Snowman Survival. In the many games I have played (around four thousand, including Snowman Survival and Slime Survival on Java), I have figured out many tips and tricks for playing games, and I have begun to find it difficult to find a challenging opponent, so I shared these tips and tricks in the threads below.
15 ways to get better at slime survival
Tips for using powerups in Snowman Survival
How to use the powerups in slime survival well
Slime Survival tips for evading slime-hitting powerups
Slime Survival basics and map-specific tips
Slime Survival: How to read minds
Slime Survival: Rarely Used Tricks
Slime Survival: Rare uses for powerups
Snowman Survival: Common Mistakes
It is now December, which means Snowman Survival is once again available to be played, so I’m writing two threads on strategy. This is one of them, and this one is more focused on strategy for survivors. I will be focusing on the concept of planning where you will move to and otherwise how you play the game to allow you to win while having to use as little skill evading the snowmen as possible. I plan to upload the other thread, focused more on strategy for snowmen, in the next couple of days.
The way I like to see it, there are four different strategies survivors can use, and it is easy to switch between them throughout the game. I have assigned names to them primarily so I can more easily refer to them throughout the thread. These names are unofficial.
The passive strategy
This is a common strategy you can use which involves finding a location where it is difficult to be attacked but easy to escape. Usually, using this strategy will involve finding a high location such as on top of the fire truck ladder on the Holiday Workshop map or on the acid containers on the Factory map. If a snowman tries to shoot up to the high location, their snowball will be slowed significantly as it goes upwards, giving you plenty of time to dodge it. If the snowman comes up, there is at least one escape route. This usually works best if you also bring a powerup with you because you may be able to hold on to it for quite a long time. Wait to use it until you need it, then make your escape. Leap usually works best because if the snowmen have seen my thread on strategy for snowmen, they would know that it is best for one or two snowmen to go directly for the hider while the others cover the escape routes. A Leap powerup will allow you to go right over them. Another bonus of this strategy is that you get a vantage point from which you can see most of the entire map, so you can see where the snowmen are, analyze the way they play, look at where the powerups are, and more. Use this time to plan how you are going to escape if you are attacked. All the advantages this strategy gives makes it my favorite.
The active strategy
This strategy is less focused on finding a spot that is difficult to attack and more focused on never staying in the same place too long, instead running around the map, collecting powerups, and potentially trying to distract the snowmen from attacking the other survivors and increasing the number of threats to you. This can easily lead to being chased, but the idea is to try to keep track of the snowmen and avoid getting in their line of sight. Instead, try toggling the camera perspective to see around corners without being seen yourself. This is F5 by default, but I remapped it to R so it is closer to the rest of my movement buttons and I can use it without slowing down. I would recommend you do the same or similar. This strategy is best used only immediately after being attacked and forced out of the passive strategy.
The aggressive strategy
This strategy is best at the beginning of the game, when there are only one or two snowmen, and is not recommended for beginners. The aggressive strategy is an upgraded form of the active strategy. It still involves running around and not remaining in the same spot for too long, but the idea is to make the snowmen attack you instead of the other survivors because you are trying to avoid letting them become snowmen and increase the number of snowmen who are trying to attack you. You increase the risk of getting hit at the beginning of the game so you can decrease it for later. Survivors get a permanent speed effect even without the Speed powerup, so with only one or two snowmen, you cannot be caught if you play correctly. Just keep running and use powerups when you must. And if it encourages you to try this out, you can get a lot of extra medals for using the Snowman Stabber (the greatest number of medals I have ever gotten in one game is 12). If you do get a Snowman Stabber, don’t be too aggressive with it. Surprise attack a snowman as they come around a corner, or come at them from behind. You can’t use the Snowman Stabber if you are also a snowman. This is a concept I have covered in my “common mistakes” thread.
The hiding strategy
This strategy is far too common for how ineffective it is. The idea of this strategy is to hide somewhere and hope the snowmen do not find you, and if they do, you play the rest of the game as a snowman. This is the problem with this strategy — if you get caught, there’s nothing you can do. That’s what sets this apart from the passive strategy. The passive strategy is similar, but less focused on never getting caught and more focused on being able to escape if you do. In most situations, if you bring a Snowman Stabber to a hiding spot, you may be able to escape if only one snowman attacks you, but if two come, three leave. Unless you leave the game when you become a snowman. To those people, please stop. It takes the fun out of the game for everyone else. Being a snowman can be fun. Try it out sometime.
You have now read a summary of each of the strategies you can use as a survivor and some of the key ideas of each. The strategies of snowman survival are still much more complex than this, however, and there is more to it than I can write about in one thread. This is part of the reason I am covering strategy for snowmen in a different thread, but I recommend you read that one too, as it will help you to get into the minds of the snowmen who are trying to catch you. I will give you an idea of what you should do throughout the game to give yourself the greatest chance of survival.
I recommend that at any skill level, you begin the game by keeping an eye on the first snowman. One snowman is usually not difficult to evade if you know where they are. If you do not have much experience, I would recommend starting with the active strategy, which is safer, but if you feel confident in your own abilities, use the aggressive strategy, attracting the snowman's attention to ensure there remains only one snowman for as long as possible. This will become easier as more powerups are made available to you. Keep in mind that if the snowman realizes your skills may be beyond theirs and they cannot catch you, they may go for someone else. If you fail to anticipate this, they may come back for you without you seeing them. Be careful!
When someone gets caught, keep track of both snowmen for as long as you can. When they split up enough that you can no longer keep track of both of them, move on to playing whatever strategy suits you best. I recommend maintaining use of the active strategy until you get a powerup, then moving on to the passive strategy. However, what you do can vary based on the map you are playing on, because some maps do not have as much potential for the passive strategy to be of use.
Holiday Workshop
On the Holiday Workshop map, the best place to be is usually on the top of the fire truck ladder. From here, you are too high for snowmen to hit you from below and you have many options for escape if a snowman comes up. This spot is good enough that you may even want to ascend to it right at the beginning of the game instead of attracting the attention of the snowman, who may use the maze-like features of the map to take you by surprise. When a snowman comes up, your best option of escape is usually to jump down onto the other fire truck. From there, you can go to the back of the fire truck and hide on the top corner where it is difficult to be seen from the top of the ladder you just came from, and the snowman might not follow you. If they do, simply jump off and run past the police car and into the LEGO. You can then easily hop onto the back of the fire truck with the extended ladder and either go up onto it or continue towards the rest of the map.
If you have a gravity explosive, decoy, or leap, and you feel like taking a risk, you can try to get the snowman off the ladder by yeeting them off with the Gravity Explosive, faking jumping off the ladder with the leap, or placing the decoy on top of the ladder and going back down half the ladder. In this third case, make sure to descend the ladder on the opposite side to the one the snowman is coming up in case they fire a preemptive shot. Some snowmen will destroy the decoy and assume you jumped off the ladder, so will jump off themselves. Simply return to the top. Make sure you don’t get attacked by any other snowmen while you do this.
In general, on this map, you will want to maintain high ground for as much of the game as possible because there are far too many narrow corridors that make the snowmen’s shots easier and maze-like paths that allow them to surprise attack as you turn a corner. These types of structures work against the snowmen if they are trying to throw up towards you. Leap powerups are usually extra effective on this map due to allowing you to quickly ascend a high structure or jump to another. I also recommend avoiding the castle as much as possible as it is too easy to get trapped in it.
Factory
On the Factory map, both teams will try to take advantage of the size of the map, with survivors trying to use the open space to their advantage while snowmen try to use it to make the survivors unable to keep track of them and thus prepare a surprise attack. It is mainly harder to keep track of snowmen because of the existence of a basement. Snowmen can go down a set of stairs into the basement and come up a different set of stairs. They could also use one of the many holes that drops into the basement instead. Either way, you never know where they will come back up. If you try to follow them into the basement, they may turn around and attack you where it is impossible to dodge. It is usually better to simply go directly to the acid containers.
The two acid containers which sit next to each other make a great place to spend most of the game. They are high enough that snowmen throwing snowballs from below will be easily dodged, and the only two ways up are via ladder parkour. Be careful, because these two ways are on opposite sides of the acid containers. If you are attacked, your best option is usually to jump onto the conveyer belt next to the acid containers, though this is usually not possible because the most popular way for snowmen to get to the top of the acid containers is by the ladders leading from this conveyer belt. If they see your escape attempt, they will immediately be following in close range. Instead, you can jump onto the boxes on the other side, straight forward towards spawn, or down into the hole, depending on where the snowmen are and/or where you think they will go (usually not where they have just been because they just checked there).
Try to avoid the basement as much as possible because there are seven ways down and only three ways out. If you need to go down, you can absolutely use it to your advantage. Due to the amount of open space and the number of options of where to go from every location, the Decoy powerup is especially useful on this map. When snowmen destroy it, they have no idea whether you went this way, that way, the other way, or into or out of the basement.
Forest
The forest map is very open with few options for taking high-up tactical positions for the passive strategy. Thus, you will usually want a different strategy (I tend to go for the active strategy here). The highest location is the top of the house, but due to the closed nature of this spot, there is little time to see snowmen on their way to your location and even less time or space to escape when they arrive. Going for a long time in the house is more of a hiding strategy than a passive strategy.
Similarly to how you want to remain out of the basement as much as possible on the Factory map, you will want to maintain high ground as often as possible in this map. This keeps your options open and makes it more difficult for snowmen to hit you. A nice idea you can try for yourself here is to grab a Decoy powerup and find a certain tree stump. When facing the house from spawn, turn about seventy degrees to the right and you will see it. It is near the house. It has a hole on the top of it leading inside it, which is a nice hiding spot, but if you bring a Decoy, you have a way out. Survivors can enter this spot with a Leap powerup and snowmen can enter if they can take advantage of a foolish Gravity Explosive (watch out for that as well), but usually, the only way for snowmen to enter this spot is by parkour on nearby ice. By using this ice to get in yourself and continuously looking toward it while you are in here, you will know when a snowman is trying to enter your spot and you can place the Decoy and book it. The snowman has no way of knowing you have left, so will continue attempting the ice parkour until they are successful, only to find out it was a big waste of time.
Survivors should try to take advantage of the open space for moving around while not letting the snowmen use it to easily locate them. Because there are some narrow corridors and bridges, the Instant Wall powerup is very effective here, because it can completely block off snowmen, or, because the islands of high ground are so close to each other, you can also get between them using an Instant Wall double jump, as was explained in a few of my powerup-related tip threads (basically, you just jump off the bottom of the Instant Wall as it is getting built).
Snowman
The name of this map is scary for survivors, and so is the map itself due to its small size. Not to mention the fact that the best spot for the passive strategy was patched when the staff team decided it was too powerful. They placed barriers to stop people from getting up here, and I got on top of the barriers, so they built them even higher. That spot was atop the green candy cane. But since it no longer exists, I’ll just stop talking about it. With this spot gone, the best places to spend most of your time are on the presents and/or the red candy cane next to the giant snowman, on its right side. You can easily get onto the middle of this candy cane (NOT the top, which is also blocked off by barrier blocks) using tree parkour. Even better if you bring a Decoy, which may also confuse snowmen as to how you got it there. From here, you can wrap around the candy cane to try to evade snowballs. You will have to run if the snowman tries to shoot you from below, which is the most reliable place from which to shoot.
One of the most important things here is to be smart with running away. Do not try to escape snowmen by climbing ladders or going through the giant snowman unless you know you will not get pincered inside it. Ladders are the slowest means of transportation, leaving you extremely vulnerable, and the corridor is a bit obvious — if there’s a snowman on both sides, you will be one as well before long. A strategy that rarely works but is hilarious if it does is to hide under the tree in the corner of the map farthest from the giant snowman. By bringing a Snowman Stabber, you have a somewhat decent chance of escaping this spot, and if you don’t, rather than hiding behind the door, hide in the door. By closing a door while you are still partially inside it after it closes, you can walk right through it. Position yourself so snowmen barely cannot see you when they open the door, but part of your hitbox is inside the door hinge. The idea is that as a snowman closes the door to expose your position and make you a snowman, you leave as if the door isn’t there. There are two problems with this, however. One is that snowmen often do not use my tip of selecting the second hotbar slot so survivors cannot see that they have their snowball and thus will accidentally throw it with the same input they use for opening the door, and the other is that they will usually react to your presence and your attempt at leaving fast enough to hit you. Only use this if it’s your last resort and/or you’re just trying to have some fun.
Due to the small size of this map and the abundance of ladders and a narrow corridor, both Snowman Stabber and Instant Wall are very effective here. Instant Wall spawns three blocks in front of you, so by positioning yourself in front of a ladder so there are two blocks between yourself and it, you can place the Instant Wall to trap snowmen inside it or under it.
Frost
This map has a lot of ice which the survivors will try to use to increase their speed and therefore also their evasiveness while the snowmen try to use it against them because they cannot stop and turn around as quickly. Because agility is reduced on ice, it is usually better to just sprint and jump on it (but not off it, as just running is faster with the permanent speed effect) to try to increase the distance to the snowmen. This map is great for starting with the aggressive strategy if you feel brave.
An important tip to note here is that it is not a good idea to let all those tempting hiding spots get to you. There are so many nooks to hide in, but all of them have only one way out. And if you decide to try hiding in the waterfall in one of them, your escape is even slower. Even placing a Decoy in this spots is sometimes a bad idea because snowmen will throw a snowball at the Decoy and will also hit you because you’re taking the only way out of the spot. However, there are also no good places to sit and take a passive strategy, so your best bet is to use the ice to move around as quickly as possible. I even like to challenge myself to do three laps around the entire map before the game ends.
For the same reasons as on the Forest map, Instant Wall is very powerful here. Forest and Frost both have some islands of high ground, narrow corridors, and narrow bridges (in the Frost map, they come in the form of the circles of ice you can find throughout it). Here, due to the many nooks that make garbage hiding spots, snowmen may search these nooks, and if you feel like it (generally not the best idea because you don’t need it, but it’s very funny), you can use the Instant Wall to trap the snowman in the hiding spot.
Presents
In a way, one can say this is an overexaggerated version of Frost and Forest in terms of strategy. The aesthetic of the map is very different, but the strategy is similar. This map has islands of high ground, but the difference is that these islands are wider, longer, and taller. There is not much space to move around on the bottom of the map, so stay on the presents as much as you can. Their height and sharp corners aid in preventing snowmen from hitting you from below.
This map has some nice tactics you can use to your advantage. A simple one is the purple present near the center of the map, which has a ladder leading up to it that can be skipped for the sake of speed using a Jump Boost powerup (Leap also works, but Leap works very well anywhere). You can also wait at the top of a ladder in one of the corners of the map with virtually any powerup. If a snowman comes up the ladder to attack you, you can stab them with a Snowman Stabber, send them flying with a Gravity Explosive, place a Decoy and run while they can’t see you, run away with a Leap and be able to go anywhere you want, or place an Instant Wall similarly to how I described it for the Snowman map and prevent the snowman from advancing. You can even just run without a powerup because the snowman is less likely to be able to see you as they climb the ladder.
Due to the ability to go from one present to another instantly with a Leap powerup, it is by far the best powerup to have on this map. You can also use it to get from the ground onto a present.
This is just about all I can tell you about survivor strategy. One of the biggest things about strategy for survivors is to look at where the snowmen are and plan an escape in advance, but that is more about practice than reading a thread. One other thing is that it is often best to spend most of the game in third person mode to improve your view of what is around you instead of just in front of you.
If you have read the entire thread (I’m sorry it’s so long), you now know what the best powerups on each map are. The best way to use this information is to get one of these powerups and keep it for when you need it without letting the snowman know you have it. Do this by selecting the second hotbar slot and only switching to the first when you want to use the powerup. This is very rarely done, yet it is so effective and so simple. It is also covered in all of my other threads, but that’s because it is so simple and effective.
I hope you learned something about making your wins as a survivor easier. Feel free to check out some of my other threads as well. If you want to read my thread on snowman strategy, I recommend it, as it will help to make your wins as snowman easier and will also help you to get into the heads of the snowmen while they are trying to catch you. Thanks for reading!
15 ways to get better at slime survival
Tips for using powerups in Snowman Survival
How to use the powerups in slime survival well
Slime Survival tips for evading slime-hitting powerups
Slime Survival basics and map-specific tips
Slime Survival: How to read minds
Slime Survival: Rarely Used Tricks
Slime Survival: Rare uses for powerups
Snowman Survival: Common Mistakes
It is now December, which means Snowman Survival is once again available to be played, so I’m writing two threads on strategy. This is one of them, and this one is more focused on strategy for survivors. I will be focusing on the concept of planning where you will move to and otherwise how you play the game to allow you to win while having to use as little skill evading the snowmen as possible. I plan to upload the other thread, focused more on strategy for snowmen, in the next couple of days.
The way I like to see it, there are four different strategies survivors can use, and it is easy to switch between them throughout the game. I have assigned names to them primarily so I can more easily refer to them throughout the thread. These names are unofficial.
The passive strategy
This is a common strategy you can use which involves finding a location where it is difficult to be attacked but easy to escape. Usually, using this strategy will involve finding a high location such as on top of the fire truck ladder on the Holiday Workshop map or on the acid containers on the Factory map. If a snowman tries to shoot up to the high location, their snowball will be slowed significantly as it goes upwards, giving you plenty of time to dodge it. If the snowman comes up, there is at least one escape route. This usually works best if you also bring a powerup with you because you may be able to hold on to it for quite a long time. Wait to use it until you need it, then make your escape. Leap usually works best because if the snowmen have seen my thread on strategy for snowmen, they would know that it is best for one or two snowmen to go directly for the hider while the others cover the escape routes. A Leap powerup will allow you to go right over them. Another bonus of this strategy is that you get a vantage point from which you can see most of the entire map, so you can see where the snowmen are, analyze the way they play, look at where the powerups are, and more. Use this time to plan how you are going to escape if you are attacked. All the advantages this strategy gives makes it my favorite.
The active strategy
This strategy is less focused on finding a spot that is difficult to attack and more focused on never staying in the same place too long, instead running around the map, collecting powerups, and potentially trying to distract the snowmen from attacking the other survivors and increasing the number of threats to you. This can easily lead to being chased, but the idea is to try to keep track of the snowmen and avoid getting in their line of sight. Instead, try toggling the camera perspective to see around corners without being seen yourself. This is F5 by default, but I remapped it to R so it is closer to the rest of my movement buttons and I can use it without slowing down. I would recommend you do the same or similar. This strategy is best used only immediately after being attacked and forced out of the passive strategy.
The aggressive strategy
This strategy is best at the beginning of the game, when there are only one or two snowmen, and is not recommended for beginners. The aggressive strategy is an upgraded form of the active strategy. It still involves running around and not remaining in the same spot for too long, but the idea is to make the snowmen attack you instead of the other survivors because you are trying to avoid letting them become snowmen and increase the number of snowmen who are trying to attack you. You increase the risk of getting hit at the beginning of the game so you can decrease it for later. Survivors get a permanent speed effect even without the Speed powerup, so with only one or two snowmen, you cannot be caught if you play correctly. Just keep running and use powerups when you must. And if it encourages you to try this out, you can get a lot of extra medals for using the Snowman Stabber (the greatest number of medals I have ever gotten in one game is 12). If you do get a Snowman Stabber, don’t be too aggressive with it. Surprise attack a snowman as they come around a corner, or come at them from behind. You can’t use the Snowman Stabber if you are also a snowman. This is a concept I have covered in my “common mistakes” thread.
The hiding strategy
This strategy is far too common for how ineffective it is. The idea of this strategy is to hide somewhere and hope the snowmen do not find you, and if they do, you play the rest of the game as a snowman. This is the problem with this strategy — if you get caught, there’s nothing you can do. That’s what sets this apart from the passive strategy. The passive strategy is similar, but less focused on never getting caught and more focused on being able to escape if you do. In most situations, if you bring a Snowman Stabber to a hiding spot, you may be able to escape if only one snowman attacks you, but if two come, three leave. Unless you leave the game when you become a snowman. To those people, please stop. It takes the fun out of the game for everyone else. Being a snowman can be fun. Try it out sometime.
You have now read a summary of each of the strategies you can use as a survivor and some of the key ideas of each. The strategies of snowman survival are still much more complex than this, however, and there is more to it than I can write about in one thread. This is part of the reason I am covering strategy for snowmen in a different thread, but I recommend you read that one too, as it will help you to get into the minds of the snowmen who are trying to catch you. I will give you an idea of what you should do throughout the game to give yourself the greatest chance of survival.
I recommend that at any skill level, you begin the game by keeping an eye on the first snowman. One snowman is usually not difficult to evade if you know where they are. If you do not have much experience, I would recommend starting with the active strategy, which is safer, but if you feel confident in your own abilities, use the aggressive strategy, attracting the snowman's attention to ensure there remains only one snowman for as long as possible. This will become easier as more powerups are made available to you. Keep in mind that if the snowman realizes your skills may be beyond theirs and they cannot catch you, they may go for someone else. If you fail to anticipate this, they may come back for you without you seeing them. Be careful!
When someone gets caught, keep track of both snowmen for as long as you can. When they split up enough that you can no longer keep track of both of them, move on to playing whatever strategy suits you best. I recommend maintaining use of the active strategy until you get a powerup, then moving on to the passive strategy. However, what you do can vary based on the map you are playing on, because some maps do not have as much potential for the passive strategy to be of use.
Holiday Workshop
On the Holiday Workshop map, the best place to be is usually on the top of the fire truck ladder. From here, you are too high for snowmen to hit you from below and you have many options for escape if a snowman comes up. This spot is good enough that you may even want to ascend to it right at the beginning of the game instead of attracting the attention of the snowman, who may use the maze-like features of the map to take you by surprise. When a snowman comes up, your best option of escape is usually to jump down onto the other fire truck. From there, you can go to the back of the fire truck and hide on the top corner where it is difficult to be seen from the top of the ladder you just came from, and the snowman might not follow you. If they do, simply jump off and run past the police car and into the LEGO. You can then easily hop onto the back of the fire truck with the extended ladder and either go up onto it or continue towards the rest of the map.
If you have a gravity explosive, decoy, or leap, and you feel like taking a risk, you can try to get the snowman off the ladder by yeeting them off with the Gravity Explosive, faking jumping off the ladder with the leap, or placing the decoy on top of the ladder and going back down half the ladder. In this third case, make sure to descend the ladder on the opposite side to the one the snowman is coming up in case they fire a preemptive shot. Some snowmen will destroy the decoy and assume you jumped off the ladder, so will jump off themselves. Simply return to the top. Make sure you don’t get attacked by any other snowmen while you do this.
In general, on this map, you will want to maintain high ground for as much of the game as possible because there are far too many narrow corridors that make the snowmen’s shots easier and maze-like paths that allow them to surprise attack as you turn a corner. These types of structures work against the snowmen if they are trying to throw up towards you. Leap powerups are usually extra effective on this map due to allowing you to quickly ascend a high structure or jump to another. I also recommend avoiding the castle as much as possible as it is too easy to get trapped in it.
Factory
On the Factory map, both teams will try to take advantage of the size of the map, with survivors trying to use the open space to their advantage while snowmen try to use it to make the survivors unable to keep track of them and thus prepare a surprise attack. It is mainly harder to keep track of snowmen because of the existence of a basement. Snowmen can go down a set of stairs into the basement and come up a different set of stairs. They could also use one of the many holes that drops into the basement instead. Either way, you never know where they will come back up. If you try to follow them into the basement, they may turn around and attack you where it is impossible to dodge. It is usually better to simply go directly to the acid containers.
The two acid containers which sit next to each other make a great place to spend most of the game. They are high enough that snowmen throwing snowballs from below will be easily dodged, and the only two ways up are via ladder parkour. Be careful, because these two ways are on opposite sides of the acid containers. If you are attacked, your best option is usually to jump onto the conveyer belt next to the acid containers, though this is usually not possible because the most popular way for snowmen to get to the top of the acid containers is by the ladders leading from this conveyer belt. If they see your escape attempt, they will immediately be following in close range. Instead, you can jump onto the boxes on the other side, straight forward towards spawn, or down into the hole, depending on where the snowmen are and/or where you think they will go (usually not where they have just been because they just checked there).
Try to avoid the basement as much as possible because there are seven ways down and only three ways out. If you need to go down, you can absolutely use it to your advantage. Due to the amount of open space and the number of options of where to go from every location, the Decoy powerup is especially useful on this map. When snowmen destroy it, they have no idea whether you went this way, that way, the other way, or into or out of the basement.
Forest
The forest map is very open with few options for taking high-up tactical positions for the passive strategy. Thus, you will usually want a different strategy (I tend to go for the active strategy here). The highest location is the top of the house, but due to the closed nature of this spot, there is little time to see snowmen on their way to your location and even less time or space to escape when they arrive. Going for a long time in the house is more of a hiding strategy than a passive strategy.
Similarly to how you want to remain out of the basement as much as possible on the Factory map, you will want to maintain high ground as often as possible in this map. This keeps your options open and makes it more difficult for snowmen to hit you. A nice idea you can try for yourself here is to grab a Decoy powerup and find a certain tree stump. When facing the house from spawn, turn about seventy degrees to the right and you will see it. It is near the house. It has a hole on the top of it leading inside it, which is a nice hiding spot, but if you bring a Decoy, you have a way out. Survivors can enter this spot with a Leap powerup and snowmen can enter if they can take advantage of a foolish Gravity Explosive (watch out for that as well), but usually, the only way for snowmen to enter this spot is by parkour on nearby ice. By using this ice to get in yourself and continuously looking toward it while you are in here, you will know when a snowman is trying to enter your spot and you can place the Decoy and book it. The snowman has no way of knowing you have left, so will continue attempting the ice parkour until they are successful, only to find out it was a big waste of time.
Survivors should try to take advantage of the open space for moving around while not letting the snowmen use it to easily locate them. Because there are some narrow corridors and bridges, the Instant Wall powerup is very effective here, because it can completely block off snowmen, or, because the islands of high ground are so close to each other, you can also get between them using an Instant Wall double jump, as was explained in a few of my powerup-related tip threads (basically, you just jump off the bottom of the Instant Wall as it is getting built).
Snowman
The name of this map is scary for survivors, and so is the map itself due to its small size. Not to mention the fact that the best spot for the passive strategy was patched when the staff team decided it was too powerful. They placed barriers to stop people from getting up here, and I got on top of the barriers, so they built them even higher. That spot was atop the green candy cane. But since it no longer exists, I’ll just stop talking about it. With this spot gone, the best places to spend most of your time are on the presents and/or the red candy cane next to the giant snowman, on its right side. You can easily get onto the middle of this candy cane (NOT the top, which is also blocked off by barrier blocks) using tree parkour. Even better if you bring a Decoy, which may also confuse snowmen as to how you got it there. From here, you can wrap around the candy cane to try to evade snowballs. You will have to run if the snowman tries to shoot you from below, which is the most reliable place from which to shoot.
One of the most important things here is to be smart with running away. Do not try to escape snowmen by climbing ladders or going through the giant snowman unless you know you will not get pincered inside it. Ladders are the slowest means of transportation, leaving you extremely vulnerable, and the corridor is a bit obvious — if there’s a snowman on both sides, you will be one as well before long. A strategy that rarely works but is hilarious if it does is to hide under the tree in the corner of the map farthest from the giant snowman. By bringing a Snowman Stabber, you have a somewhat decent chance of escaping this spot, and if you don’t, rather than hiding behind the door, hide in the door. By closing a door while you are still partially inside it after it closes, you can walk right through it. Position yourself so snowmen barely cannot see you when they open the door, but part of your hitbox is inside the door hinge. The idea is that as a snowman closes the door to expose your position and make you a snowman, you leave as if the door isn’t there. There are two problems with this, however. One is that snowmen often do not use my tip of selecting the second hotbar slot so survivors cannot see that they have their snowball and thus will accidentally throw it with the same input they use for opening the door, and the other is that they will usually react to your presence and your attempt at leaving fast enough to hit you. Only use this if it’s your last resort and/or you’re just trying to have some fun.
Due to the small size of this map and the abundance of ladders and a narrow corridor, both Snowman Stabber and Instant Wall are very effective here. Instant Wall spawns three blocks in front of you, so by positioning yourself in front of a ladder so there are two blocks between yourself and it, you can place the Instant Wall to trap snowmen inside it or under it.
Frost
This map has a lot of ice which the survivors will try to use to increase their speed and therefore also their evasiveness while the snowmen try to use it against them because they cannot stop and turn around as quickly. Because agility is reduced on ice, it is usually better to just sprint and jump on it (but not off it, as just running is faster with the permanent speed effect) to try to increase the distance to the snowmen. This map is great for starting with the aggressive strategy if you feel brave.
An important tip to note here is that it is not a good idea to let all those tempting hiding spots get to you. There are so many nooks to hide in, but all of them have only one way out. And if you decide to try hiding in the waterfall in one of them, your escape is even slower. Even placing a Decoy in this spots is sometimes a bad idea because snowmen will throw a snowball at the Decoy and will also hit you because you’re taking the only way out of the spot. However, there are also no good places to sit and take a passive strategy, so your best bet is to use the ice to move around as quickly as possible. I even like to challenge myself to do three laps around the entire map before the game ends.
For the same reasons as on the Forest map, Instant Wall is very powerful here. Forest and Frost both have some islands of high ground, narrow corridors, and narrow bridges (in the Frost map, they come in the form of the circles of ice you can find throughout it). Here, due to the many nooks that make garbage hiding spots, snowmen may search these nooks, and if you feel like it (generally not the best idea because you don’t need it, but it’s very funny), you can use the Instant Wall to trap the snowman in the hiding spot.
Presents
In a way, one can say this is an overexaggerated version of Frost and Forest in terms of strategy. The aesthetic of the map is very different, but the strategy is similar. This map has islands of high ground, but the difference is that these islands are wider, longer, and taller. There is not much space to move around on the bottom of the map, so stay on the presents as much as you can. Their height and sharp corners aid in preventing snowmen from hitting you from below.
This map has some nice tactics you can use to your advantage. A simple one is the purple present near the center of the map, which has a ladder leading up to it that can be skipped for the sake of speed using a Jump Boost powerup (Leap also works, but Leap works very well anywhere). You can also wait at the top of a ladder in one of the corners of the map with virtually any powerup. If a snowman comes up the ladder to attack you, you can stab them with a Snowman Stabber, send them flying with a Gravity Explosive, place a Decoy and run while they can’t see you, run away with a Leap and be able to go anywhere you want, or place an Instant Wall similarly to how I described it for the Snowman map and prevent the snowman from advancing. You can even just run without a powerup because the snowman is less likely to be able to see you as they climb the ladder.
Due to the ability to go from one present to another instantly with a Leap powerup, it is by far the best powerup to have on this map. You can also use it to get from the ground onto a present.
This is just about all I can tell you about survivor strategy. One of the biggest things about strategy for survivors is to look at where the snowmen are and plan an escape in advance, but that is more about practice than reading a thread. One other thing is that it is often best to spend most of the game in third person mode to improve your view of what is around you instead of just in front of you.
If you have read the entire thread (I’m sorry it’s so long), you now know what the best powerups on each map are. The best way to use this information is to get one of these powerups and keep it for when you need it without letting the snowman know you have it. Do this by selecting the second hotbar slot and only switching to the first when you want to use the powerup. This is very rarely done, yet it is so effective and so simple. It is also covered in all of my other threads, but that’s because it is so simple and effective.
I hope you learned something about making your wins as a survivor easier. Feel free to check out some of my other threads as well. If you want to read my thread on snowman strategy, I recommend it, as it will help to make your wins as snowman easier and will also help you to get into the heads of the snowmen while they are trying to catch you. Thanks for reading!
