Hi there! You probably never asked yourself: "what does Blommmmie think of Snowman Survival?" That's why today I will give you the answer anyway. How nice of me!
Before I start, I would like to state that I love the game concept of Snowman Survival and I think it is only fair that the game upon release is getting played by hundreds of people. The game overall is simply good. As an old Arcade/MinerWare main on Java network, I can only appreciate this version of Slime Survival being brought back each year. However, there are some concerns I have with the entirety of the third consecutive year of the game being brought back.
1. Seasonal Games
CubeCraft has had an impressive amount of seasonal games, dating all the way back to 2016 (if I remember correctly), added on the network during seasonal events over the year. Some were more popular than others, which is only understandable. Under here a list, with at the bottom all the games relevant for the point I want to make:
Spring:
Spring RPG (I doubt you can consider this a gamemode but it was definitely a banger)
Halloween:
Ender
Carving Chaos
Winter:
Snow Down
Present Rush
Snowman Survival
Colony Control
As said, some where more popular than others. Carving Chaos for example did not do what was expected, since it was repetitive and therefore became boring rather quickly. The winter games in contrast all performed pretty well. Some even did so great that they were made in their own permanent gamemode (being Snow Down to Line Dash and Snowman Survival to Slime Survival). It's good to see a gamemode you have seen on the network before return. Sadly, most of these good winter games have not returned anymore. Some since a year or two, others for many years already. I think this is a shame. With as many good games as have been created, I think it is good to switch every once in a while. I don't think it is good to leave a gamemode out for as long as happening right now. Obviously, I expect CubeCraft not to add the other gamemodes back at all, but that would be a shame. Snow Down has not returned due to Line Dash taking over its purpose, but we have seen Snowman Survival while Slime Survival was an active mode as well and Line Dash is also unavailable right now for the foreseeable future. Colony Control is one of the most requested games to return to the network since it was removed back in 2021 (or January 2022 for that matter). And about Present Rush, people are too young to remember this masterpiece of a game. I really really hope Snowman Survival doesn't return every year, but gets switched out every once in a while as well for one of the other brilliant games.
2. Freeze Tag
Talking about repetitiveness in a game: this has been a massive issue with game design and player retainment over the years. I don't have the numbers, but to give you the logic of this argument: Carving Chaos will never be added back due to it. Ender was removed due to the lack in player count and the only way to play is by going through the same rooms to look for pages on the same places every time. Games like Pillars of Fortune reach a record number of players on Java because of its unpredictability. Similar, Lucky Islands outscores SkyWars in player counts for similar reasons. To prevent this from happening to Snowman Survival as well, I don't understand why the Freeze Tag gamemode from Slime Survival has not been ported over. I understand this not happening the first year, because the game was rather new. The second year was after Slime Survival has proved to be a success, including both of the gamemodes. Not adding it here seems strange as well. With the new framework, I don't think the team even remembers Freeze Tag was a thing back then...
To fresh up some minds: the goal of Snowman Survival is to infect players to be a snowman with you. Eventually, the lobby will fill up with more snowmen compared to survivors. You win the game by converting all the players or staying alive and safe from the snowmen, depending on which team you are in at that moment. Freeze Tag is a bit different. Instead of hybrid teams where you switch teams once you are converted, Freeze Tag will select multiple snowmen (idk what the player count is on bedrock per game, but for the 8 in Java it will probably be 2 snowmen). If a survivor gets hit, they will freeze in place, glow up for the teammates and are out of the game. You can however return those people back to the game by standing next to them for long enough. The goal is not to convert all the players to be snowman with you, but instead to eliminate all the players from the opposing team. Wonky explanation, so any questions, feel free to ask.
This type of gamemode allows completely different gameplay. Definitely within the winter theme, I think this gamemode within Snowman Survival would give more depth to the game as a whole and an additional reason to sell a rank for a voting option, which then would be good for the company. Obviously, I don't expect this to be the new main gamemode, but it would be nice to add this as voting option. I don't see a reason why not to since the game pretty much didn't change at all in the past 3 years (no massive additions or anything really).
3. Power-ups
This might be the smallest possible change, but the one I hate the most. Before, power-ups such as the Snowman Stabber, Gravity Explosion or Jump Boost, would be depicted as an actual item floating above the ground with the name tag above it. These items would be invisible to snowmen. The power-ups were very easy to recognise because of the name tags, colour of the name tag and the actual items that made a lot of sense.
The change that has been made here is that the power-ups first of all don't have a name tag anymore. This causes me, a player from the old guard, to get used to something that is not as intuitive as before. I love the new pictures and design btw, massive fan, but removing the name tags is a very unintuitive change which I simply don't get. The art is very hard to separate from a distance and the colours that were used to assist in separation are now gone, except for when the items spawn in the map.
Secondly, the items are visible for snowmen, giving them a really big advantage over the survivors. Before it worked that if you were converted, you could see the power-ups that spawned in while you were a survivor (open information to you as a player). I think this is fair. A lot of changes have been made to give the edge to snowmen, which is really working, but this is a change with tiny impact for new players but for players with more experience helps a lot.
Lastly I miss the Cage Trap power-up. I don't know if it was ever in the game, but it was good and now it is sadly gone. Also, 10 seconds freeze time for a stab instead of the 7 seconds from before? insane.
4. Charged Snowball
Over the years, mechanics for a game can change. So is also the case with Snowman Survival, where the snowmen have a new way to throw their snowball. I miss the old ways. I know I sound like I cannot handle change (which is fair cuz for this stuff it is true), but it was sooo much better than the new system. Right now, you have one way to throw your snowball, which is right clicking it. It sends the snowball away in the same size and with the same speed. Before, you could hold right click to charge up. This would slow a player down, send the snowball with a higher velocity, make it travel more distance and make the size bigger. It obviously took time to throw it, making it rather inefficient, but the option was nice and came in handy a lot of times, by reaching places you normally can barely reach. I suggest adding this back. It was nice and worked perfectly.
Small QoL change: Make your snowball (or every snowball) glowing, so you know which of the snow blocks was yours and which just belonged to the map :D
5. Tracker Cooldown
This is a really small thing that annoys me a lot. There are two clear cooldown timers in your screen that help you during the game as a snowman. One is the game timer that shows you the time left during the game, showed in your right scoreboard and on the XP level bar. The second one is the Snowball reload timer, showing the time left for your snowball to return to your inventory. Both are great. The compass that allows you to track a survivor as first snowman should in my opinion also have a timer. This could be done by having a permanent bossbar in the top of the screen, but I think it would be nice to not remove the compass from the inventory at all, but just give it the reload effect that Minecraft has by default for when for example a shield was disabled by an axe hit. Small change, again with big impact for more experienced players. In addition, it would be nice to sort the scoreboard to actually show the order of when people were found, so you know who the first snowman is.
A lot of crying about nothing, but overall I think Snowman Survival, even though the game is really great and gives me the arcade feeling I really miss from CubeCraft, fell off quite a bit in comparison to previous years. I think the experience is less nice and could be enhanced, or the chance could be given to other very well executed seasonal games. Either way, I hope you are very happy spending a lot of time reading my yapping and getting answer to the question: what does Blommmmie think of Snowman Survival. Have a good one!
Before I start, I would like to state that I love the game concept of Snowman Survival and I think it is only fair that the game upon release is getting played by hundreds of people. The game overall is simply good. As an old Arcade/MinerWare main on Java network, I can only appreciate this version of Slime Survival being brought back each year. However, there are some concerns I have with the entirety of the third consecutive year of the game being brought back.
1. Seasonal Games
CubeCraft has had an impressive amount of seasonal games, dating all the way back to 2016 (if I remember correctly), added on the network during seasonal events over the year. Some were more popular than others, which is only understandable. Under here a list, with at the bottom all the games relevant for the point I want to make:
Spring:
Spring RPG (I doubt you can consider this a gamemode but it was definitely a banger)
Halloween:
Ender
Carving Chaos
Winter:
Snow Down
Present Rush
Snowman Survival
Colony Control
As said, some where more popular than others. Carving Chaos for example did not do what was expected, since it was repetitive and therefore became boring rather quickly. The winter games in contrast all performed pretty well. Some even did so great that they were made in their own permanent gamemode (being Snow Down to Line Dash and Snowman Survival to Slime Survival). It's good to see a gamemode you have seen on the network before return. Sadly, most of these good winter games have not returned anymore. Some since a year or two, others for many years already. I think this is a shame. With as many good games as have been created, I think it is good to switch every once in a while. I don't think it is good to leave a gamemode out for as long as happening right now. Obviously, I expect CubeCraft not to add the other gamemodes back at all, but that would be a shame. Snow Down has not returned due to Line Dash taking over its purpose, but we have seen Snowman Survival while Slime Survival was an active mode as well and Line Dash is also unavailable right now for the foreseeable future. Colony Control is one of the most requested games to return to the network since it was removed back in 2021 (or January 2022 for that matter). And about Present Rush, people are too young to remember this masterpiece of a game. I really really hope Snowman Survival doesn't return every year, but gets switched out every once in a while as well for one of the other brilliant games.
2. Freeze Tag
Talking about repetitiveness in a game: this has been a massive issue with game design and player retainment over the years. I don't have the numbers, but to give you the logic of this argument: Carving Chaos will never be added back due to it. Ender was removed due to the lack in player count and the only way to play is by going through the same rooms to look for pages on the same places every time. Games like Pillars of Fortune reach a record number of players on Java because of its unpredictability. Similar, Lucky Islands outscores SkyWars in player counts for similar reasons. To prevent this from happening to Snowman Survival as well, I don't understand why the Freeze Tag gamemode from Slime Survival has not been ported over. I understand this not happening the first year, because the game was rather new. The second year was after Slime Survival has proved to be a success, including both of the gamemodes. Not adding it here seems strange as well. With the new framework, I don't think the team even remembers Freeze Tag was a thing back then...
To fresh up some minds: the goal of Snowman Survival is to infect players to be a snowman with you. Eventually, the lobby will fill up with more snowmen compared to survivors. You win the game by converting all the players or staying alive and safe from the snowmen, depending on which team you are in at that moment. Freeze Tag is a bit different. Instead of hybrid teams where you switch teams once you are converted, Freeze Tag will select multiple snowmen (idk what the player count is on bedrock per game, but for the 8 in Java it will probably be 2 snowmen). If a survivor gets hit, they will freeze in place, glow up for the teammates and are out of the game. You can however return those people back to the game by standing next to them for long enough. The goal is not to convert all the players to be snowman with you, but instead to eliminate all the players from the opposing team. Wonky explanation, so any questions, feel free to ask.
This type of gamemode allows completely different gameplay. Definitely within the winter theme, I think this gamemode within Snowman Survival would give more depth to the game as a whole and an additional reason to sell a rank for a voting option, which then would be good for the company. Obviously, I don't expect this to be the new main gamemode, but it would be nice to add this as voting option. I don't see a reason why not to since the game pretty much didn't change at all in the past 3 years (no massive additions or anything really).
3. Power-ups
This might be the smallest possible change, but the one I hate the most. Before, power-ups such as the Snowman Stabber, Gravity Explosion or Jump Boost, would be depicted as an actual item floating above the ground with the name tag above it. These items would be invisible to snowmen. The power-ups were very easy to recognise because of the name tags, colour of the name tag and the actual items that made a lot of sense.
The change that has been made here is that the power-ups first of all don't have a name tag anymore. This causes me, a player from the old guard, to get used to something that is not as intuitive as before. I love the new pictures and design btw, massive fan, but removing the name tags is a very unintuitive change which I simply don't get. The art is very hard to separate from a distance and the colours that were used to assist in separation are now gone, except for when the items spawn in the map.
Secondly, the items are visible for snowmen, giving them a really big advantage over the survivors. Before it worked that if you were converted, you could see the power-ups that spawned in while you were a survivor (open information to you as a player). I think this is fair. A lot of changes have been made to give the edge to snowmen, which is really working, but this is a change with tiny impact for new players but for players with more experience helps a lot.
Lastly I miss the Cage Trap power-up. I don't know if it was ever in the game, but it was good and now it is sadly gone. Also, 10 seconds freeze time for a stab instead of the 7 seconds from before? insane.
4. Charged Snowball
Over the years, mechanics for a game can change. So is also the case with Snowman Survival, where the snowmen have a new way to throw their snowball. I miss the old ways. I know I sound like I cannot handle change (which is fair cuz for this stuff it is true), but it was sooo much better than the new system. Right now, you have one way to throw your snowball, which is right clicking it. It sends the snowball away in the same size and with the same speed. Before, you could hold right click to charge up. This would slow a player down, send the snowball with a higher velocity, make it travel more distance and make the size bigger. It obviously took time to throw it, making it rather inefficient, but the option was nice and came in handy a lot of times, by reaching places you normally can barely reach. I suggest adding this back. It was nice and worked perfectly.
Small QoL change: Make your snowball (or every snowball) glowing, so you know which of the snow blocks was yours and which just belonged to the map :D
5. Tracker Cooldown
This is a really small thing that annoys me a lot. There are two clear cooldown timers in your screen that help you during the game as a snowman. One is the game timer that shows you the time left during the game, showed in your right scoreboard and on the XP level bar. The second one is the Snowball reload timer, showing the time left for your snowball to return to your inventory. Both are great. The compass that allows you to track a survivor as first snowman should in my opinion also have a timer. This could be done by having a permanent bossbar in the top of the screen, but I think it would be nice to not remove the compass from the inventory at all, but just give it the reload effect that Minecraft has by default for when for example a shield was disabled by an axe hit. Small change, again with big impact for more experienced players. In addition, it would be nice to sort the scoreboard to actually show the order of when people were found, so you know who the first snowman is.
A lot of crying about nothing, but overall I think Snowman Survival, even though the game is really great and gives me the arcade feeling I really miss from CubeCraft, fell off quite a bit in comparison to previous years. I think the experience is less nice and could be enhanced, or the chance could be given to other very well executed seasonal games. Either way, I hope you are very happy spending a lot of time reading my yapping and getting answer to the question: what does Blommmmie think of Snowman Survival. Have a good one!
!!
