Mission in Snowdriftland: Nintendo's forgotten Flash game

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Admittedly never played the original and I'm sad that I didn't, the story itself was amazing but to know I'll be able to in 2021 makes me extremely excited.

This channel as of late and it's efforts of saving different projects from being lost in the void is amazing.

👍︎︎ 22 👤︎︎ u/Goujh 📅︎︎ Dec 25 2020 🗫︎ replies

I love Nick Robinson so much

👍︎︎ 5 👤︎︎ u/SkyNeedsAnswers 📅︎︎ Dec 27 2020 🗫︎ replies

If you want to play the original game after flash support ends you need to download Flashpoint. Here is the link https://bluemaxima.org/flashpoint/downloads/

👍︎︎ 6 👤︎︎ u/ShadowGio1994 📅︎︎ Dec 28 2020 🗫︎ replies

wait for real?? I HOPE IT GETS ON SWITCH

👍︎︎ 5 👤︎︎ u/Ulobin 📅︎︎ Dec 30 2020 🗫︎ replies

Thanks for sharing.

👍︎︎ 3 👤︎︎ u/[deleted] 📅︎︎ Dec 25 2020 🗫︎ replies

That's awesome, I still remember playing it every year in December when it would be available to play on the flash version untill one year they stopped doing it sadly. But looking forward to playing this on Steam again.

👍︎︎ 3 👤︎︎ u/ex-noox 📅︎︎ Dec 25 2020 🗫︎ replies

I had completely forgotten about this, thanks for the nostalgia trip.

👍︎︎ 3 👤︎︎ u/KaioKen 📅︎︎ Dec 25 2020 🗫︎ replies

Anyone else having trouble finding the page on Steam?

👍︎︎ 5 👤︎︎ u/No_Help5920 📅︎︎ Dec 25 2020 🗫︎ replies

noice.

👍︎︎ 2 👤︎︎ u/XorTheTrueTemmie 📅︎︎ Dec 26 2020 🗫︎ replies
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This is Chubby Snow. You probably don't recognize him, but this  adorable little guy holds a special place   in my heart as one of my favorite  pieces of obscure Nintendo history. Now, if you don't remember Chubby, that's okay: almost nobody does. Even among diehard Nintendo fans,  Chubby is not well known at all - in part, because Chubby and the game he starred in were actually designed to be forgotten. Let's set the scene. It's November 2006, and whether Nintendo know it or not,   they're about to have the most important holiday  season in the company's 110-year history. Nintendo has just launched the Wii, a platform that will go on to  sell over 100 million units   and become their best-selling  home console of all time, and the DS is on track to sell 20  million handhelds this year alone - a runaway success for the company. So, heading into this critical holiday season, Nintendo celebrated by launching  a unique online promotion: A playable video game to promote  their winter lineup of titles. Its name was "Upixo in Action: Mission in Snowdriftland." And this promotion had an incredibly cool twist. Depending on where you grew up, maybe  you've heard of Advent calendars,   those seasonal little calendars  given to kids in December meant to count down the days until Christmas - often with some kind of gift  given each and every day. These gifts are usually something small - in my childhood, we got cardboard advent calendars  with a small piece of chocolate behind each door - but I've seen versions with jelly beans, miniature LEGO kits, and even small, hand-wrapped presents. And it was this exact yuletide tradition   that served as the inspiration  for Mission In Snowdriftland: the game was structured exactly  like an Advent calendar. Beginning with the game's launch on December 1st, a new door would open up every single  day on mission-in-snowdriftland.com and behind each door would  be a brand new level to play. This game... ...was legitimately something special. The stages themselves were short, but sweet: just this perfect little platforming  challenge to look forward to every afternoon, replete with hidden items and collectibles, even hidden heart containers you  could get that would permanently   increase your health for the rest of December. There was a remarkable amount  of variety in this game, too: every level seemed to introduce some new  mechanic, idea, or enemy for you to deal with, so things never got boring. Now, as cool as this concept is on paper: none of this would've mattered  if the game wasn't fun to play. And if you, like me, played  Flash games back in the 2000s, you probably developed pretty   healthy and justified suspicion  toward Flash-based platforming games. Out of every genre attempted  in Flash over the years, platformers for whatever reason seemed  to be the trickiest to get right. Perhaps it was just the shortcomings  of this web animation technology, but platformers built in Flash  almost always felt wrong. More often than not, they were  these unpolished and clunky games - just a pale imitation of  their console counterparts. And that's the thing that made Mission in  Snowdriftland stand out to me as a kid: it was shockingly polished. The controls felt excellent! They perfectly split the balance  between too slippery and too stiff,   with just the right amount of floatiness. The game gave you a remarkable amount of influence over things like your jump  height and your mid-air control - both of which were hugely helpful, by the  way, in the icy world of Snowdriftland. Whoever created this game had nailed  the essential thing about platformers: it was easy to pick up and play, but with plenty of space to  learn and get good at the game - so, eventually, a skilled enough player could   bounce off multiple enemies in  a row and make it look easy. Believe it or not, Mission in Snowdriftland  actually had some decent replay value, too: each level had 24 hidden snowflakes to collect, and there was a helpful  indicator on the calendar map to tell you which days you'd  already accomplished that on. And you know what? Even from a marketing perspective, I think Mission in Snowdriftland  was kind of brilliant. Every stage in the game was tied to a specific  Nintendo game available that holiday season, ranging from Twilight Princess, to Trauma Center, to WarioWare: Smooth Moves. By successfully clearing  a game's designated stage, you were able to unlock all sorts of goodies: wallpapers, packs of desktop icons, even pre-smart ringtones for your cell phone. To be honest, I feel like I'm only  just scratching the surface here   of what made Snowdriftland feel so magical to me. The game is brimming with personality: whether it's the adorable character designs, the enemies, or the perfectly wintery chiptune soundtrack. In fact, one of my first YouTube uploads ever - on this very same channel - was a video I uploaded on  Christmas Eve fourteen years ago, showing how to find a heart container hidden  in level 6 of Mission in Snowdriftland. It's crazy to think that I've been on  YouTube for that long, but here we are. What I'm trying to say is that I  really, really loved this game. There was just something nice  about having a new level - a new little little platforming challenge - to look forward to playing after school every day. It was this great idea, and tying it into unlocking neat downloadable  goodies from some of my favorite Nintendo titles made the whole thing even better to the  teenage Nintendo fanboy I was at the time. But perhaps most of all, the thing that made Mission in  Snowdriftland feel so urgent to me as a kid was the knowledge that, in just a few short weeks, it would vanish. The main menu of Mission In  Snowdriftland spelled it out clearly: "Mission in Snowdriftland will be  available online until January 14th" - a friendly way of warning players that soon, just a month after launch, the game would disappear... ...forever. I played as much of this game as  possible before it disappeared. And sure enough, when I checked back in mid-January,  the game had vanished - replaced by a short message: "Many thanks for playing! We're looking forward to seeing you again." And just like that: Mission in Snowdriftland was gone - available for just 47 days  before disappearing entirely. Forty-seven days! That's it! It really kind of makes Mario 3D All-Stars look downright attainable by comparison, doesn't it? At any rate: As of January 2007, the game had  disappeared - and those of us who   loved it assumed that we'd never see it again. And that assumption was correct. ...for a while. See, in December 2010, four Christmases later, the game returned for one final December, this time celebrating a bunch of the  indie games available on WiiWare.   And fans of Mission in Snowdriftland - myself included - were overjoyed to see the game return. Heck, some of us were even... ..."icsitede." And as great as it was to play the game again, before long, it was January - and just as quickly as it had reappeared, Mission in Snowdriftland once again vanished: this time... ...for good. It is now 2020. The last time Nintendo surfaced Mission  in Snowdriftland was ten years ago, and for the past decade, the game has been completely absent. Looking at the Lost Media Wiki page for the game, it reads like Wikipedia article  for a deceased celebrity: describing the game in the past  tense, with words like "was." The Lost Media Archive wiki tells a similar story: "The original game's 2006 Nintendo  levels are now gone forever. It also seems like the 2010  revival is gone as well." Even the game's original website, mission-in-snowdriftland.com, is now totally blank, with no signs the game ever existed beyond a small favicon of Chubby Snow's face. As far as we knew, nobody had played the game in nearly a decade - and so, on the Lost Media Wiki, it was marked in bold red letters as "lost": a conclusive and disheartening monument to a game it seemed no one would play again. Over 14 years, I've gone back every  once in a while to watch the crummy,   low-resolution video I uploaded back in 2006 to try and remember things  about Mission in Snowdriftland: what the music sounded like, what the later stages were like, how it felt to play the game... ...but, truthfully, the memory had begun to fade. But then, after eight long, cold years of nothingness: there was a glimmer of hope. In December 2018 - just three days before Christmas - a member of spriters-resource.com  going by the name "P-P" quietly uploaded full sprites of every  single art asset in Mission in Snowdriftland: The enemies, the level tilesets, even Chubby Snow himself. This anonymous person seemingly had access to every single bit of pixel art in the game - despite no one having seen head nor tail  of Mission in Snowdriftland since 2010. In the comments section, somebody asked: "Where did you rip all these sprites from? This game hasn't been online in several years, but the recentness of this  rip is getting my hopes up." A few hours later, P-P responded: "It's actually still available  from the developer's own website, right here! All the stages seem to be  unlocked year-round too." "Wait, seriously? It's just been there all along?!" Now, to be honest, Freezair's reaction: "Wait, seriously?" - that perfectly mirrored my own reaction. How on earth could this be true? This was a game that, back in 2006, countless people had tried and  failed to download for offline play; this was a game that had its one-month lifespan seemingly hard-coded into its design; a game that people like myself and Freezair had spent the past decade  scouring the internet for. And it was right there, available for everyone, on the developer's website this entire time? Could it really be so simple? The answer, of course, was no. It was not *nearly* that simple. But we'll get to that later. After reading this comment, I moused over the link, crossing my fingers that this  treasured game from my childhood would be waiting for me on the other side... ...and I clicked. Fourteen   years after this game had first  disappeared from my life... I had finally found it again. And, better still: it was exactly as fun as I remembered. And you might expect the story to end there: after all, the game had been recovered, right? That's what I thought, too. But unbeknownst to me... there was something bigger lurking on the horizon. See, what I didn't yet know was that Mission in Snowdriftland was on the brink of vanishing all over again. And this time, it wouldn't be coming back. Mission in Snowdriftland is really special to me. So, early on in this project, I knew that I had to at least try and  speak to the people who created this game. So, back in April, I began trying to track down the  guy responsible for the project, and, after a lot of dead ends, I finally found the person I was looking for: A German game designer by the name of Steve Welz. I reached out to Steve via an  old email address I'd uncovered, hoping we could chat about the game - but, unfortunately, I never heard back. One week later, I even tried one more time to follow up with him - and I told myself if this  didn't work, that was it: either this email address had long been abandoned, or Steve just wasn't interested in discussing some old Flash game he worked on 14 years ago. So imagine my surprise when, less than 1 hour later after that second email... I got a reply. "Sorry for my late reply! I'm just pretty busy in the moment (unfortunately not with game dev) but we could probably speak  at the weekend sometime? The subject Mission in  Snowdriftland is not so easy since the team is not working together and I don't know what I can tell  you without asking the other guys. However, I'll try to explain it then ;)" Intrigued, I scheduled a time to chat with Steve, and before long, I found myself face to face with the guy responsible for a  pretty big chunk of my childhood - finally able to ask him the questions I'd held for over a decade. "Can you hear me now?" Yup! Sounds great! "Ah, cool. Hi." How did Mission in Snowdriftland end up happening? Like, how did it come together? "It's a really good question, because it was kind of a miracle. We used to work with Nintendo together already as an online agency, so we did the websites for games. And I was building in my freetime a 'jump-run' engine - a platform engine in Flash - and I used the Mario sprite  from Super Mario World. You said it was so precise,  the engine and everything: and this was because I really tried to make it like a Mario game. Really, that's... The focus was gameplay, and um... Yeah. We be really tried to make it good, cuz many platformers on the internet made in Flash were not so nice, really slow jumping - and we really hate it because we are gamer and we know what's important. So, yeah, we... we really wanted to make it great. We got the idea to make an Advent calendar, and we offered this to Nintendo - and we said 'Yeah, for each day we have one small level,' and this was nice idea, and the project manager was very keen on it. But it's still a miracle, because nowadays, it would be impossible. Because everything needs to be  approved by [Nintendo of] Japan. And, at that time, the product manager, she was from Nintendo of Germany. And she was like... She was, 'Oh, let's do this.' Okay, cool. And then we asked the other countries, and a few of them said 'Yeah, we are in,' and so that was the start of the project." One of the craziest things  Steve revealed to me was that the game wasn't actually built far  in advance like you might've assumed. Steve was actually creating  the game's levels in real-time over the course of December 2006. "It wasn't like we finished the game, and then Christmas time started. It was like, um, we made up like, I don't know, three, four levels before the calendar starts, and then we had to create  one level for the next day." Oh my god. Essentially, Steve and his team were building a plane while they were flying it: creating each level on the fly, sometimes just hours before  they were set to go live. This process, it turns out, was exactly as grueling as it sounds. "I did the level design and the programming. So even for... you have like four worlds there, and you get the new features, like the tilting platform and stuff - and I had to integrate [those  features] into the engine and to do the bug fixing in like one day. It was super intense, and we worked in the office until 3:00  o'clock, 4 o'clock... in the night, of course. It was really fun, but it was exhausting. And my colleague Bogac, um, he did the graphics - the animation and stuff. Um, yeah. And then we had... ...hi, this is my daughter." (laughter) Hi! Hi! "(to Yumi) This is Nick. Hello! This is Yumi!" Hello! Yumi? "Yeah. She is half-Japanese." Ah! Nice to meet you! "...'konnichiwa!' She is the reason why I was late." Totally, totally fine. A good reason! Oh my god, she's so cute! So the Advent calendar with a new level  every day concept is so cool to me, and I definitely feel like it was  a challenging thing to execute - but where did that idea come from, specifically? "Hmm.. I don't remember, actually. We just had that idea  because it's kind of obvious: when you think about to make an Advent calendar, and you have the game engine... what can you do with it? (laughter) You know? It's kind of obvious when  you have those two components... ...bye-bye. I don't remember exactly how the idea came, but it was kind of obvious. The team at Extra Toxic was - and still is to this day - small: Steve did the level design and coding, his friend Bogac Sariaydin did all the artwork and animation, their colleague Christiane Fritsch handled project management, and, last but definitely not least: they hired a musician named Fabian Del Priore to composed the soundtrack. "For the music, we had at first something in mind like the New Super Mario Bros DS soundtrack..." "...but it didn't fit too well. So then I composed something  more like demoscene music. I used MilkyTracker to track  the music for the game." "This is quite like making music for the Commodore, Amiga, Super Nintendo, or the Nintendo DS." Now, the music in this game is one of the most nostalgic aspects for me: not only did all 4 of Mission in  Snowdriftland's worlds have its own score, but within those worlds, there  were roughly 4 unique variations of each world's theme - so you never heard the same  song two days in a row. Now, according to Steve, this rigorous process of building  and releasing a new stage for Mission in Snowdriftland every single day actually had some unexpected benefits. "We started to integrate a feedback form after three or four days, and then we got a lot of good feedback. Each minute, a new email came in: people saying 'It's so great what you're doing,' having a lot of fun with the game. And this was pushing us to do this; this was a kind of reward for us." One thing I knew I had to ask Steve about was this link to the game that  had been uncovered in 2018. I noticed that in 2018, people found a working link of the game that still worked on the ExtraToxic site. "Really..?! (laughs)" And I'm curious if you know  anything about, like... did you know that it was still up there, that it was still available? "Yeah, okay, so the thing is, um... we have it in our portfolio for our agency, things we present our customers or our clients, it's still there. But actually... it's password protected as far as I know... So I'm wondering why... it's accessible... our copy?" Well, promise me you won't take it down! "If people can enjoy it, I'm fine with it." And, by the way, I did eventually get to the bottom of who first discovered this copy. While putting this video together, I noticed that I had a new private  messages on The Spriter's Resource, and upon clicking it, I remembered that 5 months ago I sent a message to P-P, asking her to confirm my theory that she's the one who found the copy. And it turns out that P-P  had gone on her own journey: "That was me, yeah! I really wanted to rip the sprites from it and play it again, so I went on a long search to see if there was any kind of  backup available anywhere. Eventually, on ExtraToxic's  website, under "references", I found this image. Curious to see what else I could find, but honestly just expecting a "permission denied," I simply got rid of the filename in the URL: and, well, there it was! Almost couldn't believe it at first. Hope this answer helps in some way! And thank you too: I'm really glad I was able to find it, but even happier to find that people care. ^^" So, unbeknownst to him, unbeknownst to everybody at ExtraToxic, the game had been made reaccessible  completely on accident. Another interesting thing Steve told me: it turns out his agency ExtraToxic retains all the rights to  Mission in Snowdriftland: they actually own it. "Of course, it was actually impossible that we create characters for Nintendo. So basically, this game is not made by Nintendo, or not even for Nintendo - it's just made by ExtraToxic, our agency. And so we offered Nintendo  space for advertisement." Well, it was so, so much fun to talk to you. Um, I'm... it's so cool to meet the person behind  the game that meant this much to me. Even as a 16-year-old, I knew: I was like, 'Something is  special about this game.' Like, this was made was made by somebody who loves and cares about platformers, and how games should feel. It was apparent right away, like, that this - it was a labor of love, I think. "Aw. A nice idea, hahah. Yeah, we put all we put all of our passion - game developer passion - inside, because we are so willing to... to create games. That's why. It was our first chance to make bigger game. This was a big chance for us to do something great. And we put everything we had in. Speaking to Steve was a delight, and it reaffirmed for me what I already knew: that this game was worth finding a way to save somehow. And it turns out, we only had a limited amount  of time to accomplish this. See, maybe you've heard the news that on December 31st 2020 - that's less than a week from today - Adobe Flash is going away forever. Starting in 2021, support for Flash is being  removed from Google Chrome, Opera, Microsoft Edge, Firefox - and every single major web browser, for security reasons. Now, if you've looked into this at all, chances are you've heard about a fantastic piece of software called BlueMaxima's Flashpoint. This is incredible tool, designed specifically to  combat the 2021 death of Flash, functions as an archive that allows you to run literally tens of thousands of Flash games right on your desktop. This project has done a remarkable job of preventing huge swathes of Flash  game history from being destroyed. And, I'm happy to report, among the 70,000+ games backed  up in the Flashpoint launcher is, you guessed it: Mission in Snowdriftland. And it appears to work perfectly! However... there's a major problem. See, while playing Mission in Snowdriftland recently, I noticed something peculiar. For some reason, every time you load a level in the game, there's this brief loading  screen with a progress bar. And strangely, even when playing the game  offline using Flashpoint, there's still a loading time of a couple of seconds before each level - which wouldn't make sense if  it was running off of my SSD. This worried me: it almost seemed as though the game was... ...connecting to the internet. So I decided to run an experiment. I booted up Mission in Snowdriftland, went to the level select screen like usual... but this time, I installed an internet kill switch on my PC to see whether the game would still work. So went to the level select; flipped the kill switch on, disconnecting my internet; selected the first level of  Mission in Snowdriftland, and... ...it wouldn't load. This was exactly what I was afraid of: apparently, whenever you start a level  in Mission in Snowdriftland, the game has to connect to the internet and download the level each and every time you play. This was a troubling revelation: it meant that, were the servers storing  the game to ever shut down, every single level in Mission in Snowdriftland would be PERMANENTLY gone... forever. Not only was this upsetting  from a preservation standpoint: it was also pretty confusing. I needed to know: why on Earth was the game set up this way? So I asked Steve. So, a lot of my videos lately have been centered around  preservation of old games. And I'm pretty sure - correct me if I'm wrong, but it seems to be like that game, um, checks online and downloads the levels online every time you play it, right? ...I mean, the whole site is downloaded. Right. The reason I bring that up is there's a... somebody made this, uh, application. I can't remember the name of - oh, Flashpoint Launcher. And it has like 45,000 old Flash games in it, because Flash is going away at the end of 2020 like, it's being perma-blocked by all browsers. And, um, I downloaded the Flashpoint  version of Mission in Snowdriftland and then cut off my internet access right when it gets to the part where it's, like, loading a level and it won't load. So it seems like it's like checking with the ExtraToxic server, probably to like grab the levels. I think my fear is that someday, no one will be able to play it, and I never want that to happen. "So the thing is, I remember now why we had to do this: for security reasons. Because  many sites from Russia also were also taking the game  in their Flash collection sites. So that's why maybe it's not working." It turns out, Steve and his team had designed Mission in Snowdriftland to download individual stages in order to prevent the game from being pirated on other sites - essentially building a primitive form of always-online DRM into the game. This was a tricky problem to solve - and what proved trickier was the fact that there was no straightforward way for Steve to remove the server checks  from the current version. I asked him about this possibility via email, and here's what he told me: "Hey Nick, As longer I think about the idea  to preserve the original game, the more difficult it seems. The main issue is the legal  part with the Nintendo material. We can't just publish the game like it was." And although Steve's concerns  were understandable - there is, after all, a  tremendous of Nintendo branding and assets in the 2006 Flash version - it was still kind of a bummer  to think that this game might just up and disappear someday. Miraculously, though... the story doesn't end there. A few weeks after our interview, I got a message from Steve telling me that our conversation had given him an idea - and that he had some big news to share with me. Curious what he could be talking about, I hopped on a video chat with  Steve for one last conversation - and this time, he was joining me  live from the ExtraToxic offices alongside Mission in Snowdriftland  artist Bogac Sariaydin. Steve, when you and I last spoke, we kind of raised the possibility of how Mission in Snowdriftland could  be preserved for the future, and how the game could... ...like, the possibility of maybe  making a standalone version. But in the past few months, it sounds like your plans have evolved into  something pretty exciting. So where...where are we at currently with the state of Mission  in Snowdriftland's future? "Well, so, to preserve the website - the game - it's a bit difficult due to legal issues with Nintendo, and also technical issues. So the idea came up to make a port - a proper port, with a proper game engine - and bring it to Steam, also, to have a really nice game experience. Like, fullscreen, 60 frames per second. Yeah, we were really curious how it feels to play Chubby fullscreen, so we started to port the game, actually. It will take some time, but we are targeting next year winter - and we think, yeah, it might be possible." Yes, you heard that right: Steve and Bogac have decided to create a full, high-definition, 60 FPS remaster of the original Mission in Snowdriftland, with the goal to release  it on Steam in Einter 2021. This is VERY real - in fact, just last month, I got an email from Steve titled "Mission In Snowdriftland playable alpha" with a link to an early version of the game's first level in the new engine. Starting webcam... recording... Ohh..! I'm excited. *big sigh* Okay. I'm about to open this new, remastered version of one of my favorite childhood games that the developers have sent me. I have not played this yet. I'm just gonna... hop into it, and... see how it... see how it matches up with my memory, I guess. (Emotional chuckle) Oh my god. That music. Oop - INSTANTLY taking damage. Yup. I mean, it all feels... it all feels how I remember it. (laughs) This is such a... the fact that this exists is so insane to me. This first level in particular  I remember so vividly, because I've played it so many times. (laughter) This is so cool! I feel like these snow effects are new...! Or maybe they were less noticeable in that tiny, 300px-wide window. It's got... you know what? It's got that thing that I think all good remastered versions of games have, where it's like... I know, objectively, that  it never looked this good. But this is how I remember it looking, which is all I really wanted. Alright, finishing the level here... I wanna get these snowflakes, hold on. Let's do it. (laugh) The little dance, dude! He still does the dance animation. (chuckle) Jeez. I'm a little bit speechless. (laugh) (scoffs) Aghh, that's so cool. People will probably be curious about this: because the original iteration of this game is associated with Nintendo in people's minds, they might wonder: how is it possible to release it on Steam? "Yeah, well, it was like: we created the game, and we created some advertising space for Nintendo, so they could promote their games. It was more like a platform, or a bottle for them." "There's not really that big  a connection with Nintendo. Like, maybe when you was a kid, it was maybe for you like a product of Nintendo, or many others will think so - but it was actually a marketing tool made by us." Currently, you're thinking of a PC release. Is here any possibility of it being... is it coming to other platforms, like the Switch? "We would love to see it on Switch, but it's... it's a long way. We are open for it, I think: It would be nice, it fits to the console. But we can't promise anything right now. Truthfully, my head is still  spinning from this experience. Ever since I was a kid, this game has been flickering  in and out of existence: unexpectedly into my life in 2006, then vanishing for 4 years, then briefly re-appearing in 2010 before for disappearing another decade One of my favorite games from childhood has spent the better part of 14 years totally inaccessible to the general public. And now... it's coming back. A moment I keep coming back to is that Skype conversation with Steve and Bogac at their office. You mentioned that you actually might have somewhere the level  designs all printed out, like... Oh, there goes... "It's now on the backside." Oh yeah? Is that where Bogac went? "Can you turn it?" Whoaaaa! "There are three levels hanging from our walls." That's awesome. Heh! Um, wow. Well, it's been so great talking to both of you. Thank you for taking the time. "Yeah! And thanks to you, because you're the reason why we actually we got that idea to make the port: to bring Chubby back to life. (laughter) So, yeah, it's really nice to speak to you, and to get the motivation, um, to recreate it." It's clear that this game holds some really cherished memories for these guys: of a time early on in their careers when they stumbled upon an opportunity to make a game that would be played and loved by hundreds of thousands of people: and wound up really pouring their hearts and souls into it as a result. And just... I dunno, man. The knowledge there's this small, cozy office somewhere in Germany where the creators of this  game that I loved as a kid have memorabilia from it hanging on the wall, a full 14 years later... just really just warms my heart. Originally, I set out to make this video because I felt like we had  a unique opportunity here. Beyond my own personal nostalgia, I felt like we had a responsibility to save this game from the brink of annihilation; to, if you'll forgive the winter pun, freeze it in time permanently, and preserve this small, ephemeral piece of video game history  for future generations. And while the task of preserving the original Flash version of this game is gonna fall on us, the public: the fact that we're getting that AND this remastered version of this platformer that meant so much to me and, I'm sure, countless other people... just makes me incredibly happy. (laughs) To think that firing off that random, casual email to Steve way back in May could somehow produce a snowball effect culminating in a full-fledged, 60 FPS remaster of one of my favorite childhood games... still hardly makes any sense to me. At long last, Chubby the Snowman will be finally be breaking free of the shackles of his Advent calendar time-prison. And, considering he's served a 168-month sentence, I think I speak for all of us when I say: Welcome back, Chubby. Merry Christmas, everyone. Oh, by the way: the Steam page for Mission in Snowdriftland will be going up within just a couple days, so click right up here if you'd like to be taken right to that page. Or, if you're here early: you can just click the link in the description and get a handy email reminder to notify you the minute the page goes live. Huge thanks to Bogac and Steve for helping to pull this little Christmas miracle together. And thanks to all of you for supporting me making videos like this by joining as a channel member. By clicking the Join button, you get  access to one bonus video each month,   including audio commentary  tracks, bonus features, and more. Happy holidays, everyone.
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Channel: Nick Robinson
Views: 1,035,651
Rating: 4.9643168 out of 5
Keywords: mission in snowdriftland, mission in snow drift land, flash, nintendo, flash game, flash death, dead, macromedia, adobe, chrome, browser, 2006, christmas, winter, holiday, christmastime, advent calendar, nintendo of europe, nintendo of america, wiiware, chick chick boom, chubby snow, chubby the snowman, lost media, rescue, mascot, history, gaming, documentary, interview, nick robinson, remaster, rereleased, remake, tons of bits, extra toxic, El Pix, sprite, pixel art, super mario world, platformer
Id: EphH4hwkr2g
Channel Id: undefined
Length: 38min 14sec (2294 seconds)
Published: Thu Dec 24 2020
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