The Snowman (ZX Spectrum) 

Developed/Published by: David Shea/Quicksilva Released: 1984 Completed: 12/12/2024 Completion: Built a snowman! Well, near enough anyway. 

Do people who aren’t British know The Snowman? It just struck me as I began to write this that one of the most ubiquitous symbols of Christmas, an animated film based on Raymond Briggs’ wordless children’s book (although the book doesn’t feature Christmas at all, and Briggs himself considered “dragging in” Christmas “a bit corny and twee”) is probably as foreign to people outside the UK as, uh… Bernard And The Genie.

I might be wrong, and if it is unknown, it’s not for want of trying, as for most of the film’s life it featured an introduction from only David bloody Bowie, implying that the film–in which a wee ginger haired boy goes on an adventure with a Snowman and meets Santa before, well, what happens to snowmen happens–was something that happened in his past. Which makes me imagine that at some point Santa was watching the telly and he was like “hang on… this Ziggy Stardust fella… looks like that wee boy that I gave a scarf once…”

Anyway, I suppose none of that especially matters. For context, all you really need to know is that The Snowman is played in the UK every Christmas… and I don’t give a fuck about it.

Which at first glance is probably a bit weird, as I’m a huge Raymond Briggs fan. As a child, I had a copy of Fungus The Bogeyman, which features an absolutely bonkers amount of world-building for a children’s book, and which disgusted me yet I endlessly poured over it. I loved his grumpy Father Christmas, particularly when he went on holiday… and has anyone ever created something like When The Wind Blows? He is an absolutely unique artist, one who should be forever celebrated.

The thing about The Snowman is… it is twee. In fact, it’s soppy. Bloody soppy, and I don’t think you can argue when you consider its most famous sequence involves a flying sequence while a boy soprano warbles out the song “Walking In The Air.”

To this day, I do not know how anyone can hear this song and not immediately want to stop listening to it. It is like nails on a blackboard to me, and really the only thing I’ll give The Snowman is that it’s led to a couple of great Irn Bru adverts.

But look, it’s all a matter of personal preference, and it’s pretty unlikely that they’re going to start showing When The Wind Blows every Christmas. At least Briggs is remembered.

What isn’t remembered, I’d say, is this: the ZX Spectrum, C64 and MSX game based specifically on his book (a quirk of the rights.) I would have assumed that this was going to be some sort of snowman fly-em-up considering it’s the thing about The Snowman everyone knows and we’ve had endless Santa fly-em-ups by this point, but instead it’s a… single screen platformer!

It’s not quite a BurgerTime, but it puts me in mind of it (I’m sure there’s a better point of comparison, though). As the “boy” (David Bowie???) you are trying to construct the Snowman by running around the level, grabbing up piles of snow (or snowman clothes) and then dropping them off on a specific platform. You can’t jump and if you run off the end of a platform you die (er, fall back into bed?) so it’s really more of a maze-chase game. On the first level, you’re being chased by flames which don’t hurt you but melt any snow you’re carrying, but on the second and third stages there are “sleep monsters” who kill you on contact. On the fourth it’s back to flames, and then the game loops with a different level layout. Oh, and on the levels where the enemies can’t kill you, the challenge is getting it all done before you starve to death, as you have a timer counting down that you can only reset by eating the turkeys and Christmas puddings that randomly appear. Though as you’re playing David Bowie, it does feel like you should be subsisting on cocaine and red peppers…

Falling to your, uh, sleep.

As far as an adaptation of a beloved (but less beloved than its TV adaptation) book, it’s a bit like adapting The Hobbit and making the entire game about Bilbo Baggins making his breakfast before the dwarves show up–there’s really no relation to it at all. This is most egregious when you manage to complete a level, because the game plays a bleepy rendition of Rudolph The Red Nosed Reindeer because, of course, they didn’t have the rights to Walking In The Air. I don’t even like Walking In The Air and it feels wrong. (“They couldn’t get Little Drummer Boy?”--Bowie Ed.]

And as a game The Snowman is… not good. Maybe the play is smoother on the C64 or the MSX, but it suffers the classic issue of an old home computer game: you need pixel perfect positioning to get off a ladder. I mean literally, if you’re a pixel off in one or another direction, you won’t get off, and as the enemies in this are pretty relentless, it leads to a lot of frustration.

There are other issues–the inconsistent pickup placement is a nightmare. Food often doesn’t show up in a timely manner, and it’s a bad sign when the game only feels bearable when the snow you’re trying to pick up is placed right next to the place where you drop it off and it’s miserable when it’s repeatedly on the other side of the screen but you’re unable to dodge the flames or sleep monsters. The design is simply too punitive to feel fun.

I’d imagine that for most players who got this it lasted as long as the titular snowman before it never got loaded up again, though I was surprised to see there was a freeware PC remake, though quite notably they add the ability to throw snowballs at enemies to try and make it more playable which is pretty damning, honestly. And looks so unlike the Raymond Briggs art I can’t take it seriously! On the Speccy, at least, you can use your imagination.

Will I ever play it again? Definitely not.

Final Thought: I don’t have the same kind of amazing revelations about the development of this as I did for Special Delivery: Santa’s Christmas Chaos, but I can’t help but remark that this was designed by David Shea, who has worked on a ton of stuff across the years but also developed… The Thompson Twins Adventure! One of the very few games ever released on a record (and a freebie flexi disc, no less.) So not only did he design a game where you play David Bowie (well maybe) he designed one where you play, uh, The Thompson Twins. I dunno about you, but I’m impressed.

Steinar Lund's cover art for QS Asteroids, a 1981 clone of Asteroids by Quicksilva for the ZX81.

You are the only person who has flown the Svlegian Raider. You sit back, the seat moulds round you and you blast towards the alien asteroids. Suddenly they are upon you, you thrust at them, dodging, swerving and firing Phaser Beams at them. They come at you again and again. Still you fire, wiping them from the skies.... You keep firing as they drift towards Nolveg, you fire again...

CRASH Magazine, March, 1986: MAX HEADROOM

What I want to know is...

‘Rupert and the Toymaker’s Party’

[C64 / SPEC] [SPAIN] [MAGAZINE] [1985]

Input Commodore, December 1985 (#04)

Kim recommends…Trashman (ZX Spectrum, 1984)

With the ZX Spectrum Next Kickstarter campaign coming to an end after making £723,390 and hitting all stretch goals, it’s a good time to look at some of the Speccy’s more memorable titles. Over 24,000 games came out for the system, so there’s certainly a fair bit of memorable material — but more than that, there’s some games with premises and gameplay concepts you just don’t seem to get anywhere…