Snow Bros

Snow Bros. is a platform game reminiscent of Bubble Bobble and Tumblepop, where players assume the role of snowmen twins Nick (wearing blue overalls) and Tom (wearing red overalls) through 50 increasingly difficult stages, each with a boss at every tenth stage that must be fought before progressing any further, in an effort to rescue twin princesses Puripuri and Puchipuchi from captivity as the main objective. The plot summary of Snow Bros. varies between each region and version. In the NES port, King Scorch cursed princes Nick and Tom by turning them into snowmen, while he also captured the princess twins Teri and Tina, leading the brothers to defeat the king to save their land.

Each player can throw snow at enemies until each one is completely covered and turns into a snowball, but partially covered enemies in snow cannot move until they shake it off. Once an enemy has been turned into a snowball, players can roll or throw the snowball, which will rebound off of walls until eventually shattering against the wall. Any enemies the snowball rolls into are eliminated and other stationary snowballs start rolling when the rolling snowball touches them. If players manage to take out all enemies by kicking one snowball (this one snowball may be used to make others bounce around as well and increase the chances to pull this trick off), bonus money will fall from the sky.

Snow Bros. for the Amiga was created by Ocean France, the French division of publisher Ocean Software that previously worked on other conversions such as Pang and Rainbow Islands: The Story of Bubble Bobble 2, with Marc Djan managing its development. Ocean Software acquired the license after the European Computer Entertainment Show in September 1990 while work on the port immediately began as soon as programmer Pierre Adane finished his task of converting Pang.

Despite receiving almost no support from Toaplan, the team at Ocean France wanted the Amiga port of Snow Bros. to be as close as possible to the arcade original, playing the coin-op machine from start to finish while using it as reference when taking notes about certain elements such as animations, graphic techniques and enemy AI. Work on the conversion was primarily done on Amiga and Atari ST-based systems, while custom software was written to animate sprites and build stages as a jigsaw puzzle using low memory, which allowed an easier coding process to implement every element from the arcade version like hidden bonus secrets. Artists Philippe and Lionel Dessoly, as well as Francis Fournier adapted the arcade artwork for the conversion, using a ST set-up for maps and sprites, while Pierre Loriaux was responsible for sound design.

RePlay reported Snow Bros. to be the eleventh most popular arcade game of June 1990. Game Machine also listed the title as Japan's eleventh most popular arcade game of June 1990. Donn Nauert of VideoGames & Computer Entertainment gave a positive outlook on the arcade version.

In the September 1990 issue of Japanese publication Micom BASIC Magazine, the game was ranked on the number eight spot in popularity. Den of Geek noted it to be one of the titles from Toaplan in which the company pursued other game genres besides their shoot 'em up endeavors. The arcade original has gained a cult following since its release.

A sequel, titled Snow Bros. 2: With New Elves (known in Japan as Otenki Paradise: Snow Bros. 2), was launched in 1994 and served as the final arcade project developed by Toaplan, as the company filed for bankruptcy during the game's release. A game of a similar style titled Nightmare in the Dark was developed in 2000 by AM Factory and published by Eleven/Gavaking and SNK for the Neo Geo MVS.

In 2002, a Mexican company known as Syrmex Electronics created a hack of the original Snow Bros. running on similar hardware called Snow Brothers 3: Magical Adventure, replacing Nick and Tom with soccer players who shoot soccer balls instead of snowballs, while featuring levels similar to those of the original despite new graphics and artwork added to the levels' backgrounds. It was the only game developed by Syrmex.