2011 · Action · Adventure

The Snowfield

The Snowfield is an experimental project in emergent narrative set during World War I. It was made by a team of 10 student interns from Singapore and the U.S. in 2011 as part of the eight-week GAMBIT summer development program at MIT.

Released: 2011
Platforms: Browser Windows macOS
Genres: Action Adventure Indie Simulation World War I
Developers: —
Publishers: —
Modes: Single-player
Perspective: Third person
Themes: Survival Historical Non-fiction Warfare
Languages: English

About

The Snowfield is a 2011 action and experimental narrative video game, developed as a student project by the Singapore-MIT Gambit Game Lab, and set in World War I. The game is set on the aftermath of a great battle, with the player controlling a weakened soldier in the middle of a storm.

According to the developers, the game's development was an attempt to make a simulation-based narrative game without the need for massive, complex AI and massive content generation. Instead, the developers created several segments of gameplay — characters, objects etc. — and fine-tuned them based on how initial testers interacted with them.

›Story

In The Snowfield you are a lone soldier wandering the aftermath of a great battle. It is the dead of winter and you won't last long in the cold. But you are not alone.

Keywords

world war i - ww1
experimental
walking simulator
atmospheric
snow
student project
low-poly

Media

The articlegameplay, story, development, reception

Reception

Adam Smith, writing for Rock, Paper, Shotgun, praised the game's narrative and design uniqueness, as well as its well-worked aesthetics. The game was a finalist at the 17th Annual Independent Games Festival, hosted in 2012, in the Student category.