Merry Christmas (2025)
December 24, 2025Yep, it's nearly Christmas. It's been an absolute rollercoaster of a year (for... worse, definetly for worse) and i decided to put aside some time for the last month of the year to tackle a game that i had been planning on tackling many years prior. The name of the game is UPIXO In Action: Mission In Snowdriftland. (or just Mission In Snowdriftland as it's known on Steam)
If you don't know about the story of this game, you owe it to yourself to watch the Nick Robinson video about the game. It's a little outdated due to the remaster having already been out for a few years now, but it's still worth a watch to get some context about the game from the perspective of someone who grew up with it.
The reason why it took me so long to get around to the game despite it being fairly short in terms of length was due to my desire to play the game the way it was originally intended. For both it's original Flash release in 2006 and it's Indie Game reboot in 2010 a new level would be unlocked at the start of every day with the game being structured just like an advent calendar. The remake gives you the choice to play the levels whenever you want, but i decided to wait until the right year to play through one level a day during the build up to christmas.
In my opinion, waiting this long to do it under these parameters was 100% worth it.
There was a point that Nick made in his video a few minutes in where he mentioned why the game felt so special to him. To quote his video directly, he said: "There was just something nice about having a new platforming challenge to look forward to playing after school every day".
Even though i haven't been in school for many years now (and only graduated from College this year), this was the quote from the video that resonated with me the most, as due to all of the ambitious projects i had in the works, it was becoming super hard to track. It was so much to the point where i've had to give myself an extended break just before Christmas so i don't overly stress myself out. And yet, because i got to play one of these levels at the end of each day, there was always something to look forward to. Not just that, but every completed level gets you that one step closer to not just the end of the game, but Christmas in general. Maybe it's because i've got a lot more planned for Christmas this year, but something about that felt special.
It's also worth mentioning all of the additional content that Extra Toxic added to the remake. Not only did they add a bonus level for collecting all of the Snowflakes in the game, but they even added an additional collectible (The Glitch Pixels) which added entirely new secret segments to every level solely for the sake of collecting all of them.The Glitch Pixels end up unlocking a level that i won't spoil due to how wacky it is, and i won't do the same for the level that the Snowflakes unlock. But all i will say is that the timer for the Snowflake bonus level goes up from counting in minutes to counting in hours for a reason.
All in all, i would whole heartedly recommend the remake for Mission In Snowdriftland. The flash version may still be pretty fun, and the downloadable unlockables you get from the original are super cool in their own right, but the additional content and better resolution of the remake absolutely steamrolls the original. Plus, you're directly supporting the team that made it, so that's a plus. Hell, i might just make yearly playthroughs of the game a tradition from this point forward.
So yeah, outside of video production, that's what i've been up to during the build up to Christmas. I might just make another blog post in a few days talking about how my Christmas went, but we'll see if the mood calls for it. Although, considering the aformentioned laundry list of plans i've got for the holiday, i've got a good feeling about it.
Merry Christmas.
Also, isn't it ironic that Mission In Snowdriftland is technically the first (and only) Nintendo game to release on PC? I mean, i know that MiS is owned by Extra Toxic, but i'm still going to count that because it's way funnier. (Although if you're going to be THAT semanthic about it, you could count Pikmin 1 due to the PC emulator that Nintendo acidentally shipped the game with)