Previous Next

Based on the fairy story by Hans Christian Anderson, the Snow Queen lets you accompany Gerda, trying to rescue her friend Kay. Kay has been captured by the Snow Queen after the devil's mirror broke and splinters entered his heart placing him under an evil enchantment. This involves a long and arduous trip to the Ice Palace.

The story starts with Gerda in her grandmother's house and the first problem is to find a way out - there are two things that must be done before you are allowed to leave. Once outside, hunger soon sets in and you must find some food quickly or else you faint from hunger. The game follows the story fairly closely although there are some additional problems to be solved. The tone of the game is very much in the style of a fairy story and this means that the game is aimed fairly and squarely at younger players. A typical problem is getting past "a group of tough girls who have stayed up all night", a description that I suspect will bring howls of laughter to any adolescent boys playing it.

The vocabulary is straight forward with a list of unusual words being included in the instructions. I felt that it was a bit too fussy at times. When you help the little old lady, she presses something into your hand, but you can only find out what it is by examining the inventory. Or, when you find something on the ground, you must examine the ground first in order to find out what it is.

The game has been put together using The Quill and Illustrator and there are a few colourful pictures to look at. On the whole though, I found this game to be quite disappointing and somewhat overpriced at just under £10. Aimed at younger players, I suspect that they may prefer something a bit more exciting.