Before the Snow Melts

Originally written on the intfiction forums. Minor edits were made.

Clover, your childhood friend turned crush is moving. You and her have several things to say (or not say) in seven days…including, perhaps, a confession of love. What could’ve been a frustrating will-they-won’t-they is alleviated by the brisk pacing, a down-to-earth tone instead of melodrama, and some pokes from a third friend who injects some needed levity and pointed observations to the mix.

I got all the endings, three on a first playthrough, reloading before the final choice. I started a second playthrough (Spoiler - click to show)intentionally taking all the options that distance you from Clover which changes the endings for confessing/saying you’ll miss her to get the last two. I found the choices mostly clear on whether they signaled denialism, attempting to meet the issue head on, or simply deepening your relationship. The writing style did a good job communicating the fragile atmosphere and the characters’ emotions. Still, I was left wondering: what specifically about Clover makes her the object of the protagonist’s affection (and vice versa)? This doesn’t really get an answer, so despite my appreciation of each individual element I still felt like I was being kept at a distance from these characters.

As an aside that will probably mean nothing to the Ren’Py-unaware, every other Ren’Py game I’ve played (with the exception of very short games) has had an options menu on the title or pause screen. The lack of one did weird me out a bit, but I’ve never tried developing anything in that system so I’m not sure if that’s a built-in thing you can choose to leave out or a thing that you opt in to. This is not a mark against the game, but the only thing I really wanted was making the “skip read text” toggle option go faster and a volume slider (the BGM is very quiet), but I could adjust to not having these options.

I would recommend Before the Snow Melts if you are fine experiencing a “subtle v i b e s” snapshot of the “will-they-won’t-they to confession” stage (which is very much signposted in the blurb and author’s comment) and not a full-blown romance arc.