Қар: Ақ қыздардың махаббаты мен аңыздар ауылы

2003 eroge visual novel

Snow (スノー) is a Japanese adult visual novel developed by Studio Mebius for Windows PCs on January 31, 2003. It was later ported without the erotic content to the Dreamcast, PlayStation 2, and PlayStation Portable consoles. The story of Snow revolves around the life of Kanata Izumo, who is revisiting a village to help his relative manage a hot spring inn. The gameplay in Snow follows a branching plot line which offers pre determined scenarios with courses of interaction, and focuses on the appeal of the female main characters by the player character. The game was successful in both sales and popularity, it was ranked as the best selling PC game sold in Japan at the time of its release, and charted in the national top 50 several more times afterward. Snow was voted as the twenty sixth best bishōjo game by the readers of Dengeki G's Magazine in 2007. A manga titled Snow: Pure White based on the visual novel was serialized in Comptiq between the September and December 2003 issues. Five light novels and several comic anthologies were also released, as were audio dramas. Studio Mebius went on to release a visual novel called Tomodachi Ijō Koibito Miman on September 24, 2004, which shares the same setting and characters from Snow but takes place years later and focuses on Meiko Tachibana.

Snow is a romance visual novel in which the player assumes the role of Kanata Izumo. Much of its gameplay is spent reading the text that appears on the screen, which represents the story's narrative and dialogue. The text is accompanied by character sprites, which represent who Kanata is talking to, over background art. Throughout the game, the player encounters CG artwork at certain points in the story, which take the place of the background art and character sprites. In the original Windows release, the player must first complete Sumino and Asahi's story routes in order to unlock Shigure's route; after Shigure's route is completed, Ōka's route becomes available to play which serves as the true ending to Snow. Throughout gameplay, the player is given multiple options to choose from, and text progression pauses at these points until a choice is made.

The story of Snow starts when the main protagonist Kanata Izumo revisits a small village from his childhood called Ryūjin mura (龍神村). He is revisiting Ryūjin mura to help manage a local inn with hot springs, Ryūjin Tenshukaku (龍神天守閣), alongside his cousin Tsugumi. In the village, there is an old legend: In ancient times, Ryūjin mura was protected by the dragon goddess. However, one day the goddess fell in love with a human, which is strictly forbidden, and this incident caused the village to be always covered by snow after that. The game then tells the daily life of Kanata interacting with the village girls and ultimately links the story to the legend. Snow follows a branching plot line with multiple endings, and depending on the decisions that the player makes during the game, the plot will progress in a specific direction.

The player assumes the role of Kanata Izumo (出雲 彼方), who is visiting Ryūjin mura as a part time worker of the local inn owned by his cousin. Kanata also encounters a young energetic girl with a tomboy personality called Asahi Hiyorigawa (日和川 旭), suddenly appearing before Kanata and claiming that she will repulse the evil from him. The artists for Snow were Asuka Pyon, who was in charge of character design, and Kobuichi. The game's scenario was written by three members of staff: Mochizuki Jet, Klein, and Jinno Masaki. The setting of the game, Ryūjin mura, was modeled after the real village Ryūjin in Wakayama Prefecture. On January 31, 2003, Snow was released as both a CD ROM and DVD ROM compatible to the Windows 98/ME/2000/XP operating systems. An all ages version for the Dreamcast was released by Interchannel on September 25, 2003. Later on February 26, 2004, Interchannel ported the game to the PlayStation 2 in both limited and regular editions; the PS2 port adds an additional scenario for Meiko Tachibana who was a supporting character in prior releases of Snow. A fully voiced version was released for Windows on September 24, 2004. Then on September 29, 2006, Snow: Plus Edition was released for Windows, sporting added parts from the console versions and introducing a new heroine. A version of the game for NTT DoCoMo FOMA cell phones was released by Prototype on VisualArt's Motto on October 27, 2006. A PlayStation Portable version of the game called Snow: Portable was released by Prototype on August 16, 2007. The standard edition for Windows was released on July 25, 2008, including a dark version of the game called Ankoku Snow which was originally released with the Studio Mebius fan disc Mebinya! Mebius Fandisc, and the content from the portable edition of Snow. A downloadable version of the PSP edition was made available on the PlayStation Store by Prototype on January 21, 2010. Snow became playable on Android on November 17, 2015.

Five adult light novels written by Hangetsu Mitamura and published by Paradigm were released between June 2003 and January 2004. The cover art and internal illustrations were drawn by Asuka Pyon, the artist who drew the artwork in the visual novel. The first novel, titled Snow: Hakana Yuki (Snow ～儚雪～), was released on June 25, 2003. The second novel was released on July 25, 2003, titled Snow: Chīsaki Inori (Snow ～小さき祈り～). The third novel, titled Snow: Inishie no Yūyake (Snow ～古の夕焼け～), was released on September 20, 2003, focusing on Ryūjin mura's legend. The fourth novel, titled Snow: Kioku no Toge (Snow ～記憶の棘～), was released on November 22, 2003. The fifth and final novel, titled Snow: Sora no Yurikago (Snow ～空の揺りかご～), was released on January 16, 2004. A 192 page art book, titled Snow Art Works, and containing information such as story and character explanations and images from the visual novel was released by Paradigm on July 25, 2003.