Feature: Nintendo's Long-Lost Advent Calendar Game Comes Home For Christmas On Switch

The idea is a winner: You get a flat, holiday-themed box, and once a day for the 24 days leading up to Christmas, you get to open one of the little doors on the front. Here's where it unravels: Behind the door — at least in most cheap, modern Advent calendars — is a piece of "chocolate," but the low-grade kind manufacturers aren't legally allowed to call chocolate (there's a heavy emphasis on those quotation marks). It's a real let-down, especially given how fun the premise is.

Years ago, though, Nintendo and German developer tons of bits mastered the art of the Advent calendar with UPIXO In Action: Mission in Snowdriftland.

On December 1, 2006, Nintendo of Europe published Mission in Snowdriftland, a Flash platformer game, online. Rather, it published the first level. It was an Advent calendar, after all, so just one level went live on the 1st, then another the next day, and so on until Christmas Eve.

The game was well above the standard of most Flash games of the era. Chubby Snow, the adorable playable snowman protagonist, controls comfortably, albeit with some slippery physics, but those are easy to get used to and suited to the mostly wintery environments. The levels were also relatively large and fun to explore, especially if you took on the extra challenge of collecting all 24 snowflakes in each stage.

There was even a plot: An evil penguin, El Pix, stole game files from the human world and brought them to Snowdriftland. The situation puzzled UPIXO (the tragically fictional United Pixelheroes Organisation), who didn't have any heroes able to survive the frigid conditions of Snowdriftland. Coincidentally, that's when they happened upon Chubby, who took on the task of retrieving the game files and eventually defeating El Pix (on Christmas Eve, per the Advent calendar structure).

The game was a win-win for both tons of bits and Nintendo. To collaborate with an industry titan was a tremendous opportunity for the developer. For Nintendo, the game served as an easy pre-holiday advertising platform: The game files you'd recover for beating the levels promoted DS and Wii games, while Nintendo game images had their own window next to the level as you played. For players, it was also just a fun (and free) daily thing to look forward to for a few weeks, to help build anticipation for the holiday season and make video games a bigger part of it.

But, as might be expected given the game's structure, it was short-lived. It was playable for a bit longer than the initial 24-day window, but it eventually went offline on December 16, 2007. Aside from a December 2010 re-release, the game was unplayable for years and considered lost media.

That's too bad, because Mission in Snowdriftland had the potential to become a holiday cult classic among Nintendo die-hards. How cool would it have been to have this daily, quick-hit game to look forward to every December, to make playing through the levels again and again an annual tradition?

Alas, that wasn't meant to be... until recently.

In December 2018, a full, playable version of the original game was discovered online. Then, in 2020, a video from controversial YouTuber Nick Robinson brought more attention to Mission in Snowdriftland, and also revealed that tons of bits had decided to remaster the game for release on Steam.

The remaster eventually dropped in 2021, and at last, Mission in Snowdriftland (at this point cutting "UPIXO In Action" from its official title) was back. Naturally, there were welcomed new quality-of-life features, like full-screen play, controller support, achievements, a speedrun timer, and the ability to play in either the patient Advent calendar style or just blow through all 24 levels at once.

This version also had the Nintendo-ness removed from it: tons of bits' relationship with the company was over, so gone were the advertisements for 15-year-old games from now-obsolete platforms. That said, the Nintendo connection isn't quite severed with Mission in Snowdriftland.

In October, tons of bits took to Instagram to share a cute photo, of a Chubby plush cuddled up with a Nintendo Switch, overlayed with the text, "THIS WINTER," followed by tantalising ellipses. Either Chubby is getting a Switch of his own for Christmas, or tons of bits is bringing Mission in Snowdriftland to Nintendo's hit console. Fortunately (with apologies to plush Chubby), it's the latter: It was just confirmed the game is getting a Switch release on 29th November.

Given its increased accessibility, the possibility of Mission in Snowdriftland fulfilling its potential and becoming a holiday gaming cult classic is stronger than ever. It's already reached that status for me personally. For the past two Decembers, on the first of the month, I've fired up Mission in Snowdriftland and explored the familiar opening level.

There's not even a nostalgia angle for me: I first heard of the game from Robinson's video and was quickly charmed by its well-designed visuals, its delightfully festive music, and the novelty of the game's Advent calendar schtick. When I then played it myself, I was surprised by the crisp and satisfying gameplay. It's just a fun game.

Now, even more people can experience this distinct detail of Nintendo history, and perhaps even make it a new holiday tradition. No longer does this particular Advent calendar need to be a missed opportunity. If you're thinking about doing an Advent calendar this year, Mission in Snowdriftland levels are much better than "chocolate."

Mission in Snowdriftland is scheduled for release on 29th November on the Switch eShop, with new secret areas coming to both the Steam version at the end of the month and Switch a little later. You can follow the developers on Twitter @tons_of_bits and via their website.