Building a perfect Snowboy in Animal Crossing is torture

Do you wanna build a snowman (and have it resent you)?

The Animal Crossing series is about many things: the beauty of community, the boundlessness of human creativity, and, for some reason, the ability to create sentient life that sees you as its god. I’m talking, of course, about the game’s snowmen, which are one of the strangest, most disturbing recurring elements across the franchise. Sure, furniture springs from tiny leaves and you’re surrounded by talking animals, but snowfolk are arguably the biggest departure from any remaining semblance of grounded reality that the games possess.

In New Horizons, they’re called Snowboys, but they have had a few monikers over the years. However, their general mechanics have always remained roughly the same: Players can find balls of snow around their town, roll them around, and make them into a talking snowman. If done perfectly, they’ll give the player some kind of reward, like a recipe or a new piece of furniture. For the next few days, players can continue to interact with them as they gradually melt away — or, in other words, slowly die in front of everyone.

This harrowing process was arguably at its height of horror in New Leaf, which introduced an entire snowfolk family line-up. Depending on the size of the snowballs, players could create a Snowman, Snowmam, Snowboy, or Snowtyke. This meant that you could mold an entire wholesome family that would then have the bear witness to the demise of their loved ones. It made me ponder things I never thought an Animal Crossing game would: Is it more merciful to build the children first, so they don’t live long enough to see their parents die, or vice versa?

It’s not just their mortality that makes this mechanic so absurd, but the way they speak to the player. If players successfully build a perfect snowman, they’ll profusely thank the player for creating them, exclaiming things like, “Sweet precious life! I’ve been perfectly molded!”

Conversely, imperfect snowfolk absolutely hate their life from the moment they’re born, and will not hesitate to tell you, woefully saying things like, “Why did this have to happen to me? Why is it my fate to be born into such a hideous state?” For the next several days as they melt away, players must carry the emotional baggage of knowing they created a life that revolves purely around suffering.

For all its cuteness, Animal Crossing has a way of bringing out the worst in people, and, as someone who’s played the game since age eight, the endless perfectionism of snowfolk has slowly worn me down over the years. I tried to be a kind creator of life, carefully rolling my snowballs just so to live up to their almost impossible standards, but more often than not I fell short. I realize that their existence is fleeting, and this high standard simply comes from a desire to spend that short, sentient time as comfortably as they can. But I have had enough.

This breaking point came recently, in the midst of time traveling as I explored the 3.0 update’s new hotel feature. Living my “days” in quick succession, I would still take the time to build a snowman each day in an effort to collect crafting materials. Perhaps I’ve lost my snowman-making mojo, because almost every Snowboy I crafted was almost perfect, but not quite enough to please them. Eventually, I snapped — is it not enough that I took the time to create you at all? You would be a lump of snow on the ground were it not for me!

What followed in the coming days is what I came to refer to as a cavalcade of snowfolk misery. I decided to start building Snowboys as improperly proportioned as I possibly could, placing them next to each other whenever possible so they could watch their brethren suffer as well. They were decidedly not pleased with me — some lashed out with criticisms, while others looked for silver linings or began to cry — but my heart had long frozen over.

Over the years, Animal Crossing players have steadily accrued more power with each entry. Beginning as a humble villager, they eventually become mayor, then resident representative, both of which have the power to enact sweeping changes to their town. If my descent into madness is any proof, perhaps the power to create life is one ability that never should’ve been placed in our hands in the first place.