The crunch of a shovel biting into fresh snow, the roar of a rotary plow throwing it thirty meters, and a quiet street left behind you. After a night of heavy snow, a small town in Japan's snow country is buried. Nayu, twenty and happiest under the kotatsu with a game, gets sent next door with a shovel to dig out grandma's steps. It turns out she is good at it. Before long the whole town is calling: the bakery, the school, the station, the mountain road and finally the airport runway, each job with a bigger machine than the last.
SNOW THAT STAYS WHERE YOU PUT IT
- Every shovelful counts: snow lands right where you throw it, and what you push gathers in front of the blade and spills off the sides. You can watch the yard open up with every pass.
- Every snow feels different: light fresh powder, heavy wet snow, the hard-packed banks a plow leaves behind and slick ice. Crack packed snow with an ice chipper swung over your head, scatter salt to melt the ice, and feel your truck slide on it until the chains go on. Every new machine changes how you work.
- Your pace: the clock only moves when you work. The sun sinks a little with every job, and when night falls you head home and curl up under the kotatsu. No time limits, no fuel, no tool wear, no fines.
FROM SHOVEL TO RUNWAY
- Bigger machines, bigger jobs: start with a shovel and a pusher, then work your way up through snow blowers, an ATV, a tractor, a wheel loader, a plow truck with a wing, a rotary plow that throws snow thirty meters and a runway sweeper. Fourteen tools and machines in all.
- Every machine handles differently: angle the ATV's blade, swap the tractor's bucket for a blower, split the snow with the pickup's V-plow, shove whole piles with the loader's pusher box and turn the rotary's chute toward the mountainside.
- Make them your own: wider blades, bigger buckets, longer chutes and snow chains make your gear quicker and steadier.
ONE VALLEY, 34 JOBS
- A town you can walk or drive across: the houses, the shops of the town center, the farms on the outskirts, the national road over the pass and the airport, all in one valley. Or jump across it from the map on your phone.
- No two jobs alike: build a sled hill for the kids, rake the snow off the bakery roof, sweep the shrine steps, load a dump truck at a tunnel mouth, keep the road open through a blizzard and dig out a stranded bus.
- The blizzard of the century: one last storm buries everything, from grandma's steps to the runway.
A TOWN THAT THANKS YOU
- Twelve people to help: mom, grandma next door, the baker, the teacher, the farmer, the stationmaster, a retired plow driver, an air traffic controller and more, each with their own story and their own way of asking for help.
- The end of a long day: head home, doze off under the kotatsu, and watch fresh snow settle over the town while you sleep. In the morning, yesterday's snow and pay are waiting for you at a glance.
- A new day, new snow: clear the fresh snow again for thank-you points and a little extra pay. Some nights bring heavy snow, and some stay clear.
- Watch the town change: spend thank-you points on paint jobs and decorations, and see the winter festival and the skating pond light up when the work is done.
ALSO IN TOWN
- Timelapse: after every job, watch your work replay from the first scoop in a few seconds, and save before-and-after photos side by side.
- Photo mode with color filters and a free camera to capture the snowy town.
- Things buried in the snow: lost belongings, hidden animals and 17 achievements to find.
