Christmas or Wintery Games... Are You Making One?

News & General Discussion
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It seems like I ask this question each year.

Just curious if anyone is working on a Christmas- or at least Winter-themed game?

I always enjoy checking out such games.

Feel free to post links here so all of us who have an interest in such things (perhaps only me lol) can check them out.

I am debating making something. Of course, at this point it would need to be something very basic or else a very nice scene with nothing much to do at all.

Kind of figured I could at least count on @Arowx to be making one but I think he is busy working on his tabletop RTS game.

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I think it’s a good idea, perhaps we could have a little compo like LD.

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Not at the moment, unless someone suddenly decides to hire me.

Current plan is to see if I can make anything decent out of my ludum dare entry.

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I’m not making a Christmas game. But if I did it would be a real Christmas game. Barbecues and beaches. None of this winter stuff.

:stuck_out_tongue:

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This guy is playing 12 christmas themed games, just look up on itch.io there is over 150 of them
https://m.youtube.com/channel/UCo1_4nGlt3mWL-nBeMMDB_Q

https://itch.io/search?q=christmas

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Well, since you mentioned winter, I can post a link to my video talking about winter effects like snow and footprints. This is an RTS game, I just thought that winter would be a good setting for it.

I don’t know if it fits your “winter theme” criteria, but it is at least set in winter (or at least it is for the moment unless I change my mind for some reason). Feel free to check out other videos on my channel if you like the game.

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Thanks. I’ve already checked out most Christmas games on itch.io and GameJolt. That’s why I always wonder if anyone around here is making one that I have not seen yet. :slight_smile:

I actually did find one at itch.io just now from your link that I had missed previously.
Had great hope for it and even paid 4 CAD for the bundle to help them meet their 10 CAD goal. lol

Titan 3D Xmas Edition

Unfortunately, the control scheme isn’t good for me and there doesn’t seem to be any configuration.
Ah well they are closer to their money goal anyway. I sometimes look for games this time of year just to donate and help out in the spirit of the season. And when I see games that look like this graphically they just really connect with me. I think “aha! they probably put a lot of focus on the gameplay and this thing is most likely fun as hell”.

That is often the case but not always unfortunately. I often see a sort of inverse coorelation between the apparent amount of time spent on graphics and the amount of creativity and so forth in games. And that is a big reason why I check out games like this. I guess that is probably why lots of other people like them as well. By that I mean there are many games along these lines that have tens of thousands of plays.

Some good examples (Christmas themed and otherwise) are:

Dear Santa, I hate you

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=33n9HOOih40

Escape from the Underworld

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8jqNTpJu1AA

Cosmic Song

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pzxem97kIYw

and plenty of more that are very popular.

Anyway thanks again for reminding me to check itch.io again.

Oh I might as well plug my latest tiny retro inspired game…

Attack of the Crows (my first game in AGK done as a learning exercise)

It’s basically inspired by a combo of Space Invaders and Demon Attack.
Of course, I always enjoy playing around with the design / mechanics.
So here you play the farmer and throw pitch forks. When a pitch fork hits a crow or leaves the playfield it respawns on the ground below where it can be collected again.

Adds just a tiny micro bit of depth to the game to make it a bit fresh.

Hmm…

Well maybe I will knock out a snowy wintery / Christmas themed game this week.

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i thought about it, but I figured if I really wanted to capture the spirit of the christmas games I played when I was younger, it’d have to be an FPS where you brutally gib some elves

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That sounds like a lot of fun. Watching the elves run away in terror, maybe a few huddled behind a big rock and player finds them. Blow them suckers up parts flying everywhere. Might actually be a hit!

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So I just knocked out some graphics mainly just doodling trying to get my mind into such a game.

Have no idea if I will actually use these platformish tiles or not. The ground and platform on the right are foreground. The rock, dead tree and two pine like trees are background. I’d need to add one more layer in the distant background mountain range or something to complete it I think.

True size:

And probably the game size (yeah the dots are to illustrate snow should be falling):

I don’t even have an idea yet really. lol But doodling up a scene often helps me to think. Too bad I need to go sleep now.

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Have considered it but didn’t have the timing right. However, Alto’s Adventure is a pretty fun snow-themed game, check it out.

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Thanks. I did a search and all I can find is a mobile game by that name.

It did prompt me to do a quick search at GameJolt for games with “adventure” in their names. Found 1 game that I will check out tonight. So thanks for planting that suggestion. :slight_smile:

Collapse, Collide

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EflmpcQZRDA

That is an excellent wintery setting at the start of the game. I like it. Gameplay wise no idea. The jumping looks a bit floaty for my tastes but I will check it out.

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Looking Good Benjamin are you going to use Unity or that steam game engine?

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Thanks. I think the images might be a bit too detailed. When I work on the characters I wil know. If i find they are taking up way too much time I’ll redo the tile images accordingly to be even simpler. That’s if I even do a platformer using this stuff. lol Still have no idea. Haven’t had a chance to think about it yet.

No. I will use AGK for this game just because I’ve only done one tiny game with it so far to learn the api and so forth. But I like it a lot from the little time I’ve spent with it and want to explore it more.

My current priority is to create a tile map editor. I’ll start on that tonight or tomorrow. It will be based on one named SED I created on the Amiga in Blitz Basic long ago except where that was limited to 3 layers (at the time early 90s I thought it was all one would ever need lol) this one will support up to 8 layers. Hoping to knock that out in a few days then can actually think about the game and get started proper on it.

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I will add that if anyone is interested in making a 2D tile map based game in Unity I can highly recommend SpriteTile (asset store). I found it to be very well done, easy to work with and continually updated. It is definitely worth the price and helped me to keep my sanity (questionable I know lol) when I was developing in Unity.

There is a 3D editor I purchased and liked as well but cannot remember the name now. I bought 2 or 3 of them to compare and one was very easy to work with compared to the others. These things are great and it is a shame Unity doesn’t pay the authors and include them in the product IMO. But I guess the same could be said for so many things.

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Sorry I missed this until now. Looks cool. I am immediately reminded of the Diablo games due to what appear to be health and mana globes. I know you said it is actually an RTS but it is intriguing to see those globes and I wonder how they fit into the gameplay.

Do you have a link to a playable prototype?

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[Game] Xmas Nightmares

Inspired by Tim Burton’s Nightmare before Christmas.

Just fooling around with some level and character ideas in blender (1 day’s work), need to change the character otherwise I’ll get raped by copyright - LOL.

Tomorrow if I get time will pull into unity and prototype a game mechanic - I’m thinking an endless runner. Maybe a bit ambitious for a Game Jam but meh.

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Wow that already looks pretty good

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Thanks but the number of times I’ve got carried away with graphics though and neglected gameplay is unforgivable.

So tomorrow, I’m only going to do a very quick ONCE only, lighting build inside unity with enlighten, then straight to game mechanics, no textures complex models or frills to get in my way. Shouldn’t be too difficult to rig the main character either, T-poses are easy enough to rig. Oh and of course a striped down UI, using unity UI as it is great, and if I get some time a little score in garage band!

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Thanks! Actually, the globes are probably going to be cut. When I first started working on this game, I had intended more of an RPG with just one character. It has since evolved a bit into more of an RTS. I am uncertain how I will handle the final health bar/globes. It depends on how I set up the HUD.

My latest video shows progress towards party A.I. I got it working pretty well. I am an artist trying to learn programming, but it is coming along slowly but surely.

So yeah, I am going to be redoing the entire HUD to allow for multiple characters. Plus, there are things I need to add and take away from the HUD anyway, so a lot of the HUD is just placeholder for now. I have not decided on a final layout yet.

Unfortunately, I do not have a playable demo yet. I might do this soon, but there are some things I’d like to do first. I need the enemy A.I. to be done (or at least done enough to play), be able to build some small structures (like blacksmith station or other “small” structures), there is no sound at all yet either, so that’s another thing. Once I get some of these things done, the game will be more ready, and much more enjoyable. I want to make a good first impression.

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