LudumData

Santa frowns to town by tanis

[raw]
made by tanis for LD 43 (COMPO)

ld43-binocle-cover.png

About the game

Santa has been kidnapped and kept away in a tower by the evil witch of Halloween. She's jealous of Santa and wants to take all the gifts to children herself. But she still needs Santa to get them ready. It's your mission, as Santa, to get the toys, put them in the packages and wrap them up and deliver to the elves who will take care of filling the sled. You have to wrap up enough gifts or the witch will come and sacrifice a Christmas elf to punish you!

How to play

Use the arrow keys to move, UP to jump and SPACE to interact with the toys, boxes, wraps and elves. Pick up the toy, bring it to the box and put it in there. Then wrap up the box and bring it to an elf. The elf will take care of delivering it to the sled. Hurry up!

Important information

The web version might hang or just be unresponsive. In that case please try the Windows of macOS version.

Windows https://tanis.itch.io/santa-frowns-to-town
Source code https://tanis.itch.io/santa-frowns-to-town
HTML5 (web) https://valeriosantinelli.com/misc/ld43/
macOS https://tanis.itch.io/santa-frowns-to-town
Original URL https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/43/santa-frowns-to-town

Ratings

Overall 432th 2.879⭐ 31🧑‍⚖️
Fun 434th 2.655⭐ 31🧑‍⚖️
Innovation 433th 2.603⭐ 31🧑‍⚖️
Theme 445th 2.707⭐ 31🧑‍⚖️
Graphics 316th 3.103⭐ 31🧑‍⚖️
Audio 228th 3.069⭐ 31🧑‍⚖️
Humor 159th 3.107⭐ 30🧑‍⚖️
Mood 351th 2.852⭐ 29🧑‍⚖️
Given 31🗳️ 20🗨️

Feedback

Takayamushi
04. Dec 2018 · 20:35 UTC
Could use a simple AD to move, also no sure what is the purpose of jumping. Also when I finished the objective, I had to wait 40 seconds to get the next one. Good job nonetheless :)
Frank Gevaerts
04. Dec 2018 · 20:40 UTC
I must say I got a bit bored with this fairly quickly. It ends up just being going back and forth and pressing space at the right time. It looks decent and it works well, but I feel something is missing
kaeveris
04. Dec 2018 · 20:47 UTC
That is a cool concept, the music and sounds helped the mood a lot! Cute design!
StLunatick
04. Dec 2018 · 20:47 UTC
It becomes a bit repetitive and there is not really skill needed to win this game. Although it's a nice submit. I could use some extra features like avoiding falling obstacles or some enemies.
Benjouille
04. Dec 2018 · 20:51 UTC
Pretty simple, but finished product. Didn't get the use of the jump. The gameplay is kind of nobrain once you get it. Maybe it need some new interactive element, or an order to do actions. Good job keep it up.
Imphenzia
04. Dec 2018 · 21:03 UTC
Oh, my... I feel dizzy now =) I got in the zone wrapping packages and I don't know if it's good or bad but I reached a score of 149. I think the repetitive motion back and forth combined with the short looping music is a ticket for me to the nut house, haha. I will dream about this I am sure :) I probably would have liked a more rapid increase of difficulty to cut down on the play time but it did get stressful towards the end. It's fun when you get in a rhythm to get one elf doing package delivery every time he reaches the wrapping station but when you miss you lose that sync. Nice work!

![149.png](///raw/d02/z/1edfa.png)
drtizzle
04. Dec 2018 · 21:22 UTC
Cool little game you've made! I like the graphics, they have a really authentic old school look to them. The music was a bit repetitive but better than no music! I really liked the voice overs for the countdown! It would be nice if the game got harder, like if there were more actions to do every round. Overall good job!
publicidadeba
05. Dec 2018 · 01:05 UTC
I felt the madness of Xmas, being in Santa's shoes is not easy. I feel more compassionate for him now. :)
CodeKim
05. Dec 2018 · 01:19 UTC
First things first, loved the music and the spritework. The game itself is a bit repetitive though as you have well enough time to wrap all the presents and the difficulty never ramps up. With some ramp up in difficulty and maybe some variation in the kind of packages, boxes and wrappers you need to make this could be a lot of fun. Nice job!
ropedog
05. Dec 2018 · 01:56 UTC
This is a fun game, and it seems perfect for this jam. It has a hilarious premise, nice graphics, and smooth gameplay. I would have liked to see some variation in the type of presents or wrapping. Maybe having different sized presents that could only fit in larger boxes could help mix it up, but that might be more of a post-jam idea.
Solid game - I really enjoyed it!
paulhocker
05. Dec 2018 · 05:33 UTC
this could be the start of something. i was a little confused what to do with the present after it was wrapped at first. overall good game and fit the theme well. nice
🎤 tanis
05. Dec 2018 · 11:05 UTC
@takayamushi the jump was part of the core mechanic but I had to cut that off because of lack of time near the end. I left it there but it has no real meaning as it is now, I agree.

@frank-gevaerts @benjouille @drtizzle @codekim @ropedog thanks for the feedback, I agree that it still misses something. I'll see if I can put the missing stuff in a post-compo version.

@kaeveris @publicidadeba @paulhocker thank you so much!

@stlunatick the jump was supposed to be used to avoid enemies.. but I had to cut it off due to lack of time

@imphenzia I'm sorry that you felt dizzy. I wanted to make a lot of different musics with the Christmas theme but time was against me :(
Arvejeitor
05. Dec 2018 · 11:31 UTC
Loved the idea of the Christmas theme!
Very funny game, i liked it!
SunneyViolette
05. Dec 2018 · 12:18 UTC
At first I thought 'where does the sacrifice theme come in'but I soon figured it out when I lost an elf! I think that was a good twist and made the game. The graphics are fun and the overall feel was good. I find it impressive you did this by yourself! Well done!
ToonTeamJ
05. Dec 2018 · 15:39 UTC
I played the web version.

It seemed buggy, in that the timer was going down but Santa was moving at a snail's pace. Needless to say I didn't get very far.

However, I did like the graphics, and the Christmas music synthetization was pretty neat.
🎤 tanis
05. Dec 2018 · 15:43 UTC
@arvejeitor thank you so much! :)

@sunneyviolette yeah, I am impressed myself that I did manage to get something done in such a small amount of time tbh. Thanks!

@toonteamj the web version seems to have troubles on Windows. I've just uploaded a new build, can you please try it out and let me know if it fixes your issues? Cheers!
gamebuilder
05. Dec 2018 · 16:01 UTC
I read your post-mortem and was impressed that you did this in C. I'm familiar with the language and I realize how recalcitrant it can be.

I played the Web version of your game and didn't have any problems. In fact, I thought it was a lot of fun. I loved the minimal graphics and the music added to the tension without being repetitious. Overall I think you've done an excellent job.
🎤 tanis
05. Dec 2018 · 16:07 UTC
@gamebuilder C isn’t much of an issue tbh. I’ve had more troubles getting Unity to behave like I wanted in the past. The real issue is the emscripten toolchain to compile the game to wasm so that it runs in the browser. That’s a whole new order of troubles you have to fight against. But it’s definitely satisfying when you see all your hard work running pretty much anywhere :)
ToonTeamJ
05. Dec 2018 · 17:26 UTC
@tanis I tried the web version again, but it still wasn't working.

The downloadable Windows version does work, though. I did much better there.

What makes it hard is that Santa moves really fast and you have to time the stopping distance just right. I feel as if there should be more challenge than that. Maybe boxes and wraps replenish at different rates, so you have to stay on track to keep up? The elves run all over the place, so they aren't a big factor.

Good game, though!
Kitarraman
05. Dec 2018 · 21:10 UTC
I played the web version. It was fun at the beginning but got bored quickly after. I wish, as tanis said, that the jump had some purpose, I ended up just wrapping presents and give them to the elves. Kudos for using you self coded engine. I don't know if this is something that affects exclusively the HTML version, but the controls were a bit overresponsive: moving Santa left and right felt like rollerblading on grease
FireBug
08. Dec 2018 · 14:05 UTC
I see others have already commented on the sluggish movement of the web version, I can confirm that experience. When I jumped, Santa vanished into the stratosphere and I thought he was gone, but after several seconds he floated back down to Earth, haha. The music and art is adorable, and the concept of the witch reminds me of Befana folklore, or possibly even Baba Yaga. Great effort for the 48 hours!
Jupiter_Hadley
14. Dec 2018 · 14:49 UTC
Neat idea, challenging game. I included it in my compilation video series of games from the Ludum Dare, if you’d like to take a look :) https://youtu.be/aRIyiUZY0TQ
BloodyOrchidDC
18. Dec 2018 · 06:42 UTC
Nice audio design. The roling ball knock the Santa down make me laugh,lol. The control is a little bit slip but is ok.
Watch the time flow and keep me busy on packages and chasing the last elf is just like a rush hour, good job!
loveapplegames
21. Dec 2018 · 23:16 UTC
Simple but fun! I had trouble seeing the stones though, because the elves were in the way.
🎤 tanis
29. Dec 2018 · 09:25 UTC
@kitarraman yeah that’s mainly an issue with the html version
@firebug thank you so much!
@jupiter-hadley woot! That’s awesome! Love ya!
@bloodyorchiddc thank you for the comment. I agree that the controls can be slip, but that was intended.
@loveapplegames eheheh! Thanks!
aeveis
30. Dec 2018 · 14:22 UTC
Tried playing the windows version, but I got an error:
"The program can't start because api-ms-core-libraryloader-l1-2-1.dll is missing from your computer. Try reinstalling the program to fix this problem."

I was able to play the html5 version, though the controls on there feel a bit slid-y. Overall nice concept, keep up the good work!