Every friday, Club AV employees have launched our weekly open thread to discuss game plans and recent game glories, but of course the actual action is described in the comments, where we invite you to answer our eternal question: What are you playing this weekend?
It is today’s Christmas, the annual holiday that asks us to contemplate what really matters in life, namely the obsession of humanity for decades to kill Santa Claus, the odious present elf who spends his immortal days judging us, subdividing the species into naughty and cute and, in general, being a horrible ho-ho-stain on the planet he rules from his lair, literally sitting on top of the globe. Fortunately (and, indeed, we always say that), there are video games, which means we can translate some of our anti-Santa exhortations into action this holiday season. As such, we immersed ourselves in the roiling idea tank, which is the shelf of steam bargains to take out all the coolest games based on Santa Claus, of which at least it offers the opportunity to see Jolly Old Saint Nick pouring his metaphorical bowl full of jelly on the cold and numb snow.
So as not to be totally buried in the joy of Yuletide, we set some rules for this round. First, the games had to be cheap (because no one wants to have to have a meeting with HR Holly Jolly about our efforts to spend a $ 45 pack of Santa-themed puzzle games for this fool What are you playing? bit). It couldn’t be in VR, because as much as we’d like to get closer and closer Santa Sling, Santa Claus simulatorand other virtual Santa Claus products, we simply don’t have the hardware to do them justice. And they should be – and this is always a problem when you get into the cheaper part of Steam deals – not super excited, which eliminated such anime-ish offerings as well Sakura Santa Claus, Santa Claus girls, Black Jack Strip – Santa Claus, Bring me a Santa Claus, and of course, Santa’s big bag, the game that dares to ask in its Steam marketing copy, “Are you a sim for Santa?”
Anyway, here’s what we came up with, so let’s dive. The fat man is coming.
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Price: Free of charge
MIDI loop in “Jingle Bells”? Only on the victory screen, but him hands.
Have you ever wondered, “And if Fortnite took place on a single square of land, on which powerful men fight katanas to become the next Santa after the previous one died in a burning sleigh wreck? “If so, this game is for you. Did you play this game? It is annoying to imagine that more people would ask themselves a question that generated this particularly violent and bloody approach. Santa Claus.
Price: Free of charge
MIDI loop in “Jingle Bells”? Constantly.
“Oh, neat,” you say to yourself, “A lo-fi approach with a Christmas theme Metal tools. “Wait,” you ask yourself a few minutes later, “why does Santa have ‘sleep dust’ to get the disobedient children out?” Did that old woman just wake up and shoot Santa? Why they are theirs landmines? Oh, my God, Dracula is here and he’s upset about his presents! “An emotional roller coaster, riveting, would not be missing.
Price: Free extension for $ 1.99 Kyle is famous
MIDI loop in “Jingle Bells”? Tragically absent
A paid expansion for John Szymanski’s extremely strange text game Kyle is famous, KIS it starts with the title Kyle who expels dozens of hideous meat-eating elves from his body and becomes an alien just from there. Will you put the people in Kyle-Santa’s life on the naughty or cute list? Will you create a wide variety of apocalypse causing reindeer and gifts to come out of Kyle’s throat? Will you be usurped as a true Christmas symbol by a woman who has a severe allergic reaction to all this damn elf? Only time will tell, dear reader. The choice is yours.
Price: Free, with paid DLC
MIDI loop in “Jingle Bells”? No, but the main theme of the fight is a rather appealing approach to “Away In A Manger.”
Let’s be honest here: We were a little worried that this RPGMaker freeware title might break our “no excitement” rule, which happens to the length of Mrs. Santa’s skirt unregulation. However, the content itself is healthy enough – give or take a risky joke about “snowballs” here or there – as Mrs. Santa descends into an ice-covered cavern to return the North Pole toys, so that Santa can get people out of time. Last night was “egg night”, so he needs rest – especially from his relationship with a lot Mrs. Santa Claus, looking younger, is a very literal love story from May-December.) Bonus points for giving Mrs. S an attack called “Beatings of the Season” to kick out thieves with a little flair Yuletide .
Price: $ 6.99
MIDI loop in “Jingle Bells”? There is no MIDI here; this is the game in which you sing “Jingle Bells” in the metallic styles he was always destined to make.
Premise of Rockstar Santa Claus it’s simple: a generic metallic guy finds Santa after crashing his sleigh (a shocking reason for recurring in these games) and becomes the new Santa, plugging his electric guitar into the corpse of the dead old elf and throwing it away. Then you spread the Christmas spirit by playing Guitar Hero, except for a computer keyboard, and with metal takes over “Hark The Herald Angels Sing”. (You can connect a USB Guitar Hero guitar for a more “authentic” holiday shredding, though.) Also, reindeer now have all earrings, which is, indeed, very metallic.
Price: $ 0.99
MIDI loop in “Jingle Bells”? We don’t really know what Christmas song is trying to be the only piece of the game, but we do know: it lasts about 30 seconds, is extremely irritating, and will keep looping until you or you are dead.
The most interesting thing about this extremely simple holiday-themed platformer is how it outlines the underlying tensions of the supposedly peaceful North Pole as winter forces – reindeer, ice and a snowman with a bad case of perverted face– trying to stop their apparent master, a Santa Claus with his fingers, to pick up all his thrown toys and take them to a series of inexplicable chimneys. A terrible portrait of the class conflict between the masses who give gifts.
Price: $ 0.99
MIDI loop in “Jingle Bells”? Right on the title screen!
Look: Should I have eaten Santa’s Christmas cakes, which had been clearly set aside? Probably not. Does this justify him hiding in my bathroom, passing me and then dragging me into a kind of Christmas maze where I can hear him running behind me all the time, waiting to really scare the shit out of me with a two jumps? I would argue that this was a over-reaction, Santa Claus. Stop playing Subtle, take a few anger management classes and try again next Christmas.
Price: $ 0.99
MIDI loop in “Jingle Bells”? Somehow, unlikely: No.
A very simple push game, Santa’s workshop it has two notable features: a pink version of Santa’s cheek that seems to have been ordered directly from a Precious Moments catalog and a player avatar that is, bizarrely, a snowflake. How does the snowflake use the toy cars and candies you are forced to find in the boxes? Is there a different snowflake on each level, tied to some kind of ice crystal? Does Santa have dark powers over ice and wind or is the snowflake paid for this shit? These are the questions that keep us awake at night.
Price: $ 0.99
MIDI loop in “Jingle Bells”? Oh, you better believe it – because nothing says “Shoot Santa’s testicles” like a hard-rock loop of “Jingle Bells”
Look, nobody says it is amusement to watch a horde of Santa Claus, pull the trigger and then be played back with pleasure, Sniper Elite– dodging shots that show you all the damage you’ve done to Santa’s liver, brain or lungs – would be sociopathic. But it’s kind of satisfactorily. (Even if you have to kill far, far too many Santa Clauses – the singular “title” in the title being a wrong name – to get your hands on any of Claus’ truly top killer kits in the game.)
Price: $ 0.99
MIDI loop in “Jingle Bells”? With enthusiasm. Unceasing, unrepentant, perversely so.
How did Santa get his hands on zombie technology? Why do zombie elves hate Christmas? Why do these penguins look like they’re crazy? None of these questions are answered in this extremely slow tower defense game, even if the idea of unleashing “Rudolph’s Rage” to kill a bunch of laser zombie elves has a certain, bloody, festive theme. , I don’t know what.
Price: $ 4.99
MIDI loop in “Jingle Bells”? No one! In fact, the music in the game is pretty evenly enjoyable.
One of the pleasures of making one of these great summaries of tiny, largely unseen games is that you hit the occasional gem or two. Santacraft not surprising – it’s essentially a winter-themed riff on games like Do not starve or Forager-but It is full of pixel-art charm and a pleasant sense of gentleness. Apparently, not all estates have to die: Some can coexist with nature. A lesson hard to internalize, but a healthy one, nonetheless.