Hah.
Nuts to Doom, move over Rainbow Islands, throw thyself off a cliff, Lemmings...
All I want for Christmas is Santa's Xmas Caper.
So let’s just get one thing straight: 99.99 per cent of Christmas-themed games suck. I might make an exception for Christmas Nights on Sega depending on my mood, but, hey, it’s that time of year again and between the overwhelming urge to take a machete to every brightly tinseled tree I see, there must be time to reminisce …
Most Christmas-themed games are crap, but not all. For the last year I've been working on one myself--a retro, classic-style, 8-bit action gem implemented for the Intellivision console from the 80s (remember those?).
It was supposed to be finished for Christmas 2011, but alas, that won't happen. However, it will definitely *not* be crap, and the feedback I've received so far from the community is very good indeed.
I'm now aiming for April, 2012. If anybody is interested, watch the Intellivision boards at AtariAge.com.
The story and brief description can be found here:
http://www.techunlimited.net/xmas_carol/story.xhtml
Screen shots of the newer levels and progress updates can be found here:
http://www.atariage.com/forums/topic/174775-christmas-carol-just-released/page__view__findpost__p__2326944
(Sorry for the plug, but I thought it would be interesting to other retro-gaming fans. Besides, our Intellivision Homebrew community could use some more people :)
Happy Christmas!
-dZ.
Such is the nature of hobbies and projects done as a labor of love, not following any schedule.
For what it's worth, I did release the game last Christmas. Feedback was positive and I was even asked by the community to extend what was essentially a single-screen demo into a full-fledged, multi-level game.
Writing games for ancient, arcane devices--in Assembly Language--is not an easy task.
-dZ.
...but Amiga Format provided a coverdisk with Cannon Soccer - basically Cannon Fodder with the little fellas from Sensible Soccer as well as soldiers. In order to make it Christmassy the scene was a snowy football pitch and the nasties would through snowballs at you. There was also a couple of snowmen and presents and stuff.
Does anyone remember the version of Lemmings called Christmas Lemmings? Everything was done in a winter/Christmas theme. To me a lot of those older games were more fun because the games were challenging thinking games instead of the newer ones that seem to concentrate more on the graphics.