Three games, all released on approximately the 25th of December for successive xmas-related competitions.

Santasm (2005): the competition theme was “Mario-like”, so that’s pretty much what it is. The screen is way too tiny. A lot of my old games have a tiny resolution, but in this case I mean relatively; your sprite is huge and you can’t see anything. I believe I was was basing this on certain licensed Game Boy games which tried a giant sprite approach, but it wasn’t a great idea. Still there are a fair few levels and several varied powerups which add variety. As I recall the game’s score in the competition was torpedoed by one judge who didn’t like the Nazi themes.

Santasm 2 (2006): a tribute to Cocoron, a Mega Man-like action game which allows you to custom-build your character from different parts which completely change the way you move and attack. A much more solid game than Santasm 1. Continues the “story” from the first game (I almost never do games which would benefit from a story, and although it’s something I’m interested in exploring, on the few occasions I have tried to include one I’ve half-arsed it). Your character initially sucks, but can be upgraded with different parts purchased using coins collected during the levels. If you die, you may continue as long as you have enough coins to build a new dude. You choose which levels to play before the boss level (three, I believe, out of a possible five) and which order to play them in at the beginning. Which is neat.

Santasm 3 (2007): straightforward puzzle game based on the Adventures of Lolo games, which is to say it’s Sokoban but with the addition of enemies which you can attack with a projectile to transform them temporarily into a moveable block. There are several other powers, based cookies Santa can collect.

[DOWNLOAD (windows, 5mb)]

Posted in finished games, not terrible, windows | 1 Comment »