Made for the 2024 Advent Calendar collection of holiday games, toys, and fun tools made in PICO-8.
How to Play
Move around with the arrow keys.
Press X to perform actions.
Win Goal:
- Survive and protect gifts long enough (?)
Lose Conditions:
- Health at zero
- Gifts < 5
Highscore & Speedrun
You can rate your quality of success by the number of gifts you protect by the end, as well as the amount of time it takes to reach the end. You can take a screenshot with Ctrl+6 during the win scene to share and compare.
Attacks & Upgrades
Candy Cane Cyclone
A swirling spiral of sharpened candy cane shanks cuts enemies in a minty maelstrom.
- Upgrade 1: Increase number of candy canes.
- Upgrade 2: Increase attack damage of each cane.
- Upgrade 3: Increase the orbit radius and speed.
Peppermint Projectiles
A punishing blast of peppermint power that kills baddies but leaves them smelling minty fresh.
- Upgrade 1: Increase number of mint shots.
- Upgrade 2: Increase attack damage of each mint.
- Upgrade 3: Decrease the cooldown between shots.
Reindeer Rampage (A.K.A. Slay Sleigh)
Call in the cavalry charge, sworn to plow and protect.
- Upgrade 1: Increase number of reindeer & attack range.
- Upgrade 2: Increase attack damage.
- Upgrade 3: Decrease the cooldown between calls.
Credits
Code, Art, and Music by Nerdy Teachers
Special thanks to:
Really nice! I really like the sprites and the small details like the foot prints in the snow. I only managed to save 13 presents at the end.
Wow 20 is a great end score, my own best is 17 and about the same time.
I think this game is a good example of why I don't like game text being replaced by images. I found this on splore and found the images incomprehensible to the point of still not knowing what the upgrades were after winning. That said, having now read the instructions, I'm left wondering which upgrade was the one that made the candy canes spin faster. I'm also confused as to why the lose condition for presents would be less than 5, as that doesn't seem like it would do anything other than make players potentially feel cheated.
It's funny, I had that concern myself so I kept asking playtesters if they had any trouble with understanding the upgrade images and not one had a problem. I was surprised they found the trial and error type of discovery part of the fun and they shared with each other what does what.
I didn't get to playtest much though because it was a rushed and secret game for the advent calendar. If I decide to develop the game some more, I'll add in text.
To answer your other Qs:
-
The candy canes spin faster with the radius increased. (I'll add that note in the post)
- Lose with less than 5 gifts because initial playtesters quickly thought up a strategy to not care about the other gifts and just protect a single gift to the end. When they discovered that strategy didn't work, they focused on protecting as many as possible.
I finally got all 21. I thought the candy cane speedup was trash since it makes them go faster which isn't ideal and further away so you don't have a solid get off my option. but I think it actually helped cause by the end with the snowmen I could cover the whole present pile for the most part.
Fun game. glad to finally beat it after many attempts ;p
Holy Presents Santa!
You're definitely the first to win with all 21 gifts, and an impressive time on top!
Wow, what a great thematic piece of bullet heaven!
Thank you for this!
Great fun to play and as always superb design, music and atmosphere.
My best so far: 19 presents at time 06:25 (i'll keep trying)
Thank you NerdyTeachers and a great year 2025 with lots of inspiration.
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