We're at Christmas Eve and it's time for the penultimate festive gift, which is the return of The Daily Click's 2004 Christmas Competition. I have fixed the links to point to archives provided by Chris Street (Circy) and added the screenshots to the page. The theme for 2004 was platformers made in the style of a certain plumber... but more festive.

As noted in Circy's winner announcement post the top two entrants were as follows:

1st: Super Santa Snowland
Author: Mårten Brüggemann (Eve)


Kliktopia entry
Direct download

CHRIS: A great, fun game with some wonderful graphics. Eve has really captured the essence of Christmas and Mario, and blended them both together. First rate. The storyline is perhaps a little predictable, but the subliminal gameplay is more than satisfying. One nit-picking point, however, is that the controls can seem to be a little fiddly. I've often bounced off blocks into enemies, thus resulting in death. Other than this annoying niggle, I see no reason why Eve shouldn't win this competition.

PETE: This is another strong contender. It boasts what are the best graphics of the competition by far - lovely pixel work and great little effects to complement it. Christmassiness naturally shines through because of this. The game is quite hard and sometimes feels unresponsive so I docked it a few marks for gameplay. Marioishness, however, is top notch. The game simply IS Mario, without actually being a Mario clone, if that makes sense. The speed of the characters is slightly off so I didn't award full marks for this category.

SHAB: Another good entry! This one is more like the classic Mario than the newer ones, which normally wouldn’t be a bad thing, if the engine responded properly. Not sure If it was just me or not, but I found myself fighting the controls more than anything. This hurts the game in the worse way.

2nd: Fat Santa
Author: Greg Percy (Dr Evil Face/ Skinny)


Kliktopia entry

Direct download

CHRIS: Very not bad at all. The engine is virtually identical to the Mario style which was being asked of everyone, but it was timer based! Because of this the height jumping varied, no matter how long I held SHIFT down. It was hard to stop Santa while he was running as well. Marks lost on the gameplay front for this. Early levels were Mario-esque, but they seemed to turn into standard platform levels later on and the Mario feel got lost on occasion. Santa himself looked very similar to Mario as well. The storyline was quite amusing and effort was clearly put into it, but it looked a little scrappy perhaps. A nice touch was the level map; the only entrant to add this. Graphics overall were nice, although on some levels it was hard to tell which bits were platforms. Summing up, a pretty good effort, but not as good as it could have been, which is a real pity.

PETE: Another excellent entry, very very Mario-like, although I deducted a mark for the ripped music - a minor blemish in an otherwise great game. The graphics are certainly Mario-esque without being too like their inspiration. The story is standard fare (another elf rebellion) but well integrated.

SHAB: As I think this game reached the goal of being the most "Mario-ish" It got the highest marks in that category. Graphics were alright though some bugs present themselves during gameplay, so some minor marks off for that.

Click here for the full scoring and all the games

(including Santasm by Radix, Christmas Conquest by Stephen Lindberg AKA Snerlin, Santa Takeback by Isac Sandelin of Icegames, Santa: A Late Christmas by Phizzy, Santa en Argentino by Jeremiah, and Floating Head Santa by Batel of Neonair)

In other news, if you haven't checked it out there is currently a Clickteam Christmas Sale on Steam and on itch.io too.

For Day 5 we have The Daily Click's 2003 Christmas Competition run by Pete Nattress. Most of these games were found on the Internet Archive, with the exception of Super Snowboarder where version 1.1 was from my old downloads folder.

The theme for the 2003 competition was "Winter Sports", and many entrants went with ski games, some reminiscent of the Click demo game Ski Monday.

I'll run through the games in order of placement, with the overall summary from each of the judges for the three winners.

If you want to read what exactly the judges said about the games you can find the opinions HERE for Pete, HERE for Circy, HERE for Shab and HERE for Shab.

1st: Freestyle Santa by Tom Carlier (YuYu)

See entry on Kliktopia
Download the game directly

Circy: "94/100. This is brilliant! The graphics have an amazing chunkiness - obviously rendered somehow, but the whole game oozes class and dignity. The engine is a little difficult to get to grips with, but eventually you'll master it. Easily the best entrant in my opinion, Freestyle Santa clearly deserves to win this competition. Excellent work."

Pete: "75/100. This game is a clear contender for the top place. The controls take a while to get used to; in fact, they are the most annoying thing about it, but it is fun once you get the knack. The 3D rendered graphics are quite nice although I do have a few qualms with the blocky main Santa sprite. Music is suitably Christmassy and sounds fit well. A very nice effort all round!"

Shab: "49/100. Hey it's good, but not great."

2nd: DownTime by Paul Jeffries

See entry on The Daily Click
See entry on Kliktopia
Download the game directly

Pete: "68/100. Another of my favourite entries, Paul Jeffries has really pushed MMF and pulled off a pretty impressive feat with this pseudo-3D game. The presentation is top notch, especially the title screen. I think where the game lets itself down is with the rather blocky graphics and sometimes unapparent gameplay – it is an easy game and you may find yourself just sitting there whilst the sleigh drives itself. Sound and music are also a bit lax. Technically, this is a brilliant game but the struggling gameplay issues are stopping it from reaching my number one spot.

Circy: "67/100. A very impressive technical example of what MMF can do; Paul Jeffries has coded this very well. However, the bobsleigh track looks a little naff, and it's slow, so that’s why the graphics aren't as high as they could be. Horrible music, and the whole game gets a little boring. But sheer technical brilliance overall."

Shab: "61/100. The graphics are a mixed bag, and to me the game itself wasn't all that interesting."

3rd: Santa goes Tossing before Christmas by Lasagnasoft 

See entry on The Daily Click
See entry on Kliktopia
Download the game directly

Shab: "69/100. This game is fun, but you won't find yourself playing it for hours."

Circy: "57/100. Interesting mini-game here, rather than a full production. The idea is to throw a snowball as far as you can. This isn't technically a winter sport, as there's this little Olympic event called "The Javelin". Well coded, mind, and probably great fun in short bursts. But not bad stuff overall."

Pete: "56/100. Comment: This is a neatly presented but disappointingly simple button basher. I do love the cartoony graphics though, along with the dangerously ambiguous title. The high score table is nice too, but this game is purely all mouth and no balls, and becomes boring pretty quickly. Music is appropriate but unoriginal and the sound effects leave something to be desired. As for the whole winter sport thing… it’s really not a sport. Low marks for that."

4th: Super Snowboarding by Caspar Raaarup (CsaR)

See entry on The Daily Click
See entry on Kliktopia
Download the game directly

5th: Snowball Showdown by Hernan Zhau

See entry on Kliktopia
Download the game directly

6th: Shovel!!! by Paolo Tajè (Monkey Soft) 

See entry on The Daily Click
See entry on Kliktopia
Download the game directly

7th: Xmas Xtreme by Andrea Galvani (PeggioSoft)

See entry on The Daily Click
See entry on Kliktopia
Download the game directly

8th: Snow Ride by Beejay Urzo (Anfini)

See entry on Kliktopia
Download the game directly

9th: The First Annual Reindeer Games by Kenley Brown

While this game has an entry on The Daily Click the download link does not work. Let me know if you have a copy!

10th: Obstacle Snowboarding by Nuutti Hölttä (GameCyborg)

See entry on Kliktopia
Download the game directly

11th: The Vasa Race by Niklas Heikkilä (joNickArt Entertainment)

See entry on Kliktopia
Download the game directly

12th: High Voltage Snowboarding by Alex Filipowski

See entry on Kliktopia
Download the game directly

I'm not sure what the first Christmas click competition is, but an earlier one was run by Klikkety Klik / TFGF back in 2001.

Thanks to a November 2002 Daily Click post from Chris Street and on the old Klikkety Klik website, I have identified the games and brought back the 2nd and 3rd place winners. I have tracked these games down and added them to Kliktopia so that you can enjoy these slices of Clickmas history from some well-known developers and studios!

Gingerbread Man by Akira of Natomic Studios (2nd place)

See entry on Kliktopia

Download the game directly

Description: According to Natomic "It's basically a small one level long Platform/Puzzle game."

Story: According to Natomic "Some evil misguided candies have kidnapped Santa Claus. If he is not rescued he will be tried and put to death for his acts of manslaughter against nearly a third of the population of Candy Land. Mrs. Claus entrusted you with the task of going to Candy Land and rescuing old Saint Nick. Make your way through the level by dodging gum drops and hard caramel candy. Collect the keys needed to open the chests and find Santa."

Archival history: Thanks to Yxkalle's work for Kliktopia I found that the Andi Smith's Natomic GitHub from 2014 features both the game and its source code.

Santa Pies by Andrew Mather of O3 (3rd place)

See entry on Kliktopia

Download the game directly

Description: According to O3: "Simple christmas game, You have sixty seconds to eat as many mince pies as possible. Control Santa, and eat them pies!!! Features internet score submission so you can find out just who ate all the pies. The game was coded in Jamagic and created for the Klikkety Klik code can be found in the Tutorials section at JamInn."

Archival history: This is one of the few 2D games made in Jamagic. I found version 1.2 of the game in Podunkian's archive, and I found the source code on my computer downloaded from the Clickteam forum back in July 2002. According to the source, the origina game was made in just 2 days. Source code description from JamInn: "Open source 2d scrolling game, with eight directional movement, collision and animation control. Fully commented".

For Day 7 of TDC's 7 Days of Clickmas we bring you the 2006 Christmas Competition, which ended up running a bit late but had the advantage of allowing people to use Multimedia Fusion 2 for the games.

I have gone through all the entries to add working download links and screenshots. This time only two games are missing (Gool 2 and Bryan and Ivan: Frozen Chill) - I'll add those to the page if I get a hold of working copies.

A fewer games in 2006, but still an impressive haul, including some like Merry Gear Solid by Podunkian which went on to become Click classics. It also includes at least two games with level editors: Santasm 3 and Christmas Collector. If decide to create new levels for these old games then feel free to share them with us!

Most of these old games were preserved by Chris Street and contributed to the Kliktopia archive, so big thanks to Circy alongside everyone who participated in ths competition around 18 years ago.

As with the 2005 entries I have also now added this collection to the TDC's Click Museum to make it easier for people to find them in the future.

	Pos	Game	Author	Points
	1	Merry Gear Solid	Podunkian	259
	2	Santaman Got the Blues	Hayo	242
	3	Sleepy Head Santa	Hernan	239
	4	Santasm 3	Radix	227
	5	Definitely Not a Tanooji Game	Bibin	198
	6	sc.exe	Borgi	150
	7	Jesus Saves Xmas '06	Blanco	147
	8	Gool 2	Yuyu	144
	9	Christmas Toy Workshop	Hempuli	140
	10	Christmas Thievery	Slink	139
	11	Santa Bomber	Nioreh	138
	12	Santa's Challenge	Smarty	132
	13	Pengu Volley	Djud	121
	14	Xmas Puzzler	AndyUK	108
	15	Bryan and Ivan: Frozen Chill	Alex Filipowski	101
	16	Christmas Collector	awesomasapossum	62

View the reviews of all entries (with screenshots)

It is now Day 2 of the 7 days of Clickmas. Today's present is a trip back to The Daily Click Christmas Competition 2005.

A number of these games were already on Kliktopia, but half a dozen were not so I've either downloaded them from archive.org or found that they were in my backlog of games to add to the site.

I have added this game collection to The Click Museum, updating the relevant entry page to fix most of the entries to link to where they can be downloaded from The Daily Click and/or Kliktopia.

Click here to check out all of the 2005 competition entries.

Here are the top 10 listable games from that competition:

1st: 386/500 The Elf Brothers CREATED BY: CYS MORE INFO: HERE! CYS's Final Fantasy-esque battle engine blew us out of the water, and the gameplay was addictive and funny. A perfect recipe for winning! CYS wins a copy of the now renamed MMF2: Developer.

2nd: 385/500 Christmas Conquest 2 CREATED BY: Snerlin MORE INFO: HERE! Life can be bitterly cruel. Snerlin misses out on the top prize by one point. Normally I wouldn't do this, but because of this potentially evil twist of fate, a special consolation copy of MMF2 (Standard) has been arranged for Snerlin - time to celebrate :)

3rd: 380/500 Christmas Stone CREATED BY: Hishnak MORE INFO: HERE! Coming in at a very respectable third place is Christmas Stone by Hishnak, a platformer which was liked by all. Sadly, no prize, but you get respect - which is infinately better than a copy of MMF2. Well... perhaps not.

4th: 361/500 Little Santa Little Adventure CREATED BY: Scaneider MORE INFO: HERE! A small exploratory platformer from Scaneider. The game was deemed as a whole as being of a high standard, but it was also considered to be very hard - maybe unfairly so. Still, it's really worth looking at.

5th: 357/500 Barfer Sickmess CREATED BY: Zapper MORE INFO: HERE! 5th place; a very nice shoot-em-up - one of the rare games that isn't actually a platformer! Barfer Sickmess has all the trimmings - fun gameplay, a co-op mode and a running demo if you leave the title page running. Despite these traits, many judges thought that the code was shockingly disorganised.

7th: 353/500 Santa Hanta CREATED BY: Claudius Bartmuß MORE INFO: HERE! Scraping in just below Radix entry, this game is great for a quick ten minute blast. Santa Hanta is arguably the most well presented game in this competition which shows a great deal of professionalism.

8th: 342/500 Robot Santa CREATED BY: Ben Mercer MORE INFO: HERE! Pretty much a pure destruction simulator, and in eighth place is Robot Santa by Ben Mercer. This game fell down primarily on the lack of a Christmas theme.

9th: 331/500 Dungeon TV Christmas Special CREATED BY: Hayo Van Reek MORE INFO: HERE! So where were the Christmas references again? That was the question asked by most of the judges that really knocked down this fun twist on the Sokoban-style gameplay. D'oh!

10th: 327/500 X-Mess CREATED BY: Blueberry_Pie MORE INFO: HERE! Highly Gameboyish platformer with flawed jumping and plenty of penguins.

11th: 322/500 Silent Night CREATED BY:Dustin Gunn MORE INFO: HERE! Stealthy platformer with some Metal Gear Solid parodic references. Sadly it falls just short of the Top 10, but still a very worthy game.

It's time for a Clickmas countdown in the run-up to Christmas Day!

Today's gifts are two custom levels made as part of last year's 'secret' santa gift exchange:

Full Circle by LordHannu (Knytt Stories)

A level of medium difficulty.

Make Me Think by Joshtek (Santasm 3)

Five custom tower floors of medium difficulty.

Download Knytt Stories, Santasm 3, and the custom levels here.

(Scroll to the bottom of the page on Kliktopia for 'Custom Levels uploaded to Kliktopia' - while you are there you can also check out Fifth's custom tower for Santasm 3 as well!)

Come back every day to see what new surprise awaits you.

If you want to contribute something created for this effort (new custom levels, etc) then contact Joshtek via Discord (who you can find on the Kiktopia Discord).

Jay Tholen, known for '90s internet simulator Hypnospace Outlaw (2019) and his Click games like Epidemic (2008), Bottled Water Man Bash (2011) and Outlaw's predecessor Hypnospace Enforcer, has now revealed that his homage to Click sound effects of yore will be dropping tomorrow.

For further information check out:

• The Bandcamp page for the New Active Object album where it can be pre-ordered
• The Steam pag for the New Active Object companion game due out in Q5 2025 that you can add to your wishlist

In other nostalgia news, another dozen games have been uploaded to Kliktopia, including some festive fare:

Happy Halloween! I'll focus on the spooky stuff first...

Hellzy, Jack or John, and MinkoedZamorVedro has been given a special tag and DC points in honour of their participation in the Halloween Revamp event for their games Behead Reanimated, Creepy Tower 2, and Fresh Bacon BETA!

UPDATE - NOW ADDED TRICKY TREATS (SEE BELOW)
UPDATE 2 - NOW ADDED ASHLEY EVENS, THE HUNTRESS OF THE MONSTERS (SEE BELOW)

Behead Reanimated - Trailer

The trailer for the updated TDC 2023 Halloween Competition winner is OUT!

Click here to download the application and read its comments

Fresh Bacon BETA by MinkoedZamorVedro

Rather than simply being updated, last year's Halloween Boss Battle by MinkoedZamorVedro has been transformed into a full game under a new name.

According to the author: "This game has been made for the Revamp Rumble. I have worked all that night, so the description can be unreadable...

Story: Well, another year in a row, that pumpkin wants to prevent our friend Golden Pork from living his ordinary piggy life... Actually they just gave me a second chance to make a game for the halloween competition.

Gameplay: This game is a basic platformer where you control a Golden Pork. Use arrows to move, shift to jump and Z to shoot. You can collect different bonuses, that can help you defeat enemies. Also you can collect power-ups, which will upgrade your damage. Last but not least, you can collect money, for which you can upgrade your max health, attack power and attack range."

Click here to download the application and read its comments

Swipe-o'-Lantern by Joshtek

Because I wasn't running the competition I ended up taking part this time... enjoy my entry for Fusionween 2024!

Acording to the author: "Swipe your mouse to launch your pumpkin across the screen to collect as many candies as you can before the timer runs out.Swipe your mouse to launch your pumpkin across the screen to collect as many candies as you can before the timer runs out. Hit anything too hard: YOU EXPLODE! Hit the bomb that looks like an orb: YOU EXPLODE!
Run out of time: YOU EXPLODE! Hint: For a long life, please try to avoid exploding."

Click here to download the application and read its comments

Tricky Treats by Jack or John (and SpleenRcool, BigAl0104 and CavernCroc)

A bit of a collab this one. Jack or John sure has been productive lately!

Acording to the author: "How much candy can you collect from competing in 20 microgames? The only way to find out is by playing now!"

Click here to download the application and read its comments

Ashley Evens, the Huntress of the Monsters by  Indigo Steel Shield

A game that is all about learning and countering the attack patternd of a variety of enemies, here is a Halloween game from the creator of games such as the recently updated Circle of the Shadow Wraiths.

Acording to the author: "This is a VERY simple game that I have submitted for the 2024 Fusionween contest. It is an action game with several stages. It is all over-head, top-down action. You can move in four directions as you shot blots at the enemy. The goal is the defeat all of the enemies during each stage."

Click here to download the application and read its comments

Play and rate the entries to Fusionween 2024

There have been eight entries to the Halloween game competition ran by Toby Davis other on itch.io.

Check out the entries at https://itch.io/jam/fusionween-2024/entries and vote over the next fortnight.

TDSE Online Beta Build 1.00 by Zet Hell

Not made for Halloween, but its always a good time for online games. You might remember this game from its project page covered in the previous news post. Help test it out! 

According to the author: "TDSE Online is an open-source & free top-down shooter engine with support for 8 players. This is only the Beta Build of the Engine for play-test purposes!TDSE Online is an open-source & free top-down shooter engine with support for 8 players. This is only the Beta Build of the Engine for play-test purposes! This Beta version currently only supports Free-For-All Deathmatch mode with 8 players per match. I will attempt to keep the server up as often as I can, but I'm running it from my PC for the time being."

Click here to download the application and read its comments

Halloween reminders

• As usual, you can check out old free Click Halloween games on Kliktopia.
• Go to https://create-games.com/skin.asp to set TDC to the Halloween theme!

Some variety in the games this week. Enjoy!

New game: Stage Tower 3 by re15ster

The third in the Stage Tower series continues to build upon and improve from the previous games while also bringing something new to the table. It's still a tricky platformer, but benefits from smoothing out a lot of the rough edges of the earlier games to make a much more refined experience. From the mesmerising sound and background effects to the improved feel of the gameplay, there is a lot to like about this third outing. Check the others entries out too, though!

According to the author: "A short and difficult platformer game."

Click here to download the application and read its comments

Project: TDSE Online

I've always been fond of an online Click game, and this online variation on the Top-Down Shooter Example is taking an open-source approach to the genre. Back in the days people used to run their own forums for those testing games, but the future is here and now everything is running through the project's Discord, from build downloads and server status to the change log. Help support this project's development by helping to test the necode!

Acording to the author: "TL;DR: I'm working on TDSE Online and I need testers soon: https://discord.gg/PCFVVCtdMF. A while back I was working on a project called TDSE, which was released on the Steam Workshop...now I'm working on TDSE Online, a fully open-source and commented "online" version of TDSE, supporting 8 player deathmatch, but I'm considering adding Team Deathmatch as well. I desperately need testers to help me figure out if the netcode & server stability is actually working as intended. And I would greatly appreciate anyone who joins my discord for the project. Help test the project, hang out and share ideas/feedback/criticism."

Click here to visit the project page

Revamped Game: Creepy Tower 2.1 by Jack or John

This platform game from The Daily Click's Replayable Boss Battle Halloween Competition has been updated as part of our re-vamp event, including altered level design, a new boss attack, and unique music for every character.

According to the author: "Phil has invited Gavin to a Halloween party over at a haunted mansion, but the twin of Phil would like to have a talk to Gavin once he comes over...."

Click here to download the application and read its comments

Revamped Game: Behead Reanimated 1.0.4

The original Behead won the top place in The Daily Click's Replayable Boss Battle Halloween Competition last year... and now it's back with new boss attacks, new player movement tech, key rebinds, a secret game mode, tweaked graphics and sound effects, and more!

According to the author: "This game does exactly what it says on the tin, allowing you to... behead yourself. In this bone-rattling adventure, you play as a headless skeleton, dubbed 'The Fleshless' by the nefarious vampire lord/terrible punster Dragh Kyllah.
Forever confined to his idle frames, Dragh Kyllah is envious of the Fleshless' ability to have different animations. You must combat the salty bloodsucker's countless minions, including zombies, bats, goblins, and ghosts, and eventually, the man himself. But you also come prepared, albeit against your will, as various objects are hexed to become your surrogate head/weapon."

Click here to download the application and read its comments

Halloween reminders

• As usual, you can check out old free Click Halloween games on Kliktopia.
• There's 10 days left in Toby's Fusionween 2024 Game Jam.
• There's just over a week left with TDC's Revamp Rumble & Trailers of Terror.

New/upcoming commercial releases you might find of interest

• Derek Yu and Jon Perry of Blackeye Software, maker of Click games like Trigger Happy and Eternal Daughter (and non-Click games like Spelunky) are back with PC title UFO 50, a new commercial game (or more precisely a collection of 50 non-Click games made for a fictional 1980s gaming console). 
• Sam Beddoes of FreakZone Games gave us free Click games like Project Nebula and commercial projects like the AVGN games. FreakZone are now working on the upcoming licensed Rocky Horror game due out on Steam later this month. Add it to your wishlist now!
• W3R3W00F, who created Click games like 2010's Overkill, has told us on the TDC Forum that they have a Kickstarter for their graphic novel SEE YOU NEXT YEAR: The "Halloween-est" Story of All Time 🎃
• The ClickStore might still be down, but we're continuing to get updated from The Reactor Patreon run by Clickteam. The latest entry from 5 days ago is the Firehawk Rescue example that uses a pseudo-3D engine.

No new platform games for ages, and then two come along at once from some familiar names. And fun ones, too!

Sir Hickrey by The MPP

This is an action platforming game with fun graphics, a sense of humour, hidden secrets to find, a variety of worlds with their own themes, a number of different weapon types, and a variety of movement and attack patterns for enemies. What's not to like?

According to the author: "In a far away land a single small castle remains as one of the last kingdoms standing against a great threat. The villianous Kaiser Bloodmoon has conquered land after land and has assigned his monstrous Counts to govern them. In a panicked frenzy, the King of the small castle picked Hickrey, a short and inexperienced fellow, to put on a suit of armour and venture for the Castle of Calamity to take down Kaiser Bloodmoon. Will Hickrey be able to save the lands?"

Click here to download the application and read its comments

JJ in Super Mario: Multiverse Chaos by BigAl0104

A Mario-esque game with a variety of cameos along for the ride. The screenshots pretty much tell it all: We get a fun intro, an interesting mishmash of graphics and some familiar mechanics like coins, blocks to smash, and a time limit to work within. Check it out!

Acording to the author: "JJ has gone out for a walk around the park on a very beautiful day, until suddenly she gets sent to the world of Super Mario through a mysterious portal that appeared out of nowhere. But it's not just the typical world of Super Mario, it is also infested with a bunch of enemies from other games. Who would be responsible for this? Can you help JJ escape this "Multiverse Chaos"? The game consists of only 4 levels of jumpin' and stompin' action. You know, typical Mario shenanigans."

Click here to download the application and read its comments

And now for some old games...

The third update to Kliktopia this month brings us another 21 entries, including the The return of Fishhead by Hayo van Reek:

P.S.Don't forget TDC's Halloween events: Revamp Rumble & Trailers of Terror!