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Santaman and his iced muffins
Author: Hayo Submitted: 24th April, 2009 Favourites:1
Genre: Puzzle Downloads: 584
Rated:
39th Place     (4.62 / 5)


Edited By Hayo on 4/24/2009

(As I write this it's april. This is a Christmas game. Originally made for the Clickteam/Madword Xmas competition, but it seems judging will take a while (which is ok as they are using their time to do awesome things) and I need to get this out of my system.)

This is my first completed solo effort since 2003 and the first thing I did worth a darn in years. It is based on the graphics and engine of the first Santaman game (very small game from 2006), both retouched. I realised most of my games follow a pretty lame “new enemy every five levels” pattern so my main mission was to make something more enjoyable than that. The game is around four times bigger than its predecessor and actually has the content to carry that load. Still, being the lazy coder I am, there might be some repetition in this game (hey,it’s a gridbased puzzle-platformer, what do you want?).

Gameplay
Please note that this is not a jump and run game, it's much slower and griddier than that. You can walk around with the arrow keys, shoot fire-stars with ctrl, shoot ice-stars with the spacebar and jump with shift. (and of course you can configure that). You can also climb ladders and ropes, and crawl under stuff. The main objective is to collect all iced muffins and get out. On your way you will find enemies, traps, blocks and bridges. Most enemies are easily evaded but you can also toast/freeze them with your (limited amount of) stars. I recommend freezing as you can play with the block of ice it creates, but don’t let it play with you! Every two levels you will find Santette (Santaman’s lovely wife) who will save the game for you.

Graphics, sound and music
I ripped alot from myself for this game. When I dug up the first Santaman I noticed that it has the best graphics I did for a game to date. I retouched them and made lots more. I also took some graphics I did for an abandoned kinda-summer-version of Santaman I did in 2007, which fit right in as they were done in the same style. I did all the sound effects and music tracks in my studio (which is still very much in the works) apart from the chopping and sawing sounds, which I recorded in my dads garden with his axe and saw with a directional mic pointed at it. The music is a combination of soundfonted midi and real instruments (piano, guitar, egg shakers)

I had some fun making this game and hope you will have some fun playing it. (Oh yeah, it’s ok to play this when it’s not Christmas, Santaman is not Santa Claus, he is just some fat dude who dresses up like him all winter.)

Oh yeah, trailer-ish thing: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K9JCdQA2e9A

Review This Download



    


http://www.hayovanreek.nl/viewpage.php?id=68 (7778 kkb )



Posted by Ski 25th April, 2009
Rated :

Awesome as ever Great graphics and more challenging than the first game
 
Posted by MBK 25th April, 2009
Rated :

The first game was good. I like how the ropes were used and you gained new abilities as you went.

Is there more of that in this one? ... the grid-based movement was good in the first too.

Downloading.

 
Posted by alastair john jack 25th April, 2009

Really nice game
 
Posted by Knockturnal 25th April, 2009
Rated :

Wonderful game, but a tad hard
 
Posted by Steve Harris 25th April, 2009
Rated :

Great stuff.
 
Posted by Jason Orme 25th April, 2009

Great graphics.
 
Posted by Mr G 25th April, 2009

I cannot seem to get access to your website. Seems like my stupid ISP has blocked .nl websites
 
Posted by Hayo 25th April, 2009

Alternate link here:
http://www.caiman.us/scripts/fw/f3692.html
 
Posted by Mr G 25th April, 2009

Yea, works now
 
Posted by Bricnic 26th April, 2009
Rated :

Really cool game. I found a bug- if you go to password, and enter the password too quickly, he says "Correct!", and then just stands there. No way to reset the game other than force quitting either. I love the sound and music, and general atmosphere of the whole game though
 
Posted by Hayo 26th April, 2009

Eek, thanks for the bug report, will fix soon
 
Posted by AndyUK 26th April, 2009
Rated :

You know, this new graphic style of yours has really grown on me. Well, I say new but it's been like this for years. It's Better than mine will ever be.

The music is reminiscent of Bernard and hank which should be kind of out of place in an xmas game. But I didn't really get that feeling during gameplay. Once again your music style has really grown on me. I'm not sure if you're getting better or if my tastes have changed...

The level design is pretty well thought out, Although I did find myself getting caught out a few times, unfairly it seemed. For instance climbing up a ladder and taking a few steps only to have two enemies walk on screen either side of me with no time to escape.

I also found myself dying a lot due to impatience. I guess i'm not a fan of such a rigid grid based movement. Maybe you could tweak it so you don't have to let go of left or right before you can duck, a player in a hurry can often become unstuck with even such a small thing.

Definitely 5 stars for this. NOW GO MAKE FISHHEAD 4!
Comment edited by AndyUK on 4/26/2009
 
Posted by Hayo 26th April, 2009

Thanks for the review, Mr G

AndyUK: I will make Fishhead 4 someday. Promise.
 
Posted by Tropik 27th April, 2009
Rated :

Whoah!
 
Posted by alastair john jack 28th April, 2009

I like that promise
 
Posted by MBK 28th April, 2009
Rated :

Fantastic game Hayo! .... even better than the first one.

 
Posted by Hayo 28th April, 2009

Thanks for the review, M..Matt??
 
Posted by Fadex 29th April, 2009
Rated :

Your graphics are way too good to be real

Awesomness.
 
Posted by Jess Bowers 1st May, 2009
Rated :

Fantastic pixel art! Love it!
 
Posted by chrilley 1st May, 2009
Rated :

A fun puzzle-platformer with great graphics.
Comment edited by chrilley on 5/1/2009
 
Posted by alastair john jack 5th May, 2009

I love seeing the rare occasional game with beautiful pixel art!
 
Posted by Solgryn 9th May, 2009
Rated :

okay game, nice graphics but hard
 
Posted by Hayo 10th May, 2009

The difficulty seems the be the most difficult part about making games. Some people complained it was too easy.
 
Posted by Kazuma 15th May, 2009
Rated :

It looks great and the music is lovely, but the game play is rather boring. Also, the scrolling and jumping annoyed me.
 
Posted by Hayo 15th May, 2009

I could make a version without scrolling and jumping for you if you want.
 
Posted by Kazuma 16th May, 2009
Rated :

It's not that those things make a game bad to me, it's that you did them poorly here.

And besides, that wouldn't be THIS game. I rated and commented on THIS game.
 
Posted by Hayo 17th May, 2009

That's not very funky for feedback. What is poor about the jumping and scrolling? What should I change next time?
 
Posted by Kazuma 19th May, 2009
Rated :

The jumping is just annoying. Why give him the ability to jump if he can only do it when standing still?

And I didn't like how the screen was centered in front of him so every time you turned around, the screen had to move.

It just wasn't my cup of tea.
 
Posted by UrbanMonk 1st July, 2009
Rated :

Forgot to vote on this great game. But like others said the gridbasedness of it all just kinda ruined it.
 
Posted by Hayo 3rd July, 2009

I think you guys are just way too young for this. The next Santaman will have the same movement.
 
Posted by Kazuma 9th July, 2009
Rated :

20 is way too young? I think it's a bad movement, not us.
 
Posted by Hayo 17th November, 2010

See? I could ignore you for over a year Read the fucking description.
 

 



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