On behalf of The Daily Click, I'd like to wish each and every one of you a very merry Christmas!

This is the last day of TDC and Kliktopia's seven days of Clickmas, and I'd like to do a bit of reflection before getting to the new content. Going back through all these old Christmas competitions has helped me appreicate how much work people have put into an amazing collective effort. Thanks to the organisers, the judges, the developers, and the players who were part of a process and a community that resulted in the creation of new freeware creations that are their own kind of interactive magic which would not have otherwise existed. And of course thanks to the variety of people who contributed to the archival of these games which means that so many of them are still available despite the unreliable of old file hosting services and old hard drives.

These Christmas games express the creativity of their authors through the concept, the gameplay, and the music and sound. Even when the authors used pre-made music and effects, etc., they made creative choices. These games were not made in isolation, they were inspired both by the themes, the community, and the culture of the time. For a number of people, Christmas may also be an extra special holiday for them as Clickers because it is when they may have gotten their first Click produt, or purchased an upgrade to a newer version, or it might be when they got the computer they used to develop the games. It might also have provided peopel with time off to allow them to develop and/or play the games.

So, now on with the games. For Christmas day I'll give you a selection box of ten Christmas games. That's right, the theme today is basically that there is no unified theme. Enjoy the variety!

[Competition Winner] Christmas Time Heroes by Strife

See download page on The Daily Click

Read judge's reviews

Download via Kliktopia

I thought I'd sneak in one lass entry to a TDC Christmas Compo, the winner of the 2010 Christmas Competition. Luckily it was no trouble tracking this game down, as the game's entry on The Daily Click still had a working link. A Christmas miracle!"

This is a deliberately difficult platformer to compensate for its short length. According to judge Assault Andy said the game was "awesome", and particularly praised its"Amazing storyline. Quite engaging". 

[Donated] Atomic Santa: Christmas Omega by Jay Tholen

Download via Kliktopia

Christmas is a time for giving, and Jay Tholen kindly donated this game which was historically for sale for $0.99 on its discontinued itch.io page.

According to the author: "Santa and Rudolph, lone warriors for keeping Christ in Christmas, stand against an Illuminati Onslaught after the North Pole is nuked. Atomic Santa: Christmas Omega is a short-but-sweet festive shmup/platformer experience by Jay Tholen."

More recently, the author also noted that: "It's dated by being a satire on the politics of like 10 years ago".

[Non-English] Santa Cross by Warano (Straw)

Download via Kliktopia

You don't need to speak Japanese to enjoy this Christmas game, although looking at the machine-translated readme for instructions might be handy!

This game was contributed to Kliktopia by Peter, who has sent in a lot of Japanese games but has yet to get in touch via email or the Kliktopia Discord to say hi. If you're listening Peter, then please get in touch so we can thank you more directly for your archival efforts!

[Made as a gift] JJ's Doomsday Christmas by BigAl0104

View entry on The Daily Click

Download via Kliktopia

BigAl0104's 2023 festive follow-up to Alex & Friends' Quest was made for his girlfriend, but shared with the world. Those on the Kliktopai Discord followed along with the development of this lovable platform adventure game.

[Educational] Santa Teaches Typing by Pixelthief

Download via Kliktopia

Made for The Daily Click's Christmas Competition 2010, this is one of the few (or only) educational Christmas-themed Click game. Unfortunately, it ranked poorly due to a lack of sound as that was a key criteron for the competition. Assault Andy praised it for being "actually quite compelling and fun", but warned about its punishing difficulty curve which goes from super easy at Stage 1 to super hard at Stage 3.

[Versus] Funny Furries 2 Xmas by Bastiaan de Jong

Download via Kliktopia

'Tis the season for a bit of combat. Made a few years before the more bloody Christmas Combat by 3kliksphilip, this 1999 game is part of a versus series that I did actually play back in the day, usually fighting against my brother (when we weren't playing Smile Kombat Gold by Smiley Productions).

[Fan Game] Merry Gear Solid 2 by 

Dowload via Kliktopia

See entry on Arthur Lee's website

While there are plenty of Christmas-themed South Park fangames to choose from and at least one Sonic fangame, when I think of games inspired by other franchises I think of the Merry Gear Solid games by Arthur 'Mr. Podunkian' Lee. We already featured the first title in the 2006 Compo, so I'll go with its sequel.

[Point & Click Adventure] Freddie Trims a Tree by Philip Williams

Entry on The Daily Click

Download via Kliktopia

This 1996 game is one of the first Christmas Click games I ever played. I asked the author's permission to port this short but charming point and click Klik & Play adeventure game over to Clickteam Fusion 2.5 back in 2018 and Philip responded immediately giving permission.

[Memorial] Christmas Card by Paul Boland

Download via Kliktopia

In honour of remembering those Clickers who are no longer with us to celebrate Christmas, I am including a 2001 Christmas Card from Paul Boland of KnightTrek Productions. Paul was a kind and generous soul who passed away on the 14th of January 2021. Although I only met him once (at Click Convention 2007) he is still in my thoughts and my heart.

[Hot off the press] Crazy Christmas by Jack or John

Entry on The Daily Click

Download via Kliktopia

I'll finish with a reminder of how people are continuing to make and update Click games by featuring the latest entry on The Daily Click, version 2 of Jack or John's 2023 Christma platformer. The latest release contains new secrets and level design.

I hope you enjoyed this selection box and check out the games that interest you. If you still want more than more Christmas games are available over at: https://kliktopia.org/christmas.html

P.S. If you want to get even more festive then you can go to https://create-games.com/skin.asp to change to TDC's Xmas Skin.