The Elf Brothers is an mini RPG where you battle slimes to save Santa from the kidnappers. The game features a turn-based battle system where every move is some form of a minigame.

Judging - Chris

GRAPHICS: 16/20
GAMEPLAY: 25/30
PROGRAMMING: 17/20
CHRISTMASSINESS: 21/30
TOTAL: 79/100

Judging - David Newton

GRAPHICS: 18/20
GAMEPLAY: 28/30
PROGRAMMING: 20/20
CHRISTMASSINESS: 25/30
TOTAL: 91/100

Judging - Shab

GRAPHICS: 17/20
GAMEPLAY: 20/30
PROGRAMMING: 20/20
CHRISTMASSINESS: 20/30
TOTAL: 77/100

Judging - Andi Smith

GRAPHICS: 11/20
GAMEPLAY: 20/30
PROGRAMMING: 10/20
CHRISTMASSINESS: 10/30
TOTAL: 51/100

Judging - Assault Andy

GRAPHICS: 18/20
GAMEPLAY: 23/30
PROGRAMMING: 20/20
CHRISTMASSINESS: 27/30
TOTAL: 88/100

CHRIS: Quite an ambitious game, in the form of a small RPG with random battles in the style of Pokemon/Final Fantasy, this game is a technological marvel. The battle engine consists of just one frame, with every enemy programmed inside. The Elf Brothers goes some way to explaining how to perform your moves, with pressing Z and X in conjunction with SHIFT giving you stronger, but slower attacks. Items and power-ups can be collected too - usually by defeating enemies, and they'll aid you greatly in your quest, particularly in battle. I'm not going to spoil too much of the game, because it is really rather good, but the general plotline revolves around the kidnap of Santa, by a very familiar figure that most TDCers will know well. The elf brothers (Reddy, Greeny, and Bluey) must save him! The graphics resemble that of Pokemon in some ways, with sickly cute characters (and enemies) and are relatively detailed. The overall presentation is good, but I feel that the title menu has been slightly rushed, and the whole game, although great, could have done with a bit longer to be something truly polished. For example, (other than the title page) speech text often strays out of its text box. Nonetheless, as it stands, we have a pretty good game on our hands. CYS should be pleased with himself.

DAVID NEWTON: Well, to start off with, I'm pretty amazed that something of this ambition could be produced in the time allowed for the competition. An RPG system has to be one of the most complex things to write, particularly in a non-procedural program like MMF, but this manages it pretty flawlessly. It's what you would expect from a SNES-style RPG - follow a storyline, fight random battles, and use items to heal your characters between them. There are a large number of ways to attack, and each of them require a different type of input from the player - I love the idea of making the combat more interactive than simply selecting "Attack" from a menu. The only flaws I can see is that the random battles might appear just a bit too often, and that it would be nice to have a Flee option for when things get difficult.

SHAB: Wow, I truly wasn't expecting this. A VERY nice surprise; it's competently made, decently funny, lots of things to do, and well coded. There are a few little touches that I like too; a truly worthy contender.

ANDI SMITH: Wow, I'm always impressed by the amount of effort put into RPGs and this one is a solid entry. It's pretty difficult, but varied enough to keep you entertained. It's also quite deep. The Christmas theme wasn't taken as far as it could have been (slime doesn't have a lot to do with Christmas, but a nice effort.

ASSAULT ANDY: Don't suck up to the judges, it's really annoying! Now that that is out of the way, the RPG engine was pretty cool, but it seemed all too familiar with no new elements to the RPG genre. Eg. Walk around for a while until you find enemies, fight, level up, repeat. Some of the moves were really hard to learn aswell, having to remember all kinds of different buttons for different colours and shapes etc. There were way to many controls to remember in the fights.