Platformer starring Santa as he heads throughout worlds collecting coins and avoiding everything nasty.

Judging - Chris

GRAPHICS: 7/20
GAMEPLAY: 9/30
PROGRAMMING: 8/20
CHRISTMASSINESS: 12/30
TOTAL: 36/100

Judging - David Newton

GRAPHICS: 11/20
GAMEPLAY: 10/30
PROGRAMMING: 5/20
CHRISTMASSINESS: 15/30
TOTAL: 41/100

Judging - Shab

GRAPHICS: 2/20
GAMEPLAY: 8/30
PROGRAMMING: 5/20
CHRISTMASSINESS: 8/30
TOTAL: 23/100

Judging - Andi Smith

GRAPHICS: 7/20
GAMEPLAY: 9/30
PROGRAMMING: 9/20
CHRISTMASSINESS: 9/30
TOTAL: 34/100

Judging - Assault Andy

GRAPHICS: 10/20
GAMEPLAY: 8/30
PROGRAMMING: 8/20
CHRISTMASSINESS: 12/30
TOTAL: 38/100

CHRIS: To be honest this isn't really one of the better games I've played in the competition. The way the game works is as follows: platform level, flying level, platform level, flying level. Presumably Reno wanted to break up the monotony of the game. The platform levels aren't particularly well designed; they're blocky, repetitive and bland. You can't kill the enemies. You can only collect coins. The engine is very flawed. Thankfully these stages tend to be rather short. Until we get to the flying levels, which really do make this game worse. They're far too long, the Mode7 scrolling is hard on the eyes (especially when it begins to "rotate"), and the stages again are generally quite boring. I don't like being blunt when it comes to it, as Reno has put in the effort, but A Santa Story is very, very crude, in every aspect.

DAVID NEWTON: This game features a custom movement, but it didn't seem to work very well - falling against walls makes the player's character cling to them oddly, and I frequently found myself caught with my head in platforms. This is also the only game in which I've seen a warning that the game might change on different computers, so perhaps it's something to do with that. At least it's nice to see some options provided to change the game to suit the performance of your computer. Gameplay is split between platform and flying levels - alternating them helps break the monotony, but I didn't find either of them particularly enjoyable. On the whole I'd describe the game's graphics as rather mediocre, though some are better than others (namely the penguins and reindeer). The backgrounds are quite nice, but why they're external BMP files that take up a combined total of 4MB is something of a mystery. However, an attempt at Mode7 effects during the flying sections give some variety to the game.

SHAB: What an absolute mess this game is. The platforming section of this game barely functions at all. And the graphics are the same ice block repeated over and over again, it uses the standard platform engine and is no fun. On the other hand, the flying levels are decently fun, and show a decent understanding of the mode7 control.

ANDI SMITH: There's been a lot of platformers submitted to this competition, and this seemed like it was going to be more of the same. The platform engine was buggy, the level design wasn't particularly interesting and for some reason Santa was collecting coins. But then I discovered this game's saving grace.. the flying levels. A brilliant idea, which worked really well. It's just a shame they weren't expanded on further. My advice to the creator of this game is to concentrate on making those flying levels into a proper game, with more to do on them to hold interest. And also, collecting the coins seemed to have no influence on anything in the game - need to look at that.

ASSAULT ANDY: Custom movement was pretty average, I thought it was built in movement until I looked at the cca. It was very glitchy, especially when you were able to get stuck in walls. And I think that those flying levels were put in just to display some whacky mode7. As far as gameplay goes, it wasn't really that fun to play. Alot of the time it was impossible to know where to go, I had to jump in a random direction and waste a life finding out that I should have jumped left instead. The graphics on the Santa and the penguins were pretty good, the animation was done well, but the background tiles weren't so good.