Unity Thanksgiving and Christmas Games FREE CHRISTMAS IMAGES HERE

Hey, I'm changing game up a bit now... I just randomly had an idea, add something to the levels that if you collect them all, you get something, idk an extra life, or unlock secret levels ....

So I'm actually going to make it play like a regular frogger, but, if you want the secret levels or extra life or whatever I decide to do, then you can try to figure out how to get all the secret objects on every level .

 

Flappy santa?... like santa himself flaps his arms?



K. Basically same game, but snowflakes turn you blue and make you move slower for a while and presents are hard to get bonus items for extra high score. Story is, reindeer all got the swine flu and Santa's gotta do what Santa's gotta do.

I'd play that for 5 minutes.

 

Lol, that looks genius! ^

 

Latest update for Santa's Rocketing Christmas Drop is done.

Total time now at 17 hours... Ladies and Gentleman we have a snowball throwing reindeer. Hard to imagine I spent 3 hours bringing the "cardboard cutout clipart" reindeer to life but that is what it took. Of course, I had to draw the snowball too, forgot to do that previously. And then tweaking his movement. And then tweaking his throw rate. And then tweaking his projecting of where the player will be based on current velocity. Then tweaking the actual snowballs animation during flight. Yeah... it all adds up. No collisions in yet.

Remember, this is one ticked off reindeer. After all he and his buddies were replaced by this fancy new rocket powered sled. Delivering those presents is not going to be so simple after all!


Hopefully, I can get a few more hours tomorrow night to work on this. Depends on how long Thanksgiving celebration lasts and how long it takes me to recover from eating way more than I should.

You can check out the current W.I.P. here.

Santa (you) flies across the screen in his new Rocket-powered sleigh. One of the reindeer looks on from below. Moving back and forth across the screen and stopping to throw snowballs at you.

A and D or Left and Right arrow keys move left and right.
Left Shift, Space or Right Shift drops a Christmas present.

No need to worry about vertical movement. The high-tech sleigh automatically handles vertical thrust as needed to keep you in the air.

 

Latest update for Santa's Rocketing Christmas Drop is done.

Total time now 21 hours. Was too busy (and just wanted to be lazy) yesterday with the holiday festivities (had a great feast and excellent time hanging out with family btw) but I managed to get in 4 hours on the game today! =)
I implemented the collisions between the snowballs and the Sled and the snowballs and the Presents along with the interactions of course. Also tweaked the sled snowfall and thrust graphics slightly, added the new snow effect for the snowball impact and tweaked things in general a bit here & there across the project. I'll need to adjust some things at some point because I think it might be too difficult to deliver all of the presents if the reindeer throws snowballs this often and this accurately:



You can check out the current W.I.P. here.

Santa (you) flies across the screen in his new Rocket-powered sleigh. One of the reindeer looks on from below. Moving back and forth across the screen and stopping to throw snowballs at you.

A and D or Left and Right arrow keys move left and right.
Left Shift, Space or Right Shift drops a Christmas present.

No need to worry about vertical movement. The high-tech sleigh automatically handles vertical thrust as needed to keep you in the air.

How are the rest of the Christmas Game Projects coming along?
Any photos or videos or web player demos ready?

 

Scoring system! Also, I'd like to drop some coal on that little reindeer bugger.

 

Another update for Santa's Rocketing Christmas Drop...

Total time now 24 hours. Tweaked some of the object graphics and redid the background. Graphics take such a long for me to do and end up mediocre in the end but I try. Updated the collision detection & interaction (aka physics but of course I am not using the built-in physics system) for the snowballs and the sled, snowballs and presents, the presents and the house roof, and the presents and the chimneys. Updated the Santa & Sled impact and recovery states to more clearly communicate what is going on. Basically, just a lot of tweaking this time around. It feels pretty solid now so next session I will be pushing forward. Getting close to being able to wrap this thing up:



You can check out the current W.I.P. here.

Santa (you) flies across the screen in his new Rocket-powered sleigh. One of the reindeer looks on from below. Moving back and forth across the screen and stopping to throw snowballs at you.

A and D or Left and Right arrow keys move left and right.
Left Shift, Space or Right Shift drops a Christmas present.

No need to worry about vertical movement. The high-tech sleigh automatically handles vertical thrust as needed to keep you in the air.

So... how are the rest of the Christmas Game Projects coming along?

 

It's good. Will you be zooming along or are there only 3 lucky houses this christmas?

 

I have been wondering that same thing. I just came up with a couple ideas off top of my head when I created this thread. Then started working on the first one. At the time I was thinking just 3 houses and the # of presents to deliver would increase each level. Of course, you will only be able to miss so many too. But I have been thinking with all of the work I have put into the core and the way it's implemented it would easily scale to a scrolling playfield. Nothing hard coded or directly dependent on scene position etc. Collisons maps for roofs and chimneys are automatically generated in code, etc. So... I am not sure.

I could keep it a single screen which feels more retro to me. Or could make it a fixed length say 3 screens long. That would work well because basically you will be tol deliver 3 presents to house #1, 4 presents to house #2 etc. If I had say 10 houses... I could make the player zip back and forth... deliver 3 presents to house #1, deliver 2 presents to house #8, etc. Might need radar to make it easy to determine the target house. That would increase the scope of work a bit.

Could also make it an endless level... with goal being to see how far you can get. Could still fly left and right but screen would only scroll left probably when you are at the center horizontally. That could work.

So I dunno... I like things simple. So would lean toward the single screen playfield. But the multi-screen playfield with 10 houses would be cool too. I'll have to think about it.

 

"Could also make it an endless level... with goal being to see how far you can get. Could still fly left and right but screen would only scroll left probably when you are at the center horizontally. That could work."

To me this has a lot of parallels to Paperboy, delivering something to houses, a tiny target to hit. I just thought Santa would have to deliver presents to the whole world. So, technically... the game can end after 1.5 billion houses.

 

Arrrgh! Nooooooo! LOL That is modern day crazy game dev thinking. Too much focus on realism. Games are magical. 3 houses in a level can represent a city. 10 such levels can magically represent the entire world. If I was an artist I would make each level unique showing houses from around the world. But the cool thing about games is the player can (and is supposed to) be using their imagination. Those are the best graphics of all.

 

Okay, finally back with with another update on the progress of Santa's Rocketing Christmas Drop.

This one covers two different work sessions. The first was 1 hour and the second 2 hours.

Total time now 25 hours. Tweaked some stuff a bit more, worked on the house images (bugged me that the original clip art had the lights on, everyone is supposed to be sleeping) and the background a bit more. No more graphics work on this stuff. Except maybe when the game is done. I am not sure if my updates are making it look better or worse. But I have many options created at this point that I can swap in at the end:



Total time now 27 hours. I wasn't sure how title screens and such were done in Unity. I almost went ahead and did it all one scene. Then I realized hey I bet I can make a separate scene for the other screens. Did some quick searching around and yep I found you sure can. So, that made it easy. Anyway, spent 2 hours reading about scenes, Application.LoadLevel and such (I never realized scenes could -- and are supposed to be -- dragged into the Build Settings oddly in my other Unity projects I never did that and all worked fine probably because I only had one scene), creating a SceneManager and then implementing this title screen. So far, only the Start button actually does anything which is obviously... takes you the to actual game.



You can check out the current W.I.P. here.

Santa (you) flies across the screen in his new Rocket-powered sleigh. One of the reindeer looks on from below. Moving back and forth across the screen and stopping to throw snowballs at you.

Title Screen Controls:
Move focus up to next button with Up Arrow or W
Move focus down to next button with Down Arrow or Z
Press the currently selected button with X, Space or Enter (or Return as Unity calls it old school style)

Game-Play Controls:
A and D or Left and Right arrow keys move left and right.
Left Shift, Space or Right Shift drops a Christmas present.

No need to worry about vertical movement. The high-tech sleigh automatically handles vertical thrust as needed to keep you in the air.


It's coming together. I guess I will kill the Exit for web player builds. From the past I am used to making Exit menu item on the title screen because it was always a desktop game. Not really applicable for web player.

The words look kind of out of place because they are actually in motion.

Want to wrap this up by this coming Sunday night so I can get it out there. I think that should be possible depending on how busy I get with other things.

Still looking forward to seeing some other Christmas Games!

 

Welcome to Unity, scenes--like most of the engine--are awesome and easy.

 

The scene model is nice. Very straightforward. I was happily surprised by that.

I think Unity is very good because it doesn't lock me into doing things their way. I can use the bits that will save time and do my own thing for the other stuff.

Anyway, in tonights dev session I will complete the menu. Then it's back to focusing on the actual game play side. Scoring, level advancement, win/loss. I can see the finish line at this point!

 

Good, this game needs scoring.

With gui 4.6 the menu is just drag n drop, wysiwyg. Literally, could not be easier. DIY menu may be quicker than learning 4.6ui this one time, but in the future not using the visual editor will take longer. Especially if your menu has multiple sections, scrolling text, etc.

Think I will make flabby santa. Should be quick and fun.

 

Back with with another update on the progress of Santa's Rocketing Christmas Drop.

30 hours: Yes, I actually spent another 3 hours on the title screen. Of course, that included the About and Credits screens too. Added a decent little parallax snowfall. Those are easy but add a nice touch I think. Anyway, here is the 5-hour title screen. Woo hoo! lol It actually looks much better when everything is in motion. I also got the domain and a new web hosting account for my new GarsGames.com website. Nothing there yet but that will be my future home for games stuff.


You can check out the current W.I.P. here.

Now I can focus on the pushing forward with the game-play bits and wrap this thing up. I just wanted to get the title screen stuff out of the way because I wasn't sure how involved that would be in Unity. Fortunately, it was all straightforward.

 

Latest update on the progress of Santa's Rocketing Christmas Drop.

Total time now at 36 hours: I invested 1 more hour into the background. This is definitely much closer to how I wanted it to be. I won't spend any more time on it unless I decide to add some more distant trees. I spent 2 hours designing the text images for the status display at the top of the screen and the Level Introduction text.

Then I spent 3 more hours implementing the level data for the number of gifts to deliver (actually broken down per house but that is not implemented yet), the Game Manager to know if the Level Intro is active (fading in the text, displaying it or fading it out), the game is being played, etc. So, now you can clear a level and advance to the next. The Status Manager to handle the display at the top. That is now live tracking presents delivered, how many remain to be delivered and how many have been missed.

Basically, this was a major push forward toward the finish line. There are now two reindeer but the first level is easy with only 6 gifts to deliver. That will help players get some quick success:



Keep clearing levels and ultimately you will reach:


I also spent 3 hours yesterday designing a custom Word Press theme and launching my new website. There is not much there yet but now that it is all designed and set up all I need to do is add some content in the coming days. Of course, this Christmas game will be one of the very first things.

Any updates yet on those other Christmas projects?

Only 17 days left! We must push on and wrap these up!

 

Time for another update for Santa's Rocketing Christmas Drop.

38 hours. Last night I spent two hours on the game. Increased the size of the stats at the top. Also made the Missed counter blink red when a gift misses a chimney and is lost. When the player can only miss 1 more gift the counter stays red. Also created the image for the black smoke pouring out of the sled when it crashes to the ground. And then sits there a few seconds with smoke pouring up from it before looping back to the Title Screen.

Here, I have lost too many gifts and Santa is crashing to the ground. Logical sense? Not really. Of course, I could spin a little story such as every gift that is lost takes some of the magic from the rocket sled. When it is all gone sled crashes to the ground. There... that was easy. Makes sense now, right?



40 hours. Tonight I spent another 2 hours on the game. Created the graphics for the You Won game state. Coded up the effects of them sliding on the screen. The GarsGames.com text fading in & out a few times and then the game cycling back to the Title Screen.


Whew! Been pushing hard on this thing and tonight my mind is actually getting just a bit burnt-out. Of course, every time I am in the code I inevitably tighten the code up a bit here and there and tweak things a bit in the game-play. But I think a big part of it is I am on the computer designing & programming all day at work too.

Anyway, this sucker is almost done now! All that remains is to add the sound FX. Ah and I guess I will also make a Game Over image and display it when the sled is crashing just to make it painfully clear you "lost".

So... tomorrow night I think this game will be finished and ready for play testing. I want this game released 10 days before Christmas so that gives me through this weekend to get the game completed and the relevant pages done on my website.

Only 15 days left til Christmas Eve!

 

Looking good!

 

Thanks! How about your project? Are you going to release in time for Christmas?

 

Eh, didn't turn out so well, I honestly got bored because it was just something I was just a small side project and had me loosing track of my main project, so I got bored and burnt out from it... Most of the work was already done at least for the system setup.. LOL Maybe I should make a template pack and sell it lol.

 

Random Car Spawning.

Level Object Re-spawn (Just like Frogger, you get one of the bugs at the end of level and re-spawns you to start).

Cars know when other cars are in front of them or you the player and honk random horn SFX through array.

Cars with different variant speeds, depending on color (Modeled and just given different speeds, etc).

Animated Texture (for water) - River.

Random Spawning logs, some with Spikes, have it where player can parent it's self to logs so you dont slide off.

Optimized for even the cheapest tablet to work smoothly.

 

Sorry to hear that. But yeah getting burnt out is not good. I felt a little burn-out kicking in tonight myself. But I am about done at this point. This is a side project for me too. My main project is a platform game but I have wanted to make a Christmas game for quite a while. There really are not many good ones out there.

Yeah definitely release your stuff on the Asset store. It will be helpful to people for next Christmas and just maybe someone will even use them for a real simple game (due to lack of time!) for this year.

 

Yeah I hear you man, it sucks getting burnt out, or coming up with just anything to do with a new idea you think is the best idea ever and forget about your last project lol..

Well it's not really a christmas template, it can be used for any type of game like Frogger (but in 3d) kind of thing.
The only thing I didn't mess with was the Camera, I made the Camera like any other 3rd person game lol.

But I've tried to upload stuff to Asset Store once, I don't know how, it's freaking complicated lol.
I know it's not a 100% complete thing, I'll sell it for like 4 or 5 dollars. Just to get something for my hard work (come with all the models, sfx, scripts, the level I have already made, etc).

Everything but the deer as I didn't model the deer so don't want to get in trouble lol.

 

Sounds like a lot of good stuff! Seems like someone would grab it. Be helpful for beginners to see how you've done things. And art assets good for anyone.

Well Santa's Rocketing Christmas Drop is certainly not something I think is the best idea ever. I just wanted a Christmas game and came up with a couple ideas when I wrote the first post on this thread. Really I just pulled them off the top of my head to get people thinking about Christmas games. Some time passed and I thought well hell I guess nobody is gonna do it so I just took the first idea off the list and started the project.

It is a simple game but I am focusing on executing it well. I think someone (probably retro gamers) will find it a fun way to spend 15 to 30 minutes. Next year I will take the game and expand on it making version 2. For now I just want it done.

 

Yeah I'm gonna look into doing it now actually LOL...


Nice, Message me when the game is complete!

 

Latest update for Santa's Rocketing Christmas Drop.

Total time now 43 hours. No screenshot since tonight's work session focused on sound FX.
Yep I spent 3 hours listening to dozens (actually I think hundreds) of sound effects and selecting the sounds needed for the title screen and game-play. Of course, that included processing (trimming, volume changes and so forth) as well as coding it up.

This stuff just takes time even when you're pushing like a madman! No way around it but to dive in and get it done.

Tomorrow, I will get some play testing done and make some final tweaks based on that. Nothing major though because the game is as I want it to be as far as the play mechanics and overall design are concerned. But I will definitely tweak things such as speed of objects and so forth.

Gonna focus on my website starting tomorrow or Friday.

 

Nice update!

I made the game I'm working on into a Webplayer (for Demo)... But it's not a Christmas game, but once I finish an entire level, then I'll release a demo for you to try out (Web Player Demo).

It's like a 2.5D Crash Bandicoot. Gotten quite a bit done in past couple days.

(Entire custom controller, some enemy AI, Level Objects, GUI, textures, etc) just in a couple days of work lol. And considered I started a fresh start on it today from 3d to 2.5D I've got more done today than sense I started the game lol.

But that's what you get when you spend 16 hours a day on stuff lol.


(P.S. - IT'S NOT CRASH BANDICOOT) ITS JUST LIKE IT BUT IN 2.5 D

 

Here is a couple ScreenShots (I haven't added much to it yet)

 

Looking good! Yeah sometimes you can really "get in the zone" with this stuff and get a lot done in a work session.

I get 2 to 3 hours per day for my projects and try to push as hard as I can during that time. I am tracking time spent because I want to see just how long it takes me to complete a game from start to finish in Unity with everything in place from Title screen to level progression, game failure, game won. All little FX,sounds, etc. I think this project would normally have taken me about 36 hours to complete in Blitz or XNA but I still had some things to learn about Unity so it is taking a little longer. Not bad though. The way I see it if I can complete it within 48 to 72 hours it would be like my project for one of those Ludum Dare or other Game Jams. And it is pretty damn polished for 43 hours (so far).

 

Thanks!

Yeah I hear you bro.
Well sense I've never actually completed a game (might just make one level and leave it at that).
I don't want to time my self persae, because I don't want to focus on time, just to make a fun game.
Now once I've completed a game and know I can actually do it, then maybe I'll start timing my self.

But right now it's just focusing on building the game and making it fun .

But, can't wait to check out your game when your finished!
I'll end up making a Christmas like level on my game, just because I love Christmas haha.
But right now not doing that, I'll probably make that the second level.

 

Latest update for Santa's Rocketing Christmas Drop.

Total time now 44 hours. Yep, I only spent 1 hour. Originally, I didn't add a Game Over text when the game was over. Instead I figured it was obvious so skipped it. But in the interest of making it "complete" I added a Game Over text. Also updated the Credits Screen to give credit to the awesome Universal Sound FX that I used for all of the sounds.



I didn't get any play-testing done yet. So...

You can check it out here!

I know it is kind of unorthodox in some ways. Like it is completely keyboard controlled (which I think that is a good thing). There is no press a key to continue. I always thought it was silly when you reach Game Over then press a key to continue. My view is just flow through the states. They lose. Tell them. Wait a bit. Go back to title screen. It works I think.

This should feel kind of "old school" style. I also hope it feels "goooood". I think interaction & feedback are they keys to a good game-play experience. So even in the very simple framework of this game I tried to cram as much interaction and feedback in as possible. If it wasn't for Christmas I would probably add some fluff (add unique backgrounds for each level, update the Santa Sled) and sell this retro style game for $3.95 but it is for Christmas so it will be free.

Please give feedback!!

Is the game too easy, too hard or just right?

Does the player move too fast, too slow or just right?

Thanks!

Oh I should tag @N1warhead and @Misterselmo

 

Definitely HARD!

I love it though, I can see it being pretty addicting tbh!

You should sell it on Android LOL. (It's addicting lol.)

 

What makes the ship take damage? Missing gifts obviously but it seems like it's doing it somewhat randomly as well.

 

Thanks for the feedback! Ah I am not into mobile gaming.

 

It is only when a gift is lost. If it seems random then my efforts to make it clear when a gift is lost may not have been enough. I tried to communicate that clearly with the alarm sound and the flashing of the Missed counter in the upper right corner. A bug is always possible but I would be surprised because the code is only in one spot to do that. But sometimes (with me anyway) I try to stream 3 to 4 gifts in a row and what happens is as I fly off the gifts are still falling, hit a roof, slide down and then are lost but there can be a several seconds between me flying off and that gift finally counting a loss. Maybe that is what you are experiencing?

 

Ok you're probably right, I had my sound volume off.

 

You're welcome!

Well you may not be into mobile, but a lot of people are lol...
Like I'm creating my game for PC first, then later I'll port it over to Droid (takes longer to test droid games) so figured I'd work on focusing on the FUn factor before the irritating mobile work factor lol.

 

One day I might make a game for mobile. I'd have to think about it a bit. To come up with a good design that would work well with the crummy controls.

That is the right way for sure. Focus on the GAME PLAY and nail that before worrying about the other stuff.

How close are you to having a web player version to test out?

And you still have some time to make a little Christmas game!!

 

Well, I could be doing a bunch of work on game tonight, but I've been sitting here letting a video render for a couple hours now it's 59% done. (It's for that Frogger like game). I'm going to try and sell it for a few bucks on assetstore (I'll have a webplayer version of it as well so people can test it) if they like it, I have a video explaining every bit of code + commented code, + explaining how everything interacts with eachother, etc. So I'm hoping the video will help people understand the way everything works.




BUUTTT the game I'm currently working on, hopefully the next couple days (tonight with the video) is dampening me down. I'll be up all night yes, but when something is going like 0.5% per minute it's taking forever lol.

 

Do you have a thread for the game yet?
Was curious and wanted to see it.

 

Not yet, I will soon, just don't think it's really too much worthy enough to see lol.

I did post a couple screen shots a few comments above if you'd like to see.

 

here is the link to the game I'm going to sell on the Asset Store for LEARNING or using the scripts to do various things.

http://warhead-designz.com/DEMOGAMES/Builds.html

 

It seems like I'm dying every time I touch the water or one of the boats on the water - how do you cross?

 

( You don't gotta go over there, sorry forgot to mention that ) It was just something extra i added to it encase anyone wanted to know how to do it, so I included it with the package whenever I upload it.....

But I'll fix it.

(The water is supposed to kill you) but if jumping on all the logs gets you killed I need to adjust the the collider then.

But yeah, there is no (You Win screen) if you can get the present you win lol.

 

Want more feedback? Consider posting your christmas game in Feedback Friday #9 - The Holiday Edition! It'll be up for 2 weeks.

Happy Holidays!
Gigi

 

I had the same question. I died over and over again trying to get across to a log or boat or whatever. I don't think the jump is possible. But I see @N1warhead replied to you that we do not go over there.

I even spent a few minutes running around and jumping on the block in the snow with an X on it thinking I had found some secret key that would make a bridge appear or something.

But anyway man this looks awesome! It is nice to see some creativity in a 3D game! It is crazy how rare it is to see something like this. It looks good. The idea is very cool. Well done! It actually feels kind of retro 3D to me. Like the back when devs could first actually make 3D games they used to make all kinds of things before they switched to FPS and MMORPGs. Your game reminds me of that time.

 

My bad... I just found out I had broken the web player version of the game. lol

I was implementing some security stuff to kill the game under certain conditions and made a little typo. It only takes one character off and BOOM.

Anyway, the game is now live again and can be played here!

 

I'll fix the water collisions now..
(I didn't have any of these bugs) Until I switched from Mobile to PC....

But Just so you know, that pad with the "X" Does do something, you just gotta figure it out



(EDIT :::::

That was weird, the logs all turned into the Vehicles tag (which kills the player) so I fixed the logs guys . Fixing to re-upload

 

Game is Updated (Now you cross the river).

(I don't like to say exactly what people have to do) just remember, you have to get the Present in the level.

I'll leave it up to you to figure out how.
Once you see it you'll be like WOW!!!! lol.



(And I noticed a bug with the model now).
Idk why switching from mobile to PC messed up the models back legs, but oh well, it's whatever lol.