The Christmas Games Discussion | Slightly Post-War Podcast
The Escapist
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30.09.2021
How about Santa themed porn game? Do every hot wife and not get caught. Hahahaha!
Death and Taxes clone: You're assigning children to the Naughty and Nice lists over several Christmases. Depending on the child, awarding presents or coal changes holiday stats like Christmas cheer, belief in Santa, good will on Earth, and materialism. At the end of your time you see what state the holiday is in – is it the modern commercial blitz? A more wholesome traditional holiday? Or has the holiday itself fallen out of favor?
Santa auto-chess: Santa can't handle all of the deliveries on his own so he is now acting as the administrator for several teams of helpers who make deliveries to different parts of the world. You recruit Santas with different traits (Skinny is better at going down chimneys, Fat gives more Belief if spotted by kids, etc.), sleighs (higher capacity vs faster), and reindeer (pulling strength, speed, visibility). You need to build teams from these parts to deliver different routes in the allotted time to build up Belief and Good Cheer.
I think, as was pointed out, Christmas movies tend to be low budget because they tend to not be movies people look forward to very far in advance. Whereas a new star wars movie is something people will anticipate for years, "Jingle All the Way 7: the Re-Kringling" is something that people will notice when it comes on their cable subscriptions/Netflix queue, and not really any other time.
The other problem is cultural. Neither China nor India is Christian in significant enough numbers to warrant something themed, and even in places where Christianity is the dominant religion, Christmas traditions vary dramatically.
I can't believe jack can be so obviously wrong so many times so quickly in a row.
In Secret of Mana, you fight Santa Claus, after he's been turned into a Frost Gigas, being corrupted by the power of a Mana Seed. He stole the seed to grow a giant Christmas Tree, because children stopped believing in him.
Yakuza is a Christmas game in the same way Die Hard is a Christmas movie.
A santa themed Stealth game? Hitman 2 costumes allow us to fulfil that fantasy!
Donovans Reef is the greatest Christmas movie!
Lemmings Christmas was a Christmas game
(i know it was already a christmas film … and not a good game … but…) the opposite of what Jack was suggesting, like Home Alone – you're the child at home setting alarms/traps because you want to see Santa.
The best part of this video was the conclusion: Yahtzee kept a straight face even with Jack cracking up. But seriously, I could see all these suggested Christmas games end up as Season 3 of the Dev Diary
Why the surprise about Parasite Eve?? The game opens up with New York and the tree at the Rockefeller Center. You attend the opera and get into shenanigans because it is Christmas. Christmas is also used as a plot point as to why a lot of people are traveling out of the city and the evacuation process is kinda of a mess; Day 2 has the Christmas recital at Cetral Park. Christmas all over that game.
Why not a Christmas edition of preflight panic? Same game but everyone's got Santa hats and is headed home for the holidays
I would instead posit a reverse Thief as a Christmas title. Add in a mechanic where you must research or investigate your targets to determine what they need or want. Keep the pseudo Victorian setting. A yes, little Susy in this super wealthy district lost her parents and her new guardians are stealing her wealth and not feeding her properly. So, as Seasonal Garrett, you must get Little Susy some traditional citrus fruit to prevent scurvy, and get evidence of her mistreatment to the authorities so she can be properly cared for. And you must do so unnoticed. If you do get noticed by the guards around Susy, you can keep the combat because these guys are clearly evil, except for the one guard who's trying to improve her terrible situation. Identifying and rewarding him is now a bonus challenge when completing the level. Getting the evidence to the right cop unnoticed to ultimately save her is another connected level… I think a game like that would actually go over very well, especially because it need not be marketed as a holiday title. Just slap a thing in it that decorates the city for a month when the game is played in December and make his outfit conspicuously bright red with white trim to send the message home. The rest of the year? It's the same game, without the holly jolly lights and stuff, unless you go hard mode and turn them on because all those bloody lights make it harder to sneak…
I do like how the Verdun game recreates the Christmas Truce every year.
OMG no no no no no seasonal events in otherwise fine video games are so fucking annoying. Giving the Dodos in Ark a santa hat isn't festive its annoying. Dropping giant fuck off boxes all over my factory in Satisfactory isnt fun its a visual nightmare.
okay imagine a game like Factorio or Ark or Autonauts where you play as Santa and have to like tech up through the ages.
Jack's audio quality is chef's kiss
Grinch on PS1 is my favorite Christmas game.
Die Hard IS Christmas movie! And Disney's Star Wars makes George Lucas look like Shakespeare.
If you want to expand on the concept of a Christmas game, then remove the Christ part and amp up the pagan roots. Has anyone played The Witcher 3? Yule is directly connected to The Wild Hunt. You've also got strange creatures associated such as Krampus or Gryla and the Yule lads.
The seasons were a time of fear and death, which is why people cherished one another so much. You never knew who would bite the big one. You could have a game where someone has to continuously collect wood for the Yule log while avoiding getting swept up into the wild hunt.
[Edit]
Just to clarify something people don't get. Krampusnacht is on December fifth. So it's a bit early, but integral to the "Santa mythos".
Whenever pecker is saying “sure” as a reply to yahtzee, it sounds condescending. Don’t know why, but it’s bugging me ever since the first scw
I’ve never loved another human I’ve never met as much as I love yahtzee
The idea that kept coming to my mind is Death Stranding. You're taking cargo (sometimes utility items, sometimes more present-like items) to a destination, often for the promise of few rewards besides personal satisfaction.
I like Yahtzee new recording location in heaven.
Undertale is a Christmas game and not just cause of Snowdin. I've genuinly consistently replayed it at Christmas time and its always been wonderfully fitting.
mgs5 christmas edition. You play as santa and use the fulton device to capture new "elves" for your workshop.
I feel like Yahtzee's ideal depiction of Santa would be closely resembled by the one imagined in Futurama haha. Also, I am a bit surprised there wasn't much of a mention a lot of online games do festive Christmas weeks in their games. I guess neither play or have played many recently short of the Team Fortress shout out.
Don’t forget the DLC “How the Saints saved Christmas” from Saints Row 4.
what about mmos that have Christmas events? shouldn't they count?
46:51… man that caught Jack by surprise!
Jazz Jackrabbit 2 :O
Satisfactory made this type of "give it and den pull it back" theme season. Presents arę parahuted im big crates near you and arę a basen for the entire chrismass production line.
I am wondering how they completely forgot about the switch when talking about current gimmicks, Nintendo sales, or consoles appealing to casuals.
Hey I was the listener yahtzee! The last time I brought up part 7 it was telling my son I fell asleep in the theater twice watching it. Slept through that movie twice. And had forgotten it till now haha!
Yakuza 5 is a Christmas game.
I wish Jack would study about some subjects. Yahtzee knows and tells about plenty, but Jack just smiles and nods. It's not that much to do, to read up on the subject matter.
I used to love playing The Grinch on my PS1
Die Hard is absolutely a Christmas movie…
Die Hard is a Christmas film – Christmas is integral to the plot. Juxtapose this to the likes of Iron Man 3; Set at Christmas however Christmas is not integral to the plot, so not a Christmas film.
So basically you need a couch co-op game for consoles releasing just before Christmas to get enough units in the living rooms so there's lots of potential customers for people/companies developing for your platform and they can make the economies of scale work instead of your console dying.
The conversation about updating santa reminded me of the one Family Guy episode, where Brian and Stewie went to the north pole and Santa and all his elves were dying and polluting the world because they had to produce so much technology like iphones and xboxes, instead of what they used to make. They even had a musical called "Christmas time is killing us" and it was totally fucked. Very interesting commentary about consumerism and the mythos of santa. Weird for an episode of family guy, which is usually such a shit show with no relevant independent thought put into it.
Dead rising is about wide spread consumerism as in all the zombies nom everything. And christmas is all about all the hoomans nomming everything.. 😀
A Krampus game :D!
WOT has all the xmas gaming extras missions etc…
Resonance of Fate starts at Christmas and Christmas important in the story… and Chapter 12 is my go to Christmas game. Used to be Christmas Lemmings.
Die Hard is a christmas film though…
Parasite Eve is all set on Christmas Eve/Day
I'd like to see a 10 hour Earthbound-style game set at christmas-time. I think it would have the childlike innocence of the season and 10 hours would make for a nice, short game to do within 25 days.
Everyone's moms also had cooking mama