Well, it’s that time of year again when people grasping for writing ideas start out their articles with, “Well, it’s that time of year again.” Christmas is/was in the air, there’s a Kwanzaa in progress, and I have it on good authority that Chanukah happened. We even saw a little bit of snow, or a huge heaping helping of snow, or possibly some succulent pineapples, depending on where we’re from.
With all these ways to identify the season, it’s only natural that so many Flash games and animations would draw inspiration from winter, Christmas, Kwanzaa, Chanukah, and Hannukah. It’s unnatural for them to be smashed together as the unifying theme for this column, but I don’t really have any choice because Christian Porter already stole the only theme worth reading about.
Here’s how my jolly rating system works:
5 = Like excellent golden rings.
4 = Like very good calling birds.
3 = Like good French hens.
2 = Like decent Turtle Doves.
1 = Like a poor partridge in a pear tree.
0 = Like shoving all of the above up your nose.
…
This month’s theme: December holidays.
Creator: Woadraiders
Interface: Keyboard, point and click (menu)
Description: Hurl fragile presents down chimneys, stomp birds into a gooey paste, and apply blunt force to cats until they fall from the rooftops to their doom. Family-friendly fun starring a cute cat.
Review: If you want a holiday game that involves a cat, knocking creatures off of buildings, and dropping presents in chimneys, you’d be better off with Garden Gnome Carnage, which is actually nothing like Christmas Cat. Though the gameplay and music here are soothingly repetitive, most of the replay value stems from restarting the game because you suddenly died. This otherwise mindlessly fun game is ruined by poor feedback and technical issues; not even the irresistibly cute feline protagonist can make up for…make up for…make OH HE’S SO CUTE! CUTE CUTE CUTE.
Verdict: 3/5: Wait, Christmas Cat is not that great a game! Don’t give in! STOP MEOWING AT THE SCREEN.
Creator: CodeHeads
Interface: Keyboard, point and click (menu)
Description: You’re an elf trying to save Chanukah by skating over a frozen river to recover Rabbi Plot Device’s lost presents. You’re also exceptional at gliding out of control and faceplanting in the snow.
Review: This game is loads of fun until you’ve gotten comfortable enough with the wildly uncontrollable physics to actually play the game. After that, the Christmas Cat-esque repetition will soothe part of your brain into a place where nothing matters but sliding around in corkscrews to scoop up presents, while the other part of your brain thinks of how anything else in the world is more important than sliding around in corkscrews to pick up presents.
Verdict: 3/5: The game just doesn’t give me enough extra lives so that I can faceplant to my heart’s content.
Creator: I…I don’t actually know. Sorry for ruining your holiday season.
Interface: Point and click
Description: A Chanukah simulator/quiz game in the same vein as Christmas Cat, in that it’s family-friendly and impossible to win.
Review: The only reason to play this game is so that you can claim to have grated virtual potatoes. I can’t recommend this to the wee ones, nor to any uninformed gentile, considering how unforgiving the game is. (You fool! Menorah comes before Dreidel! A pox of potato latkes on you!) I should never play a game where the walkthrough recommends that I “be Jewish.”
Verdict: 2/5: Whoever made this game surely meant well, but anyone who can identify and wrap the elusive Chanukah gifts without excessive trial-and-error—while still having fun—is eminently overqualified to grate virtual potatoes.
Creator: Oh, jeez…I don’t know this one, either. Kwanzaa is ruined!
Interface: Point and click
Description: Seriously? You light the kinara. Boy, it’s a good thing I’m here to hold your hand.
Review: Evidently, Kwanzaa isn’t widely celebrated where I come from because the holiday is over by the time you figure out what a kinara is, and how to light it. I’ve set plenty of things on fire in my time, and I’m fairly certain that I’ve never set up a complex system of branching tubes to light a candle. Like Christmas Cat, there’s no obvious in-game feedback to tell you what you’re doing wrong, which is a problem when what you’re doing wrong is not lighting the kinara.
Verdict: 1/5: YOU CANNOT LIGHT THE KINARA IN A GAME CALLED LIGHT THE KINARA. Oh, but of course, when I go back to take a screenshot, suddenly the game begins to work. A little. Maybe you can have one point for every candle I can light.
Creator: Yoshi 1-Up
Length: Short (1-2 minutes)
Description: Sonic and Tails have a Christmas celebration. If you need to know more, you’ve already clicked on the link above.
Review: I greatly enjoy the style of humor employed in this video. That’s all the review you’re getting this year—be glad I didn’t give you coal!
Verdict: 5/5: This is the hilarious Sonic-themed video that Christmas Cat could have been.
OK, the holidays are over. Go about your business.
