Santa Must Save Christmas by Alexx

Time Played: about 11 minutes

Overall Gameplay (6 / 13 points)

Comments: Designing the game into five independent minigames was an interesting choice for a jam game - but it was also a unique one which made it a nice change of pace from the other jam entries. Each minigame was pretty simple, but also pretty monotonous. They took a long time to finish, but didn't really develop at all in terms of difficulty or game space or any other mechanics. It felt more like the minigames were waiting for me to "fall asleep at the wheel", so to say - that is, rather than being challenging or ramping up the difficulty, they made me do the same thing over and over again waiting for me to make a mistake. This was a disappointment for me, as I thought the minigames were otherwise well-thought out and well-designed for a jam game. The minigames all played decently. The jump path in the first game was kinda strange, and the obstacle hitboxes were quite unforgiving. The bag-opening mechanic in the second game occurred too frequently for it to be consequential. The third game was fun, but it was also a pretty uninspired, basic matching game. The first and fourth games opting for mouse-only controls was a bit bizarre, but forgivable given the minimal control set.

Theme Inclusion (4 / 6 points)

Comments: It was good to see "elements" making some sort of appearance in each minigame, but there were times when it felt a bit forced. The existence of different elements in the first two minigames didn't actually impact gameplay at all, for example. The choice of elements felt kinda out of place with the rest of the game's Christmas theme, too.

Overall Presentation (7 / 10 points)

Comments: I appreciated the detailed and informative interfaces. I probably could've gone without all the messaging on the main menu about what the individual minigames were, as it caused a lot of clutter for no real gain. I wasn't a fan of the instructions being shown on-screen before each minigame for a fixed amount of time before fading away - it pressured me into reading and interpreting at an uncomfortable pace. The game looked good overall, but some of graphics and animations were lacking polish, and stock particle effects were pretty common. A few of the visual effects were a bit over the top and distracting, such as when collecting an element or completing a match would trigger an effect that would basically fill up the entire screen. Music and sound effects sounded good!

Final comments: This feels like a complete entry. I was just hoping to see a little more depth to the minigames.

Total Score: 17 / 30