1.0 Release

is a game I've wanted to get out for the last year and finally got around to getting it out there, thanks to the folks at STL GameDev who pointed me to itch.io.

I used Unreal Engine to develop the game (Blueprints mode), and lower memory graphics assets because initially I was going to make it available for mobile devices. That changed as I just didn't have the time to do all that, so Windows only, for now. Animations for Player and for AI bad elves are all from Mixamo. 

For me, this game was as fun to develop as to play, and I hope everyone can enjoy the 8 levels (a couple of them are tricky) of collecting all the dropped gifts without turning into a zombie elf yourself! I soon realized during my many playtestings that I needed a Music OFF toggle, and I suppose many parents will be quite thankful for that button as well, har har.

At some point, I realized that the player's elf (we can call him Boy Elf) was running around collecting gifts, but had nowhere to put them, so the Santa Bag got added, which made perfect sense, since the Zombie Elves steal your Santa bags with each touch, until you have none left.

There are two really cool power ups, that if used correctly can make each level a lot easier. The first is the Speed Powerup, which energizes your boots and makes you run twice as fast! That combined with the second powerup, the all powerul magical Santa's Hat, can do wonders in ridding the map of zombie elves.

Each level completion celebrates with a victory dance.

But if you lose all three Santa Bags, you turn into a Zombie Elf!

The most challenging part of the whole project was how to move Elf Boy and how to manipulate the camera. After a couple different methods, I settled on using Camera Volumes with the Camera on a Spline so that the Player could see more of the landscape (and thus scope out where all the gifts were and where the Santa Hats are hidden) instead of having the camera always following behind Boy Elf. Plus, the player would never get to see Boy Elf's face if I did it that way.

Moving the player might take some getting used to as the Boy Elf moves to wherever the Mouse cursor was clicked (or finger touched), as long as it is someplace where the Boy Elf can move (the Nav Mesh). In my testing of the game, I found it was best in some cases to just continually hold down the mouse button / touch the screen without lifting and moving it around to navigate Boy Elf with the most control.

In some instances, you might have to sacrifice a Santa Bag to get to the Santa Hat when it spawns, but that's ok, since Santa's Hat will replenish your Santa Bag if you have lost one.

I hope to reskin this game for Valentines (picking up Hearts, or something) and maybe even an Easter Egg hunt. We'll see.

Thanks for reading and trying the game!

Sincerely,

SubrosaGames.com (of JITT Holdings, Inc.)