Here we have another extremely festive puzzler made in Adventuron (a system surely designed for the creation of Christmas games), except this one has extra sparkle as it is set in the 1980s! The decade when the finest Christmases were wrought. If, like my family, your idea of the perfect Christmas tableau is the BBC Christmas ident from around 1981 (YouTube might help you here) then you'll appreciate the flavour of Day of the Sleigh. The cute pixel graphics and beepy sound effects serve this setting well and there is a proper story here of potential human tragedy (ok, maybe that is going a little too far) fronting what is a fairly straightforward and compact puzzle game. The gameplay is very linear (you solve one puzzle to progress onto the next one), which is appropriate for this style of game and makes progress tangible and quite satisfying - you feel as though you are getting somewhere, despite one improbable problem after another suddenly cropping up to impede your progress. The characters are charming and there is a gentle wry humour running throughout. The spectacle of Santa being trapped in the storeroom of a bland department store while the unheeding and apathetic sugar-craving functionary stands guard over the keys next door was a bathos I enjoyed, and there are plenty of other little touches that bring the story to life. The post-endgame present choosing sequence is a delightful bonus, and who would have thought that Santa could be so prescient as to get me my very favourite story from season 16 of Doctor Who? Definite proof that I have been nice all year (the naughty kids got The Power of Kroll - serves them right).
I said above that the game is compact, and that is really the main criticism - the small number of locations and the proximity of the puzzles to each other do make it seem slightly constrained. Timing issues may well have prevented it, but it would have been fun, I think, to have a chance to explore a bit more of the store and the play area (the little bit of world-building that you do in the intro makes me keen to see more) and to diffuse the puzzles over a larger area. For example, the locations of the vegetables and the vase seem a bit contrived (and close to each other) - it might have been better if they were a bit more spread out. But even within its more limited scope, it does all hang together and works well.
[EDIT - on a second playthrough, I see that some puzzles do change, so there seems to be more going on in this small area than I at first realised. I'll have to replay properly.]
Here is the usual bug report / comments (no typos evident, which I would expect, knowing your day job):
- there are no take or drop messages;
- UNBOLT (the gate) is not recognised;
- there is something funny going on with ‘press any key’s and redescribing, particularly in the first location. Entering 'L' a few times in quick succession (I'm a habitual LOOKer, for some reason) occasionally results in a redescribe followed by a 'you can't do that' type response. It's hard to pinpoint exactly what the issue is, but it is noticeable;
- PUT CUE THROUGH BARS = "The metal bars is not a container" [Adventuron's standard 'not a container' response has acquired notoriety for me, due to this recurring issue];
- you have to OPEN the door to the south once you've unlocked it, but you don't need to OPEN the gate to the west once you've unbolted it. I'm not a fan of needlessly mucking about explicitly opening doors, but at least this should be consistent one way or the other;
- I'm not sure how I feel about LOOK UNDER and LOOK IN as a way to find things, above and beyond the standard EXAMINE command. It's quite a retro Zenobi-style thing, and can be a bit frustrating, I think, if people aren't expecting to have to do it (it's equivalent to EXAMINE then SEARCH really). But you do signpost it clearly in the instructions, so players should be aware of it (unless they just dive in without reading instructions...)
- the dynamic graphics are good, but could we have something for when Santa eventually escapes from his prison?
- my child found the command 'POKE BALLS' completely hilarious, for reasons I just can't understand.
And that's the lot.
In summary then, another strong game in an impressive field of entries for the jam. Well done!