Developer: Anamik Majumdar
Publisher: Anamik Majumdar
Platforms: PC
Tested on: PC
The Christmas Gifts – Review
Would it be unfair to review a game, made by one person, worked on as a passion project, in the same manner as a AAA $60,- release? Of course not, but The Christmas Gifts is still a product sold on the Steam store, and it is our job, as unbiased writers to give our opinion on the topic at hand. After all, you need to know whether a product is worth the investment or not. So where do you draw the line when talking about a production so small that there isn’t even an advertising budget? Here is: The Christmas Gifts
Story
With Christmas around the corner, Kim finds himself in a room full of chests loaded with gifts! But oh-oh!? What’s this? An unknown person steals all the presents. Heroic stories in mind, Kim goes to retrieve the presents himself. Along the way, you’ll encounter living knight armors, aliens, and more, who are all standing in your way of success. All the dialogue you’ll get in the game will be a small in-game ‘cutscene’ with some text boxes telling you the story, and then it’s off to the races. This very short introduction will let you jump right into the action without much ado, but also feels really rough and rushed. Along with the somewhat difficult translations from the Indian producer, we should be glad the story is so short and simple, which helps the player ignore the rough translations and grammatical errors.
Graphics
Graphically, this title has not improved much from the producer’s older titles. The graphics aren’t extremely bad per se, but the rough finish and inconsistencies between them are severely noticeable. Quite a number of the assets in the title seem like they have been obtained from the unity asset store, which is not a problem in and of itself, except the character models are all custom made, which make them stand out from the backgrounds due to their obvious quality differences. The player’s sprite also does not have any animation to it, instead it has been being given some minor morphs when walking, no idle animations are present, and jumping seems to not have any animations attached to it. This makes the game feel stiff to look at and play, which will hurt the player’s interest in the long run.
Sound
Looking at the credits, most, if not all of the sounds and music in this title came from free libraries, such as the ever-present work of composer Kevin MacLeod. One man teams already have to be polymaths, so it is to be expected that they have to get some help on one base or another. This does mean all the music you will hear you may have already noticed in youtube videos or other places. The same goes for the sound effects. it’s not like they’re bad, but they do have a little bit of a… generic feel to them.
Gameplay
Labeled a platformer by its developer, The Christmas Gifts could also be considered a 2D shooter. The main objective is to get to the end of the level, hence the platformer label, but in your way stand enemies, and you are given a weapon to kill them with. (Sidenote, which idiot gives a small boy a gun to help him find his Christmas gifts? Or if he wasn’t given it, how did he get it? Someone needs to be a LOT more careful with their firearms.) Along your time with the game, you’ll find respawning ammo for your primary and secondary weapons to fight the enemy with, and health packs to restore your vitality even though you have infinite lives. When you progress far enough you will encounter some mini-bosses, which can be easily done when you unravel their patterns, and the normal enemies are just a matter of kill-before-they-kill-you. Among the regular enemies, you’ll find the generic pitfalls, large saw blades, and lasers to put some obstacles in your way as well, and you’ll need to collect -all- of the level’s orbs to progress to the next stage.
Conclusion
Looking at the developer’s portfolio, you will find that he has a few games under his belt now. But looking at his other games, they do not seem to have increased in production value. When reviewing smaller studios that quite possibly need a category of their own instead of ‘indie’, it is easy to write it off as a one-man project with a limited budget. And this is true, but sometimes you have to wonder if a game is worth producing if you’ve already produced three more of the same game with just another skin and story. This is, unfortunately, the case for The Christmas gifts. As unbiased reviewers, we have the obligation to keep the public from making bad purchases, and in all honesty, even with its price of under one dollar, this is a safe one to skip.
The Christmas Gifts - Review,
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