This is great! Love the little physics-touches, it feels solid and hefty. Blasting Zombies is great!

Movement on Z+X is horrible, however. I kept reaching for the arrows. Still awesome!

I wasn't really sure what the current convention was for web games :( I tried to change it at the last second but ran out of time and defaulted back. I also wish I'd put a red flashing arrow toward the exit when you got on the last screen. Thanks for looking at it!

This game is awesome. It reminds me of boxhead. It's simpler, seasonal and just as addicting.

I love how the swarming works constantly getting you in panic. I bet it was fun to make too, awesome!

Wonderful pixel art and gameplay... except I'll echo matthias - movement on those keys is very hard since i also need my fingers to hit 'c' and space.

i like the game, simple and funny [thumb up]

Yeah, cool Gfxs, Ok Sounds, horrible Controls :)

That's one badass santa! Fun game! :D Got to level 3! :)

This is pretty good, you don't seem to have gone for the theme at all though, do you have an interpretation of it in there?

Norgg, typical screen at the end type of thing, after level 3. But yeah, very loose on the theme bit.

Nice, nothing villainious here though. But very solid and fun game. Didn't really like the Z+X controls.

Would love to upload a new version and remap the controls. That's not allowed, is it? It's like a 2 line fix.

Nice pixel look! Solid game play. Kind of hard, though -- especially with these controls, as others have pointed out (even harder on a German keyboard where the Z and Y keys are swapped compared to an English one).

I like the game, nice art!

Great game! Best made one I've seen so far. Great polish and overall work! Would be fun if rpg was AOE, shotgun did much at close range and was AOE too :)

jsmars, agree, just ran out of time. Wanted to have the rpg do splash dmg and have much better particle fx, and also wanted to have the shotgun kill multiple enemies at close range. Once they were in and basically working, there was always much higher priority things to do, so I never got back to them. Thanks for checking it out.

Good realization. I just want to say : GG

I really enjoyed it, despite not being able to beat the final level! There were a few times when I found myself without any ammo and surrounded by zombies, but I guess I should have prioritized my weapons better. Great game!

cute graphics and animations, very juicy, would love to play this with a slightly bigger viewport. Jumping + throwing grenades might add more depth to the combat. One of my favourite entries so far.

You do know this compo was theme-based, right? Well, congrats on finishing a game in less than 12 years :)

Great entry!

It was simple, but the game did make me feel overwhelmed at time (compliment). I will say that I didn't quite read carefully enough on the site that I should go left, and some sort of in game prompt to do so might have been helpful, but I think most people will do that by default. Some music might have added a lot!

Overall, I really enjoyed it. The little physics polish adds a lot to feeling powerful, and I really like your santa sprite. Good work!

The physics effects and variety of weapons and enemies really made this enjoyable to play. Good effort!

Best game so far. What a great idea for sprites to just bob them around instead of drawing frames :) Was fun to play too!

Their little waddling is great. Wish I could see the bullet coming out or just a flash.

Great game, love the sprites and subtle touches like smoke and the blood spray. Clean style and nice audio. Good stuff!

I like the art and gameplay, but I'm not sure how this ties into the theme. :(

Fun game, but setting Santa as villain?

^.^ Had some much fun killing

I love the elf zombies. The only glaring thing that I thought it was lacking was some sort of bullet sprite. The levels could have had a little more variation, but then again, at the beginning I was completely unaware that there even were levels, and proceeded to play the first level for about a half hour. :P Great work, keep it up!

I couldn't fire the weapon. I liked that it appears to have switched to arrow keys to move, and I could change the weapon, but the spacebar didn't seem to do anything.

bugninja, I remapped the controls and they are on the main screen. arrows move, X fires and C changes guns.

dremelofdeath, re: the level exit...yup...wish I'd put a large red arrow on screen when you got near the right edge but I never thought about it and assumed it was obvious to just keep walking left. :) Time pressure and tunnel vision.

Yes, this is good!

Simple and funny !

Simply awesome. Everything about it is just awesome, hehe.

Love the feel and game play. Not entirely sure on the take of the theme but great job! :D

Really fun! I liked the touch of having the ammo being in gift boxes.

game was good, present effects reallyy ince. seems like you swapped to arrows now, because, no kidding, it would have been NO FUN with a german keyboard (like mine). btw, if i'm santa and I kill zombie elves, does that really make me the villain?

pythongg, I hear ya.

The win screen after level 3 has some text indicating some villainy but it's a very loose interpretation. I wanted to make a shooter and xmas themed at that, but after this weekends shooting in the US I didn't really want to do a shooter with a bad guy shooting lots of innocents, etc. Maybe I should have gone the Bad Elf route, but in the end I sacrifice theme for a better game and who doesn't want to kick ass as Santa? :) Thanks for looking at it and the feedback.

Smooth gameplay! I actually just grinded the elfs on level 1 before I noticed you could get further, was great fun! 17,900 score :D

Beatiful!!! Nice gameplay and excellent gfx. Very solid. Congrats.

Theme is kind of weak, would have been the same with any other character. Besides that, great entry and great game overall. I enjoy the size and the art :)

super-cool!

This was a good entry ! Nice style !

Nice game, felt polished and shooting was fun. Little bits of animation on the character really adds alot well done :)

Ambitious to make 3 levels too!

Well, that's about as fun as it gets! Really enjoyed this one, had to play it to the end :D

simple and well executed. The walking animation is so ridiculous it give a really fun feeling ! :)

I liked this. I got about 10k points before I ran out of ammo. Great fun.

Santa's stocking will be full of ammo this christmas.

That was really fun ! :D i liked the particles effects and the way that the bullet doesnt appear is really cool, this is one of the games i enjoyed the most

zombies + christmas = one cool game

Cool theme and arcade feel, the elf zombies are class :-)

Fun game, though not sure how it fits into the theme.

Wow. Hands down, one of my favourites! I love the visual style and the play is a ton of fun. The controls are easy to adjust to. The theme is amazing, I mean, zombies plus a deadly Santa. Fantastic, very solid work!

Very nicely done. I enjoyed it. Please update the text at the top of the page. Makes me think the controls are different than they really are.

bigbadwofl, I did update it on Sunday. I think it's a browser cache issue :( But the controls are mentioned properly on the intro screen, so it should be ok. Thanks for looking at the game!

Great fun, solid game. I didn't realize that there were levels until I read the comments though. I just stood my ground until the inevitable end :-)

Very nice entry! I enjoyed it, graphics are clean and gameplay is pretty nervous! Too bad for the theme :\ But very good game all theme controversy apart :D

Haha, i loved it,
a good old shooter !

it's lacking walking animation a bit, but the game work and is really fun to play.

Loved the graphics but found it a little hard. I think less zombies and a little more strategy around the pacing of when they show up on screen would help. I felt like I was just mobbed. Would love to see this expanded into a larger game.

well done!
This is really fun!

Ah ah ah really loved it :) As usual my fav weapon is still the basic gun. Really intense gameplay.

The bazooka would be more interesting with a zone damage to make close combat more dangerous. But the screen was maybe to small to do that without being too annoying?

@deepnight: I wanted to do splash dmg and multiple zombie kills with the rpg but just ran out of time and moved on once the guns were 'ok'. I think you could cheat and have it do minimal dmg to you up close, so there's some deterrent but still let you kill 5 zombies at a time. Then just balance the power with less available ammo, so you save it for when you get swarmed. Thanks for looking at it. Your game is ridiculously good fun :)

Simple but great. Love the sprites

really grat and fun! Love to play this! Fantastic graphics too

Its really fun.

Noooo! I ran out of ammo! Nice game, simple but addictive.

Nice art and gameplay. But controls are very uncomfortable.

Nice game, i like the cute graphics. Maybe a better feedback when your gun is empty, because it happen very often and may kill you.

Fun fun fun. I hate christmas, so I played again without finishing. It's amazing how entertaining a really simple game can be, if done right. Well done!

Great job! The graphics great in that you stuck with a theme and executed it well! The gameplay is simple yet satisfying and the controls are smooth :D

It was an honor to play your game! I love pixel art. Kudos to you sir!

Excellently executed. It seemed like it was possible to run out of ammo through no fault of your own, though? Or maybe I'm just too trigger-happy.

Simply lovely. Only miss a background music.

Awesome! I love how you managed to pack so much life into those static sprites just by the way they moved around. Very satisfying animations. All around lovely graphics.

I kept running out of ammo in the 3rd level, until I realized that the different enemies are, err, different, and I should hold onto those RPG rounds for the tougher ones. Or get into the habit of backtracking really aggressively, before it's too late. It's weird that bullet counting survival game elements only really become a thing in the last level, though. (If they were meant to be at all). Of course, since the good quality and endlessly amusing weapon handling meant I kept trying, so when I finally _did_ win it was pretty exciting.

@Dylan, the bullet mgmt was a thing but I didn't want ppl running out too often. The levels get a little more aggressive in terms of spawn rates so that's why level 3 is harder. Plus, lack of real time to balance properly. I was pleased it was as playable as it was considering how hot it was coming in for landing :) Thanks for the feedback though...spot on.

Score: 9450 :D

Finished! Really good first LD!

Very cool. Super fun. Graphics are great. Controls could be much better.

Well executed game, I would like to have more ammo to deal with zombies. :)

Cute ending text; would've been nice to see the events described as a cutscene, even a brief one.

I found it to be pretty hard but still a lot of fun. The pixel blood was a nice touch.

Nice game, love the art and the difficulty was just right.

Very fun to play. Damn those zombie elves! :)

Kept dieing due to no ammo, despite just blasting enemies in the face. Not bad all around though.

Awesome game! The "big pixel" sprites and blood particles look really nice and the sound effects match them well.

During the game it is easy to get caught up and not notice you've emptied your clip on the zombie horde before they get a bite. Surely the interface shows the amount of ammo available but sometimes I was too focused on the zombies. So if I were to make a suggestion, I'd say that an additional cue for the player when he's out of ammo could be helpful (maybe a "click" sound when the player fires a weapon without ammo...)

Hahaha very cool!

Pretty nice game. The graphics are great as are the particles. The gameplay is pretty good. The audio could be better.

Unfortunately there is a bug in the game. I finished the first level invunerable. After that I never took damage again.

It's irrelevant to theme. Nice gameplay though.

It's relevant to the theme if you finish the 3 levels and get the end screen :) But yeah, loosely relevant. I'm ok with that. Was a bad weekend to make a game where you run around shooting innocents, but I still wanted to make a shooter, so...

Man it took me awhile to realize I could move past the side of the screen to the next level! Awesome game.

This was really fun.

The theme seems to be upside down. But your game is fun and i like your graphics. Well done :)

Fun but a bit too hard for me (I'm more of a strategy/rpg gamer). Still, after far too many attempts I finally beat the game so I could properly rate the theme category. Should probably have tied each weapon to a key (number keys) for more quickly switching and had the c key just switch to the next weapon that actually had ammo. I would also have added a bar on the top of the screen that showed how much ammo was available for each weapon. Shotgun was rather under-powered while rpg wasn't dangerous enough.

Not a huge connection to the theme, but it is a fun romp through to kill those endless hordes.

A lot of fun and engaging, even with such simple gameplay. I got sucked in shooting zombies, getting a rhythm going. Would've loved some Christmas music, but given the time limit, it feels rather well polished.

Well polished man, I like how you roll to another weapon like that (it reminds me to the game in made in charity game jam). I think if you show the weapons' bullet as well, it will be more realistic (especially for pistol).
Nice job!

I simply loved this game! The graphics were nice and cute looking but what captivated me the most was the presents that flew out of the dead zombies. The concept was simple but it was a fun take on the theme. I enjoyed the sound effects as well since it lent to the hilarious feeling of the game. I was cracking up with laughter when I first started up the game without looking at the screenshots prior. Great job!

Digged the style a lot, movement felt a bit stiff at times though :(.

Really cooool! :D Why any visual bullet?

While I didn't really see a connection with the theme, I definitely saw a connection with the fun. This was just plain goofy. Nice use of particles!

Great game, simple, but effective.

Great entry! I went through the 3 levels and got 13,000 score. Dug the graphics, and it was actually fun switching out the weapons to save the deadly ammo for when you need it. This was actually pretty nice, despite it's simplicity.

I was little confused with switching weapons and shooting but besides that everything was great, good work.

I love that how you animated characters :D

super fun to play, it took time to me to understand that this wasn't a survival game, but that i had to go to the end of the level, perhaps more feedbacks would have helped, great game overall :D

Very lovely!
A simple idea, but very well executed.

Some sort of theme for each of the different levels or something to differentiate them would have made it more exciting.

It would've been nice to actually see the bullets and rockets when you shoot. Also, I think the enemies can take too much damage. Some of them can survive multiple shotgun blasts even at close range.
Otherwise it's a polished, nice game.

Fun game. Really fun! And good realization of an idea!

Really nice... but not really connected to the theme.
I had some fun playing it, but maybe it's too hard.

Cute graphics but I wanted to be able to jump all the time! (Maybe even through a special jet pack which you can pick up?)

Solid entry! :) Good implementation of a well known formula with a few new things to spice it up. The atmosphere was perfect, it's so important to achieve this in games made in a small amount of time.

The fast ammo spending made me altered all the time :D

Nice game, funny pixel art. The connection with the theme is not so strong, but it was fun to play. In the second and third level my Santa didn't get hurt by the Zombie Elves, so I managed to get to the end. ;)

Fun little game. Those zombies really take some killing.

Loved it. Lots of fun

Great presentation! The lo-fi pixel art worked really well with the animations and physics. That made the game more fun. The shotgun and rpg blast had a nice feel to it. I found a bug where I was pretty much invincible the entire game. I picked an invulnerability at some point...I guess it never wore off. Other than that, I don't think it fit the theme =P I was wondering if there is a twist in the end that makes Santa evil.

Pretty fun little game. The way you made the little elves move without animating them worked well and added to the character of the game. Nice job.

Simple, easy to pick up and play, and fun. Also, the pixel art is cool. Good job!

I had a lot of fun playing your game! I really like graphics and variance in zombie types. The first time I played I didn't ration ammo very well, so I ended up not being able to defend myself, but this is my fault and not the game's.

VERY FUN GAME! I played it over and over. Really loved the randomness of it all... how each playthrough is different. Really needs some music, though. Great visuals and the controls are nicely balanced with movement speed and fire rate. Great work!

Cool game. Would have been nice to see the bullets, or was there a glitch?