I love the art style. :)

Looks and sounds like an authentic Game Boy or a handheld electronic LCD game! Way to make the time constraints into your style. After I realized I had a hammer to smash with, I had fun sneaking by Santa and smashing the toys. If you continue to develop this, my laptop resolution is small, and when I pressed up or down arrow key the browser scrolled.

Cool graphics. :)

thanks ;)

@ethankennerly : about scrolling
It looks like a bug/fail, but actually I made this scrolling for small resolution (height need 900px) Pressing UP/DOWN focus on top-screen / bottom-screen, so follow the player.
I code this effect early to fix that problem, but after that I dont find enough time to adjust perfectly with the game-play.

Awesome, definitely reminds me of Mario's Cement Factory. Great art, my only complaint is I kept turning on sticky keys by pressing Shift too much.

Even though i havn't really played many(any) Game and watch games this still reminds me of them.sounds ans graphics fit.

Graphic and sound arts are so true to the real Game&Watch.
It maybe misses a loosing condition which will greatly enhance the gameplay experience.
Nice work !

@Colapsydo : loose / game over
I agree, but missing time and have to chose between : finish top-screen game-play of making game over event.
It will be done on post-compo ;)

Really well made overall! Would have played the shit out of this game as a kid.. I wouldn't use the shift key tho since it activates sticky keys popup in windows/browsers.. also would be good to have some limit to how many times santa can see you while smashing a package before game over, so it's more of a challange :) Nice job!

I love the minimalist retro style. Very charming. The gameplay is incredibly easy, though. Would've liked more of a challenge. Great interpretation of theme. Who could be worse than someone ruining Christmas???!!!

I love the idea and art! But I had problems playing it. When using the arrow keys, it would move the whole page, even though the flash app is active :S

very very nice style! great job. is there a reason it's called AnteChristmas instead of AntiChristmas?

@rylgh : it's called AnteChristmas instead of AntiChristmas?

Of course. I wanted to reffer to the name of "antechrist".
But your question made me realize that in english the name is "antichrist"... "antechrist" is the name in french, and I thought it was derived from the Latin, so common in all languages​​. That's a mistake, sorry.

What a great idea to emulate one of those cheap LCD handhelds! This doesn't look like it should be a lot of fun, but somehow it is, and strangely addictive. I couldn't figure out why I shouldn't smash packages under Santa's eyes though; I don't get any points, but it doesn't seem to do any harm otherwise, so you can just keep playing indefinitely if you bash Shift in time to knock down the sleigh. It would also be cool if every next level was a bit faster than the one before.

As to the name: "ante" means "before", so although it's not what you intended, it's not entirely inappropriate ;)

Nice art.

That feeling... old portable console. :)

The height is too damn high, can't see the upper part when playing

I like the art style and the overall idea. My only complay is the sticky keys popup appearing all the time.

@Zener, @Jsmas : "sticky keys" (Touches remanentes)

Sticky-keys are useless for most users, I think. Personally I disabled it, and I think everyone should do it. But I know take this feedback into consideration the next time I have to set the controls.
About this game, it is not necessary to smash the SHIFT key, besides the fact that the action is triggered by releasing the key goes in this direction: Press to hold the hammer, release to hit.

TIP :
http://www.techrepublic.com/blog/window-on-windows/quick-tip-disable-the-sticky-and-filter-keys-in-windows/3910

(french)
Les touches remanentes sont inutiles pour la plupart des utilisateurs, je pense. Personellement je les ai desactive, et je crois que chacun devrait le faire. Mais je saurais prendre ce feedback en consideration la prochaine fois quand j'aurais à definir des controles.
Concernant ce jeu, il n'est pas necessaire de marteller la touche SHIFT, d'ailleurs le fait que l'action se declenche en relachant la touche va dans ce sens : Presser pour lever le marteau, relacher pour frapper.

Astuce :
http://www.commentcamarche.net/faq/870-windows-touches-remanentes

I liked your idea and the art style, but I think the game is too repetitive.

I loved it! great job

An overall good game! Well polished!

This had a real feeling of the old lcd game consoles. Very well done. I think this would play well on an actual machine.
I played for some time, but didn't find a winning or losing condition. It would help if there was more danger of losing.
But nice.

Very nice art work and style. Fairly simple game, but LCD games are like that. Good stuff!

Back to childhood with this game :) You really matched the simplicity of these devices games. Also like how the sound-effects match. I agree, that a loosing condition would have been nice, but I also understand the lack of time and the priority to finish upper-screen gameplay. All in all really nice.

Cool game and watch style game :) Perfect for this time of the year. But I had no problem with santa, he doesn't really seam to care.

Pretty cool game!

I think you captured perfectly the mood and spirit of those game and watch systems. I felt myself nostalgia-ing hard while I played your game.

Only problem is that the difficulty didn't seemed to increase over time. Once I got myself a rhythm in the factory, I couldn't see how Santa could ever hope to defeat me. Maybe the presents/Santa could speed up over time?

Also, it would be a neat little extra bonus if the "buttons" on the game foreground were clickable :-)

Thanks for the creative entry!

You really managed to get this Game & Watch feel. My only criticism would be that Santa doesn't seem to give a shit. He should try to stop me!
Anyway, great job!

Pierrec - It took me a while to realize that too, but If you break things while Santa is watching, you don't get points!

Nice electronic game feeling :) You managed to design a cool game even with the "no-sprite-overlap" rules. I think that santa watch should be game-over, or maybe angry santa watch ( 2x errors in short times ) . Not scoring for a miss is not enough. The up part is more an easter egg than a real gameplay mechanic.

I loved the idea. Since you went through all the trouble of making all animation frames not intersect with each other like in a true G&W game, I think it would have been great if you always rendered all possible object positions with 5% of opacity or so, as it happens when you hold a LCD screen in a certain angle and look at it. It would certainly bring the game a very realistic, retro feeling!

Very solid retro feeling. Good job!

Throwing the hammer at the sleigh was an awesome touch; it feels so wrong to do that. I love the LCD look.

Yeah, nice graphics and sounds though the gameplay is a bit odd.

Liked the retro vibe, wished SHIFT wasn't used as the main control key, though (get lots of Windows suggestions to use Sticky Keys)...

Je n'ai pas oublié de venir noter ton jeu même si j'ai eu l'occasion de le tester pendant son développement. ;)

Pour le thème et les graphismes tu obtiens la note maximale parce que l'idée est claire et le concept bien rendu. Après la durée de vie est un peu courte mais c'est sympa.