Someone is trying to destroy Christmas... 26 presents have gone missing. Your job is to get them all back.

Judging - Chris

GRAPHICS: 10/20
GAMEPLAY: 14/30
PROGRAMMING: 8/20
CHRISTMASSINESS: 22/30
TOTAL: 54/100

Judging - David Newton

GRAPHICS: 10/20
GAMEPLAY: 10/30
PROGRAMMING: 5/20
CHRISTMASSINESS: 20/30
TOTAL: 45/100

Judging - Shab

GRAPHICS: 10/20
GAMEPLAY: 15/30
PROGRAMMING: 10/20
CHRISTMASSINESS: 4/30
TOTAL: 39/100

Judging - Andi Smith

GRAPHICS: 8/20
GAMEPLAY: 6/30
PROGRAMMING: 4/20
CHRISTMASSINESS: 7/30
TOTAL: 25/100

Judging - Assault Andy

GRAPHICS: 12/20
GAMEPLAY: 18/30
PROGRAMMING: 16/20
CHRISTMASSINESS: 19/30
TOTAL: 65/100

CHRIS: A series of mini-games in effect that make up this package, created by two individuals. The Christmas theme throughout is very evident - almost full marks for that, but the presentation falters, with very scrappy sprites and very terrible (and badly fitting) backgrounds. The mini-games are chosen in the form of a scrap of paper, and the mouse is used to select where you want to go. It's a real mixed bag in terms of quality, and failure in each game results in an instant Game Over. No lives, no health (except in the occasional game) - just a Game Over. Because of this the authors have made the game more difficult than it needs to be, even with the inclusion of a save feature. To make matters more annoying, you have to trudge through various areas to actually get to the mini-games, and if you die frequently, doing it all again becomes rather frustrating. A quirky title then, and a relatively lengthy story. Just... average, really. To cap it all off, the game tends to crash at seemingly random intervals. So... no.

DAVID NEWTON: I appreciate the scope of this game - indeed, it's one of the few submitted that weren't platformers, and a more adventure-style approach is a complex style of game to make - but it doesn't gel together very well. The graphics are sometimes decent and sometimes a little cobbled together, with a hand-drawn style being used in the cut-scenes and a mix of flat shading and Photoshop effects in the main game. It's the programming that lets this game down the most, with a number of bugs and strange choices made. The map screen is rather difficult to find your way around because you have to keep scrolling back to the list at the top to see where you are, and it's the only screen in the game where the mouse is used. After finishing the first boss I came across, I found that falling into the frame below made me have to start again (and I hadn't picked up the crock of salt that had inexplicably appeared in the centre of the room). I eventually died the second time, and mysteriously found myself in the lift in the offices of The Daily Click. Wandering around in that building after restarting the game, I press Control to jump out of the way of his rapid blue spheres, whereupon I was dumped back in Windows. This was a decent attempt that was let down by poor programming, but full marks for trying something different.

SHAB: An average entry, though it does have some things that other game of the same style lack, mostly the jumping in the overhead perspective ala Startropics.

ANDI SMITH: Quest is a little unusual, and quite a hard game to judge. It tries to do a lot of different things, and it doesn't really do any of them particularly well. It's like trying to make a really tasty sandwich with all your favourite ingredients and ending up with a huge kitchen mess. And no sandwich. I guess a good example of this is in the opening map - the map is hand drawn, and there are 9 places to visit. The places are numbered but are also hand drawn so you can't actually see them on the map. What's more the map is about 4 screens big and you have to scroll the map with the keyboard and select a place with the mouse. It's so half baked and so unintuitive - and this is how the whole game feels. I really wish the author had made the game half the length and put more effort into those levels. The levels look rushed, some of the ideas are cruddy and the minigames don't help improve anything. It's a shame, as it looks like a lot of time has gone into this.

ASSAULT ANDY: I had a hard time trying to work out what I was actually meant to do in this game. I sort of just randomly walked and jumped around. Nice hand drawn graphics however.