Ludum Dare 25
December 14th-17th 2012 :: Theme: You are the Villain
Holly Jolly Pyromaniac - UndergroundPixel - Jam Entry
From the makers of the 2011 smash hit, Holiday Havoc, comes another classic Christmas title boasting retro pixel art, catchy chiptune tracks, and shockingly addictive gameplay! Underground Pixel is proud to present... Holly Jolly Pyromaniac!
Some of Santa's elves are planning to revolt... and rather than have a calm and rational conversation with them about it, he'd rather play the role of a villain this year and blow their houses up with explosives! Traitorous elves live in green houses, and loyal elves live in purple ones. Don't take out your own forces! Compete with your friends on the leaderboards! Who will claim the #1 spot for themselves?
This game has it all! Panicking elves, a deranged Santa Claus, and GOATS, and this game can now be all yours for the low, low price of FREE. So play now! Now. Do it now. Are you playing yet? Why not? Stop reading this message. PLAY IT NOW!!!
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Ratings
![]() | Graphics(Jam) | 4.70 |
![]() | Audio(Jam) | 4.18 |
| #37 | Overall(Jam) | 3.69 |
| #64 | Fun(Jam) | 3.33 |
| #69 | Humor(Jam) | 3.21 |
| #75 | Mood(Jam) | 3.32 |
| #127 | Theme(Jam) | 3.49 |
| #260 | Innovation(Jam) | 2.40 |
| #912 | Coolness | 35% |
Comments
Holy Moly! The art and music in this is top notch! Great work :D
Very pretty. I got 1000 and felt like I could keep playing as the game seemed to max out in speed. Gameplay not quite up to the visuals. Not sure what you can do to make it ramp up forcing an end vs falling into being repetitive. Would be great if there was a wider screen and you could control the x-pos of Santa so you had to speed up and slow down, etc to bomb. Great job for 72 hrs.
Amazing pixel art graphics, nice music that really fit to the game and very simple yet addictive gameplay (like - yes, I can do better than that, let's do it). Great game UndergroundPixel, very polished :)
Marvellous pixel art, and incredibly polished gameplay. Amazing entry.
Great graphics and music!! Gameplay is a bit repetitive but it works well with this kind of game. I've a lot of fun with it! ;)
Great execution on the aesthetic, I might have made it a bit faster and added one or two more attacks. I can see this not taking long to jump to a commercial release. Good work!
That's highly rated production to have leaderboard feature! Audio and pixel art are quite impressive.
I did get a low score for the first 2 times then I mostly quit with a thought that there will be no new thing introduced. NO, 1up and faster (clearer to see) got in and that's the way more fun !
Just guess if it's faster in the early stage would add more challenging or not.
Great music, fun game and awesome art. Nice job! Can't wait to see if this grows into a full release :)
That's not fair! The game looks too good :) And I loved the music too, although it didn't loop for me so the second part of my gameplay session was musicless. How sad :(
The art reminds me of a SNES-era game, which is really good :) Otherwise, I noticed the game going faster and faster, but it would've been nice to have more variety in the game play, other actions to do (well, this is not Press Space To Win, but still), end of levels with scoreboards, something :)
But anyway: gorgeous art, congratulations. Looking forward to your next entry!
(Also: Is this powered by Haxe?)
Definitely a good entry. I think it should get harder a bit quicker, because tho I kept going, at about 500 pts I wanted to stop playing. But after I got to 800ish it really sped up and re-captured my interest.
Lots of fun for such a simple game, and it looks and sounds absolutely beautiful. When viewing the leaderboards, the title screen would not refresh properly upon pressing a key (x, escape, enter) and pressing x a few times would display either the credits page or the How To Play screen, drawn overtop the existing leaderboards screen, but it would fix itself after that.
Wasn't sure what was going on during my first play, but I had it figured by my second. Good fun!
Really great graphics and animations, the explosion was the best! The game seems pretty solid but the strong part on this game is the graphics, very pretty.
Really nice pixel art and music! The gameplay is a bit samey, it could use a little something something, but overally this was done very, very well.
Very pretty, and sounded great. Could do with a little extra something though (moving the sleigh, maybe?) as it gets a bit repetitive.
Superb graphics! This would make a nice mobile game. Would you consider porting it to Android/iOS?
Amazing artwork and sound. 5★ Made me feel nostalgic for my old Sega Master System (These graphics would be very high end for that machine). Game play is very simple but sometimes the bombs didn't fall, maybe I was pressing to fast?! :) Overall superb.
Pretty simple, but funny and very well don, especiallly art and music. It could be the answer to http://www.ludumdare.com/compo/ludum-dare-25/?action=preview&uid=14195 ^^
Awesome! The graphics are amazing, and the sound is pretty good! Really good job on this :)
Great looking game! Wish there was more to do and at first I was confused over which houses to destroy. Once I got into it, the game was fun. Kind of reminded me of paperboy.
The art and music are simply amazing :D
However, the game would have been even better with some gameplay variations.
Great entry!
Finally got around to it. :P
The graphics to this game are so damn beautiful. Colour contrast between character and landscape are spot on, and the purples and greens to the landscape contrast to the rather dark undertone of the game. :)
Gameplay wise, I feel it could have had more to it. I liked the idea of it speeding up, and therefore becoming more and more hectic; however, I feel there could have been more obstacles, as the elves sort of just... took it on their chin. Would've thought they'd fight back a little. :P
Music was beautiful for a 48 hour game. Really enjoyed listening to that. Props to the musician. :D
Amazing game! I absolutely love the quality of your pixel art, and although I didn't love the music at first, it really grew on me to the point where I adored it. Game was fun, fairly addicting, and having a leaderboard was nice. :) When I was checking it though, I had issues knowing how to go back. I think I pressed z/x a few times so that some stuff started overlaying on top of each other and the game started again. Not really a big issue, I didn't count it against your rating but I thought you should know! Amazing work!
Impressive art (music and graphics) and fun to play! It became a bit lag in the end.
I was going to add that you could have added more features (movement or attack options), but come on, in 72 hours? That's awesome!
+Graphics are awesome!
+Music is AWESOMER!
-Gameplay lacks a little in variety
-You can't back out of menus
Overall, amazing job!
To everyone here who loves the graphics, music, and gameplay, I just want to say THANK YOU!! :)
To everyone here who can't figure out how to back out of menus, IT'S THE ESC BUTTON. THE ESC BUTTON. THE ESC BUTTON.
Hey, I'm the guy behind art & animation in this game, I'd like to thank all of you for your kind comments! Congrats for your games!
I enjoyed this game for the most part, but it does get repetitive after a while. After you are in tact with the speed it's fun to look at all the details, though!
And the mood is also very christmas-y (Is that a word? I don't think so). Err. Anyways, the mood of the was great too :)
Good looking game. The music is cool, but doesn't quite fit the game, I think. Gameplay is pretty one-dimensional, but it's a well-executed game of its type.
Great game! Double the points for framing it around christmas- that's like two themes in one! I think this do REALLY well as a mobile game on the market! Cash money!
Anyway, AWESOME GAME!
Incredible graphics, and very nice audio as well. I like the gameplay as well. Great job!
Very simple but also fun. I really like the music and graphics.
Pretty fun for a few minutes. Could have used more gameplay, and the leaderboard navigation was a bit wacky but pretty good for 72 hours. Nice!
Amazing pixel art.
Gameplay gets pretty boring after a while, but if you added some combo chains or something like that you could spice it up.
Good work.
Visually and aurally pleasing indeed, but the game play was rather dull. Would have loved to see more to this, as the gameplay really compromises its strong points.
Art and music are awesome, very polished game, but the gameplay needs more variations.
The graphics are basically commercial grade. Audio was great. Gameplay could have been a tad deeper, but it works for a one-button game. Oh and I like how houses become slowly more snowed on so it's harder to see them. I really don't know what to knock about this game without saying "I wish it was a platformer instead", lol. Overall, This is pretty great stuff, but you already seem to know that, judging by the way you wrote your submission entry. =p I'd be interested to see what you pump out next LD. :)
pretty sweet but why did I get a game over screen like after 2 minutes? :(
naughtyloose: I'm not sure why you got a game over screen after 2 minutes, but I'm guessing you missed 3 green houses or hit 3 purple ones, or a combo of those two?
Sergey: Why doesn't Newgrounds like you?
Nolan C: How exactly did it catch you offguard? Hopefully you just mean that it got difficult by the end... we haven't had any bug reports so far, did you just not realize that you have to hit green houses and not purple ones? Read the how-to screen! :)
Lovely graphics and sounds. I also really like santas pose on the sled. I reckon it would make a good single-tap iPhone game.
Quite funny and nice idea. Seems to be polished. I the details like the little people running around. The music is maybe a bit too "sharp", but overall its an addicting little game :)
Very polished art and lovely mood! On the other hand, the gameplay has no depth and couldn't keep me hooked beyond a couple of games: wish the elves were attacking me somehow or there was something to dodge in the sky maybe.
Very nice, very complete game!
As the others have mentioned, the graphics and audio are great! I love the little things, the elves running back and forth, the changing scenery, etc. I particularly liked how you used the reindeer as a health bar, but I didn't catch on to it at first. Scored 1200 on my second game!
Really fun game! Think I've just lost 20-30 minutes to it which is a fantastic sign! Great music, entertaining and well styled graphics. It looks like it would be home on a game like Warioware and the graphics + sound effects really looked like they would be cool on a gameboy advance era console. It could perhaps do with some more gameplay elements if I'm looking to criticise it. Perhaps holding down x to charge up bigger bombs although that would be odd to implment and possibly distract from the simple charm of the game? In summary a great example of a one button game!
Graphics and well planned and highly polished! Music was nice, but sound and music seemed to cut out on me at some point. Gameplay / controls were simple yet solid. Great job to all who contributed to this game.
Great pixel art and 8bit sound, but not much gameplay in there! Would have been fun controlling Santa to avoid something, maybe :D But very polished!
Simple controls and one-shot-at-a-time make this a timing game. I think I'd enjoy multiple concurrent shots more -- it would make the beginning easier but you'd have to be very careful as it speeds up. Maybe Santa loses altitude as he loses reindeer.
The game seemed to switch every few seconds between half and full framerate in Chrome. Ran as expected in Firefox.
Great job on the dithered-VGA style and the chiptunes.
Very specific comments for a very good job!
The pixel art was absolutely awesome, and the music was incredible.
Absolutely love the chiptune. Really fits the theme well as well.
Nice job.
Graphics and soundtrack are awesome. Scrolling was a little chuggy, but pretty fun overall. Looks like it would make a great mobile game.
Neat game! Enjoyed the art style. The rest of the game could have been more expanded in terms of gameplay (bombing gets pretty repetitive, like zachstronaut said), but I thought it was cool.
Nice game concept - excellent retro-style audio and graphics.
I personally didn't like the gameplay, but that's just me. Graphics are great, sound is good if somewhat repetetive, the only thing I find notable is that I clicked the 'windows' link and ended up with a webgame. But yeah.
Awemose graphics, and chiptunes are everything. But the game can be a little repetitive.
Great graphics and sound but seems that there are a few performance issues here.
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Gorgeous looking game with great sound! It would have felt more action-packed to me if it scrolled faster. I also felt like there needed to be more danger/threats to me as the player, and would like to experiment with being able to fly around. The bombing got a little repetitive.