I downloaded and tried to play all the games. My system is 32-bit ubuntu. Why is it that source is only provided for one of the games?

big red sled:
source:
had to write my own build file (in scons)
world.h includes Player.h not player.h
Font.pcx not font.pcx
dlgBTM.bmp not dlgBtm.bmp
had to switch all \\ to /
had to change MIDI_AUTODETECT to MIDI_NONE

game:
the levels didnt load properly in linux so I couldnt play. I saw the santa/reindeer guy and I can throw presents but there are no houses or children.
I ran the game in wine and it worked fine. Kind of a fun game but I'm able to presents stick to trees and other inanimate objects which seems sort of wierd.

burning cards:
source:
no top level directory
no source

game:
ran fine in wine
I won by randonmly clicking on cards but there doesn't seem to be any skill involved whatsoever. Whats the point?
graphics are nice though

candy commerce:
source:
no top level directory
no source

game:
played in wine
no instructions but I figured out that its supposed to be like tradewars
trading is hard because I don't know how much I can sell an item to an outpost for without first buying the item so there is no guarantee that I will make any money. I would have to buy an item, travel to the outpost, see how much they were buying it for and then go back and buy more just to sell it again. This is possible but would require a spreadsheet just to play.
I probably didn't play long enough but I couldn't figure out what the objective of the game was.
graphics are extremely nice

gauntlet:
source:
no top level directory
no source

game:
got this error in wine
fixme:actctx:parse_depend_manifests Could not find dependent assembly L"Microsoft.VC90.CRT"
err:module:import_dll Library MSVCR90.dll (which is needed by L"Z:\\home\\jon\\tmp\\downloads\\xmas\\gauntlet\\alleg42.dll") not found
err:module:import_dll Library alleg42.dll (which is needed by L"Z:\\home\\jon\\tmp\\downloads\\xmas\\gauntlet\\Gauntlet.exe") not found
err:module:LdrInitializeThunk Main exe initialization for L"Z:\\home\\jon\\tmp\\downloads\\xmas\\gauntlet\\Gauntlet.exe" failed, status c0000135

GiftGiver:
source:
the Readme says source should be available but there is none in the zip

game:
can't execute the binary because its x86-64 and I have a 32-bit machine
the only people that can play this game are those with a 64-bit machine and running linux.

Kathekon:
source:
no source

game:
ran fine in wine
whats the point? i walked around a few screens and saw one monster that I avoided easily. I cant seem to shoot anything. I found a door and I went inside it but immediately came back out.
jumping physics is a bit wierd..

meanwhile:
source:
no top level directory
no source
readme hints that source is available but its not in the zip

game:
ran fine in wine
automatically went to fullscreen which is annoying
walked around, when I got to the purple tentacle the game froze. I hit esc and it quit

north pole invaders:
source:
no top level directory
no source

game:
ran fine in wine
I just strafed back and forth holding down spacebar to shoot. This seems optimal. I got to wave 7 and score was 512500. invaders stopped was 5125.

orphans revenge:
source:
no source

game:
the game loaded in wine but the screen wouldn't update unless i moved the window so I couldn't play

present sweeper:
source:
no source, but readme hints that its available

game:
game wouldn't run in wine
$ wine presentSweeper.exe
fixme:actctx:parse_manifest_buffer root element is L"asmv1:assembly", not <assembly>
install the Windows version of Mono to run .NET executables

plough through:
source:
no source

game:
OSX only, couldn't play

nick and the coke men:
source:
no source

game:
OSX only, couldn't play

the day the grinch stole santa:
source:
no source

game:
alleg42.dll not supplied with the game
MSVC90.dll wasn't supplied and I didn't have it so I couldn't play

Source is provided for all entries at the ChristmasHack site. I guess only one entry included the source in its binary archive.

Regarding my entry, Meanwhile:

1) I'm pretty sure that I've uploaded the source zip-file in the corresponding section of the Christmas Hack site. It's on a different file than the binary zip, of course.

2) Although the majority of the people here seems to prefer windowed viewports I prefer it fullscreen. That's why it goes fullscreen by default. And a retro style game like mine it's supposed to be fullscreen.

Anyway, you can change that easily in one of the initial lines of the code.

3) The game is unfinished. When it reaches the purple tentacle it ends (freeze). ESC quits.

Am I mislead into thinking that using allegro library is necessary for this competition? Because I checked out one entry and I couldn't find a single line of allegro code. In fact, it's using SDL for most of the stuff.

Here's my entry. I finished it on time (well, sort of), but couldn't upload it until it was too late. Technically, it doesn't count as a ChristmasHack entry.

Download it here, if you want to play it anyway.

I haven't been able to play my gift (Present Sweeper by MiquelFire) even though I tried. I have installed everything I could... I had to install MS Installer 3.1 in order for it to let me install .NET Framework 2.0 SP1 but still it won't run. Perhaps my machine doesn't have the hardware specs to run XNA games.

{"name":"597358","src":"http:\/\/static.allegro.cc\/image\/cache\/1\/c\/1c6825ff5c5cc7a0f5c7131a0042b9c9.png","w":731,"h":531,"tn":"http:\/\/static.allegro.cc\/image\/cache\/1\/c\/1c6825ff5c5cc7a0f5c7131a0042b9c9"}
http://www.allegro.cc/files/attachment/597359

However, I'll check the other entries this weekend.

kazzmir, testing games in wine doesnt seem like a fair test.

What Thomas says is true, I couldn't find the source so I used wine as a backup. But what do you think was unfair about running it in wine? The games that did run seemed to run just fine. I don't blame the games for any abnormalities (like having to move the window to refresh the screen), the blame for that rests squarely with wine.

I mean, you do know that wine isn't an emulator, right?

I made a lot of concepts and rules for the game in the first and second day, but I just started programming the actual game friday, and (of course) I had problems with all the thing I wanted to do, so I just finished the game as a Jan-ken-pon! hahaha

I will make the game better with all the things I wanted and with an online module! :p

Well thank you for the review! xDDD

I get this message when I try to download any of the binaries:

I've only had time to try a couple of entries but I'll check the rest soon.

Big Red Sled is a really complete game. There's some issues (with collision detection maybe) when you aim correctly but the present just goes through the kids, but other than that it's all nicely done and the background music is sweet.

Burning Cards by crocidb runs OK, but there's not much to it, I think.

I couldn't run Candy Commerce by Jakub Wasilewski for it gave me this error:

but it might be due to my crappy integrated graphics card.

Gauntlet by TestSubject just showed a character moving towards another. I didn't find any way to control any of the characters so I think that's all it does.

Kathekon by Kikaru ran fine. I think it is kinda slow, besides it slows down in some places (again maybe due to my graphics card). I have yet to explore all of it.

Meanwhile by Bernardo Lopes has some really nice graphics for both the character and backgrounds, but there's not much to do other than walk a couple of screens until you reach the purple tentacle.

Orphan's Revenge by FrankyR won't run on my machine. The screen blinks in magic pink once and then only the button on the Task Bar remains. It "quits" when I press ESCAPE.

The Day The Grinch Stole Santa by someone972 runs fine but you can only control the "player" to deliver presents to a couple of houses and that's all. There's not much to it.

Big Red Sled by Wilson Saunders as I said before is a really nice and complete game with a nice background tune. I think it is the best entry I've played.

The rest of the entries won't run on my machine for one reason or another.