So, is someone still cooking it ?

I'm all fired up and waiting for the announcement to come, but it seems to NEVER come.

Who's up for a Christmas Hack ?? Brace yourselves !!!

Don't you mean Santahack?

I'm up for it!

<- down!

I'm braced.

I'm up for it.

 ^
/|\
 |
 |

I'm too drunk for it.

You've still got a few weeks to sober up. Go to an AA meeting FFS.

Or try to stay on a constant Balmer peak - yours will be the greatest game ever!

I'm up for it. What are the rules?

Maybe I could make a drinking game.

For every source file you create, you have to take a drink.

For every global you use you have to finish the drink you're on.

Oh, I thought you were going to make a drinking game out of coding. Not code a drinking game. Silly me.

I gave up drinking a long time ago. Just not worth it. It causes far more problems than it solves. And plus, I don't like getting drunk anymore. Most I have these days is like one glass of wine a month.

I could make a new recording of my song "12 days of Christmashack", if you'd join me. Everyone would have their own solo verse. Record your own verse using your phone or anything, while listening to background instrumentals on headphones.

Now that I would love to join in on!

I may write a game where the aim is to knock Edgar from his high horse.

You think he's on his high horse because he used to drink and now almost doesn't?

What about me then? My lifetime intake of alcohol has consisted entirely of:

• My father apparently rubbing it on my lips when I was a baby

• My classmates putting vodka in my orange juice on my 18th birthday

• The occasional accidental encounter with an item of cake, pudding or confectionery that has been spiked, usually resulting in my rejection of said cake, pudding or confectionery because it tasted nasty

All of which I am angry about.

I doubt I can participate in ChristmasHack or SantaHack though - too much work-work to do

Maybe lately he's been big on marijuana-infused dressage?

SantaHack! Love that this is still a thing.

I won't be able to attend this year. We should start these conversations in October/November for planning and setup. Holiday times are always crazy busy!

I was being jestful - didn't come across properly (should have used emoticons!)

I just spent way too long making this logo:

{"name":"610665","src":"\/\/djungxnpq2nug.cloudfront.net\/image\/cache\/0\/b\/0b56af93c0e079de22efee6282fdc90c.png","w":3264,"h":2448,"tn":"\/\/djungxnpq2nug.cloudfront.net\/image\/cache\/0\/b\/0b56af93c0e079de22efee6282fdc90c"}

...for a hackfest that doesn't exist

[edit:] I think the original sketch looks better than the cleaned-up version, though! :/

{"name":"610666","src":"\/\/djungxnpq2nug.cloudfront.net\/image\/cache\/7\/a\/7a5f30bae9eb9083c2df406c7669de28.jpg","w":2651,"h":1541,"tn":"\/\/djungxnpq2nug.cloudfront.net\/image\/cache\/7\/a\/7a5f30bae9eb9083c2df406c7669de28"}

I like that, Mark! Nice idea/work.

So, who's making it up ?

Are we gonna do it with just the a.cc forum's ?

I think just forums is good enough with only about 5 people. And considering the usual drop out rate of roughly 50%, there will only be about 2.5 finished games.

Then the winner is the 0.5 of a game - for that to even be possible is quite the hack

Most likely the 2.5 games that finish will be 0.5 of a game each

I have a 100% completion rate!

Once I participated in a ChristmasHack and I finished. I've never been in any other *hacks, so 1 out of 1.

Incredible!

Anyone have more details to offer?

Upload must fit in attachment, due December 25th go?

I'm interested!

Does anyone have a copy of a previous year's rules page? santahack.net is down and its not on archive.org either. Also, I vote we name it "Jingle Hack"

Deadline 25th, must fit in an attachment. We're getting somewhere.

Lets expand on that. What hour and which time zone is the deadline? What is exactly the attachment site limit? When do we start?

A full week for it ? At least we will be able to provide some running entries.
I propose start from 19th to 25th included. Presents will be uploaded during the 26 only.
Size limit: something correct for our days would be 15MB. Doing so we'll be able to provide musics and stuff.
Timezone, wait, which timezone is Santa's timezone ?

EDIT: we have a few days going to build up some rules and vote for them. And announce it a bit.

There is no time zone. Maybe it's these kinds of time hacks that allow him to fly to all of our houses.

Maybe let's start on Friday, 16th. That way we get one full weekend (17th and 18th) to work on a game. The weekend after that already is Christmas and people may travel to their families and so on and not have time for coding. And most of us won't have time during the week.

15 MB rule and uploading on 26th sound good to me

Was there anything like a speedhack-rule-o-matic with random extra rules?

I agree with the 16th start date.

Dunno, can't we bring out the santa's hack rules ?
or a fresh rule-o-matic ?

What happened to Santa Hack? Where we put in wish lists? Or secret santas?

Here is an archive.org link that still works from October, 2012. It's just the home page. Unfortunately, most other pages were not archived.

Your link doesn't work.

Oops! It should be fixed now. If not, here's the link again:

https://web.archive.org/web/20121206043209/http://www.santahack.net/2012/home

Sorry about that.

Doesn't give us much to go on.

We need rules. Or wishlists.

Then we need assignments. Unless Jingle Hack is doing something totally different than Santa Hack.

Ok, yes, I also support the decisions that are being made thus far!

Namely:

- start on 16th
- end on 25th
- 15MB attachment (or link to hosted file)

Also, since numbers are low and completion rate is undetermined, I propose an alternative to the "Secret Santa" formula: Each entry must somehow include a gift for every participant in the competition.

What that means is up to your creative interpretation! But here are some naive examples:

- Your game involves collecting items, and there are special items specific to a entrant.
- Your game involves playing as different characters, and the quest is modified/specialized for the entrant and you can "play as" Mark Oates or Dezero or Evert or whoever.
- Your game is a snow generator: There are different presets for each entrant.

Apart from that there would be the normal rule-o-matic with the other rules

I like that! Just for reference I did manage to find the 2009 version on archive.org: http://web.archive.org/web/20100125020735/http://xmashack.wasyl.eu/2009/rules

So instead of a single gift, we have to give a gift to everyone? I'm gonna be lucky to complete anything given a single gift much less one for everyone. I don't like that rule.

I feel like there might be a lot of avatars at work here

I somewhat agree with Mark. Who's against something ?

Edgar: If someone wished for a game which has 3 NPCs for the 3 participants, then you would have had to do the exact same rule in the "secret santa" version

The way Oates wants it, you have to give a gift to everybody, instead of just a single gift to your secret santa. It complicates things, makes coding more effort, and makes me more unlikely to finish.

I would really rather have the secret santa thing than this get a gift for everybody thing. It takes time to make a good gift for one person, let alone everyone. We have 8 people already who say they're going to participate. That's 8 gifts and 8 good ideas everyone would have to come up with. It's a bad rule.

Secret Santa is hard to do with just this thread though - and no time left to do anything else (like a website).

I like the rule you came up with, Edgar. Oh wait, you didn't come up with any rules.

Ok, how about this: Each entry must use, in some way, allegro.cc avatars of every participant in the competition.

No content creation required!

That's what I figured we were going to do anyway

But now you don't have other options!

Mares eat Oates and does eat Oates, and little lambs eat ivy. Watch out for the mares and the does Oates. Happy Birthday Hitler.

No rule is better than a bad rule. And you'll notice I suggested we use Santa Hack's rules, instead of one that exponentially expands the size of code necessary to create a game.

Also, you'll notice that Eric Johnson and GullRaDriel dont' have any avatars.

Edgar...

WTF seriously, man.

Why are you like... you should be more positive.

Well that's a very astute observation. I'm sure nobody else noticed that either. Thank you for preventing a complete collapse of the entire universe.

I know the file sizes will be over 9000 but I think that's something we can all deal with why do I have to say that?

And what actually the fuck is this?

Oh -- Happy Birthday, Mark!

I hope I can come up with something before Christmas, but no guarantees.

I like the idea someone just had in #allegro - let's do a Krampus Hack instead of a Santa Hack!

Krampus Hack sounds cool

Woot! :party:

Hey Oates,

Sorry about the comments. I've been kind of grumpy lately. Not in the spirit of Santa (Christmas) ((Jingle)) Hack at all. Hope you have a Happy Birthday. I'm already trying to think of what to do with the avatar icons as we speak.

What are you talking about? I have an avatar.

I think, and this is just me, since we're very late in the game here, we should greatly reduce the scope/rules of the hack. Here's what I propose:

1. Assign a commissioner of this event
2. The previously mentioned times are fine (start 16th - end dec 25th)
3. Every participant list their machine's specs and OS
4. Use an online "secret santa" organizer tool to assign participants to the person they are making a game for
5. If one cannot make a game for a person due to their target's specs/OS per #3, the commissioner can reassign
6. Make a game using whatever tool. Preferably allegro, but unity, Unreal Engine, game maker, game salad, whatever else are fine too. You can also just make an update to a game you already have.
7. Each participant commits to attempt to play their game gift and provide some kind of review on this thread

Maybe this could work for #4: http://www.secretsantaorganizer.com/

Is providing machine specifications truly necessary? Would it not be easier to instead allow the recipient to build a given game from source? The source for each game would be provided anyway, right?

That's disturbing... I feel like I'm in a mirror universe...

I keep thinking I posted something, but it's really my alter ego!

I'm with Onewing. I think secret santa can work, we can just do it manually.

Elias, you're in charge

You've been volentold.

OK!!! Everybody who is participating announce your formal participation now

I'm in! Would prefer source I can easily compile on OSX

I'll do it.

I hereby declare my formal participation henceforth.

I use Linux, by the way (Ubuntu variants). I don't know if I can build Windows binaries (because I don't use Windows much), but anyone on Windows should be able to build from source... right?

It'll really be a mirror universe once I renamed myself to "Odlanyer Ragde"!

The Finnish word for Santa Claus is joulupukki, which literally translates to Christmas goat. Joulupukki was originally the Krampus character, not Saint Nicholas. Also in Sweden they used to have a Christmas goat. At that time, both julbock and joulupukki could be dressed in a black fur and a goat mask. Then they forgot the word julbock in Sweden and the character became more like the Coca Cola Santa and was called jultomten (Christmas Elf). The Finnish equivalent also became more Santa like, but kept the goaty name joulupukki.

So yes, I vote for Krampus.

Famous last words. Depends entirely on what libraries you use. Some libs don't provide CMakeLists.txt or anything other than outdated VS solutions.

You do realize we have to be arch-enemies now right?

By the way, you're surrounded. Give up now.

I was thinking of just using Allegro 5.

You should be good to go then.

Well, I assign GullRaDriel as the official commissioner in that case and henceforth excuse myself from any function :p

However, I would like to announce my formal participation: I prefer source code which compiles on Linux and uses Allegro as a dependency. And should I finish my entry it will use Allegro and I will provide only the source code (which will have been tested under Linux).

So what are the rules exactly? I've never participated in a Santa/Christmas hack before. Also, what're we calling this (if not "SantaHack")? I like the "JingleHack" idea.

Here are my thoughts:

SantaHack - classic, classy, but would be unofficial
JollyHack - actually would like this one
KrampusHack - cool, dark, same as SantaHack but different. Would like this one
JingleHack - not sure what this would be, to be honest

[edit:]

The rules to SantaHack are thus. Essentially, it's based on the "Secret Santa" concept where everyone pools their names into a hat. Each participant then draws a name from the hat without revealing the name that they have drawn. As that person's Secret Santa, you go and get a gift for them, wrap it up, and deliver it to them in stealth.

In this case, the gift is a game.

Thanks for the explanation, Mark. I like the idea of receiving a game as a gift. Are there no additional rules or randomly-selected restrictions, like in TINS or SpeedHack?

That is yet to be determined BUT here is our only known reference (link credit to Elias) to the official SantaHack rules (from '09 no less).

In years past, we would each say three (mostly generic) things we'd like from a game and the developer would then build a game based on one or all of those things as they interpreted it.

But, since we're late in the game, I would say making anything is valid. Even if you just updated some things to a past hack entry. Ideally, the game provided would be personalized in some way for the receiver. I'm not aware of anywhere where you can get a game/update that is intended solely for you. Of course, we'll share with the group after the receiver has some time to play their gift.

This is about fostering the allegro community rather than winning a competition.

Same here:

I announce my formal participation.

I prefer source code which compiles on Linux or Windows and uses Allegro as a dependency. And should I finish my entry it will use Allegro and I will provide the source code and a windows binary.

Still not 100% clear on what the rules are exactly. And when will I know who I'm making a game/gift for?

If you all want, I can run as official commish for this event. Here's what I'm willing to do:

• Make final decisions on any details not yet sorted/aligned by the group

• Oversee the secretsantaorganizer tool

• Field any questions or reassignments via a.cc private messaging.

• I might make an html5 game for all. I might not.

So, I'm in, and I'll be using Allegro 5. I prefer Windows XP or later, so Allegro 5 is fine for that. I may use Eagle, I may not, but if I do I will provide binaries so my proggie can be built from source.

I'm down with Onewing running the event.

Few more questions:
So are there winners in this thing, like in other hacks? Or because of the "secret Santa" thing, it's just all for fun? Either way, I'm still willing to participate. Also, are we allowed to reveal who made which games after the event, or would that negate the "secret" part of "secret Santa"?

Thanks, Eric. Two more "aye's" and I'll call it official.

We originally mentioned uploading the games here on the thread...but that wouldn't be very secret. We'll have to come up with a delivery method. I would say that the gifts need to remain a secret until January 1st so the receiver has a week or so after Christmas to play their game all to themselves.

We can PM the games to the 'commish' and he can PM the games to the recipients.

Onewing, when we launch could you start a new thread so that we have "official" rules and up-to-date list of participants in OP?

Are we supposed to be submitting wish lists? Or is it a free for all?

My wishlist: make an isometric turn-based shooter that features rabbits made of meatballs on a journey to flush their pet goldfish down the local cesspool. Along the way, the rabbits learn the true meaning of Christmas: getting some sweet gifts. Thanks in advance! (Only joking, of course.)

Onewing, congratulations to being the official commissioner!

Woot, progress! I'll speak in Central Standard Time (GMT -6) since that's the timezone I'm in...

Alright, this is what I got thus far:

Participants:

• Mark Oates

• Edgar Reynaldo

• Eric Johnson

• Elias

• Amarillion

Title: KrampusHack
SantaHack is a little better planned and structured. The concept here is same (to gift a game), but the definition of this event has come almost entirely from sheer spontaneity. As such, this event is SantaHack's cousin, KrampusHack.

Registration:
You must register (by saying "I'm in" on this thread) by 2:00pm Central Standard Time on Friday, December 16th. The above list of participants is already registered.

Late Registration:
Anyone can join at any time and will register by PM'ing me directly. You may or may not receive a gift and the gift you make will be delivered to someone randomly in the group of official participants above.

Due Date:
You have to have your game turned in by 2:00pm Central Standard Time on Saturday, December 24th. I will send the games out shortly after through PM. Merry Christmas and Bah Humbug too!

Your assignment:
Your assigned person will be sent out shortly after 2:00pm Central Standard Time tomorrow. A new allegro.cc thread will be started! Try to use allegro, but if struggling, use whatever you want. Make a game! I will provide any information I can on your assigned person as discussed from this thread. Personalizing your game for the receiver is also recommended but not required.

Keep your game gift a secret! Play it and spend some time to write a thoughtful review. Send the review back to the secret santa. Try to do so before January 1, 2017. On January 2017, everyone please post your game on the allegro.cc Depot!

Thoughts?

:O

I'm in!

Sounds good to me!

Just to confirm, there's no "wishlist" for KrampusHack? Just to personalize it for whomever one receives to make a game for? What if I don't know anything about that person?

We should strive to provide some simple request/guideline for our game. For example, I like cats. So something with cats would make me extra happy.

[edit:] Oh yea, BTW: yay! super excited about KrampusHack!

Good idea! My request: throwing in a cheesecake or two for me would be awesome (it's my favorite dessert). Or anything with dogs (dogs are my second favorite dessert), because dogs are cool.

Edit
By the way, the game doesn't have the be Christmas themed, does it?

You know their name and avatar. That's a start.

But yes, you don't have to provide any guidelines, but if you do, I will send that along to your secret santa.

[edit]
Does not have to be Christmas theme.

I like dungeons. Bonus if there are dragons.

Are we supposed to provide a blog in the official thread without giving Inc anything away? Typos courtesy of my phone.

I'd also like to participate.

+1 for Onewing. Thanks for picking this up. I'm looking forward to this.

I'll try to keep a progress log in the official thread. It's going to be tricky to do so without giving anything away, but I'll try anyway...

Oh, and my wishlist: I like games that teach me something, i.e. an educational game.

I want to.

Is anyone using VS, or do all the Windows people here use gcc? If the latter, a basic directory structure could be used by everyone, and then a makefile could be written, and used by everyone, that will work on all platforms.

Vanneto and m c, I'm taking your "like to" and "want to" as official registration.

No! They broke the law!

They knew what they were doing!

I like yellow elephants!

Oh, wanted to note:

Games don't have to be Christmas themed, but they usually are.

Yes I am using visual studio. Well I plan on sticking to stock allegro + giving a folder of .c/.h .exe/.dll and data files.

I'm in! Where do I upload my game?

I'm in too, if it isnt too late. Hope i complete it for you guys.

Woo! I'm excited for this!

Guise! It's like starting now!

... right?

I suppose so! Although, I haven't received my assigned person... But I'll be patient. I guess I'll start working on a basic game engine for now.

Working on it right now, guys. Had some stuff come up with work. You'll start receiving stuff in the next hour, hopefully.

@Takaaki

Hey, I made you an avatar if you want one. I hope I (Google) translated it properly and that the characters are in the right ascension and order.

Here it is if you like it go ahead and use it.

There's a full size .pdn file with the layers in it if you want to play with it.

I'm trying to put together an avatar pack so we can all use them more easily.

Don't know what to do for GullRaDriel though...

No worries. Take your time. Thanks for doing this, by the way!

Alrightie! Can confirm I have received my assignment !

KrampusHack smaaaaaashhhhh!! >:E >:E >:E >:E

@Edgar:
Thank you for making an image! But I decided to just use my real photo for the profile pic.
My Kanji name is 古川敬章 (You were right for my last name Furukawa!)

Yeah thanks for taking leadership Onewing

I've got my assignment and a person now, so I'll get cracking!

I'd like to see Christmas trees in the games! (^_^)

I got my assignment! I better... get coding. I feel it's been forever since I actually wrote a *hack entry (speedhack 2015?). Actually, I need an idea first - but I'm very excited now, no better way to get into the xmas spirit than a Santa KrampusHack

Sorry for the delay, I had a busy end of week.

Count me in too !!