Nerding Day: Games Advent Calendar 25 Days 25 Surprises (Patreon)

The countdown to Christmas is one of my favorite times of the year. Seriously, is there anything better than an advent calendar? Probably, but if it exists, I haven’t seen it! That said, all I’ve seen recently are an Advent Calendar, a Nintendo GameCube, and the four walls of the basement room my parents have kept me in since 2002. There’s a little window with bars near the top of one wall, but all I can see are the advancement in sneaker fashion as people walk by, perhaps people I could’ve known and loved.

That said, advent calendars are great! You get 25 days of tiny gifts that you won’t know what to do with after a while and somehow feel inexplicably guilty when you miss a few days! Maybe you’re getting 25 days of candy that all taste nearly identical but contains a guide to the flavors anyway. Maybe you’re getting 25 days of cheap, malformed toys that you realize are off-brand after you’ve already ruined too much of the box to return. Or maybe you’re getting 25 days of tea because you think you’re better than me. But regardless of the gift or the reason, advent calendars are a fun way for joyful teens and broken adults who spend their whole life looking in the rearview mirror.

So when I saw Games Advent Calendar 25 Days 25 Surprises for sale on Amazon for only $10, I knew I had to buy it! 25 days! 25 games! That’s less than $1 a day and/or game! You can’t beat a value like that. So I threw it in my cart and got it shipped to my completely childless home in which I’m the only person who even remotely enjoys video games. Then I waited patiently until it arrived, rushing down my steps like a little boy on Christmas, excited to grab that package before neighborhood kids steal it like they stole my Halloween-themed toilet paper package, which is actually a real thing that did happen and I’m still bummed.

What I first noticed, with some disappointment, was that there was no Nintendo Switch game card in the box. Instead, it was a download code with a photo of a family that looked like someone was holding a gun to their heads while telling them to play Mario Kart with motion controls. And who’s that fourth arm in the picture? Why are they cropped out? What do they know?

But that’s okay! Sometimes big things come in empty packages! And soon, the game was downloaded and ready to play.

Of course, you might not have all the time in the world to try 25 games in 25 days. You might want to know why days are the most interesting in case you, like me, buy this game for yourself in an attempt to do anything but see a reflective surface. Or you might just want to open the doors out of order, having fun in that unique, quirky way everybody likes and thinks is cool.

But whatever the reason, here is my ranking of all 25 days in Games Advent Calendar 25 Days 25 Surprises.

12/8: Christmas Artist

So at first this looks like a Picross game and you’re like, “Hell, yeah, Christmas picross!” And then you realize it’s a paint-by-numbers game. Which is also pretty cool, right? No problems there. Maybe have some fun with it. The possibilities are endless with creativity and art. Maybe a Christmas tree that’s blue! Now we’re thinking with power!

Except actually painting those numbers is so backbreakingly bad, it’s almost like the game is making fun of you for doing exactly what I’m doing. The paintbrush is incredibly fickle and will only fill specific boxes if you’re completely zoomed in and click multiple times. Sometimes it’ll accidentally fill in a bunch of different colors around it, which is convenient or broken and I’m not even sure if I care which is which.

It’s called “artist” but you’re really just struggling to click the right number to make enough colors appear that you feel like you’re “less than $1 a game” bullshit actually means anything. It’s not really a game. You can’t lie to yourself that it’s fun in an old-timey DOS shareware disk way. It’s possibly the only game not created from a template and it makes me angry.

Also, somehow I earned an achievement without doing anything except clicking a square. So if you want to start your advent on the opposite of a bang, here you are.

12/7: Penguin Runner

This is the second runner-style game in the collection. If anything, calling it a “runner” kind of elides the part where you’re a penguin who’s waddling at a speed between “slow” and “tourists walking four abreast on a sidewalk directly in front of you.” If they called it a “waddler,” maybe it would be a few places higher on the list.

You basically play a penguin who waddles through an ice-covered landscape while catching crystals and avoiding obstacles. It never speeds up. Never gets interesting. It has the same joy of waiting in an emergency room to hear what the doctor says is going on with your mom. But it’s a game in some way, so that makes it not the worst.

12/6: Holiday Jigsaw

How do you make Christmas puzzles less interesting? Why, include a cursor that moves the pieces incredibly slowly! Slow moving parts are something that comes up a lot in this game collection. And I get that for the running and platforming titles. But this is a jigsaw puzzle game. The piece moving faster from the top of the screen to the bottom isn’t going to make a kid cry in frustration.

Worse, the images it includes are of a quality less than good? Or they’re not that interesting. I don’t know. When I think of a jigsaw puzzle, I imagine a cozy setting, sitting by the fire, enjoying a warm drink. Which you’d think would be perfect. Except it’s like you’re trapped in a dark cabin with your hands broken by a serial killer who’ll let you go if you can finish just one picture of a winter landscape.

12/4: Bauble Shooter

You might know this as Bust-A-Move or Puzzle Bobble. Or maybe Snood if you were alive and using a computer from 2004-2007. You shoot balls towards the top of the screen and getting three or more balls of the same color causes them to drop, which sounds like more of a really fucked up diversity statement in middle school than anything.

Unlike a lot of the games in this collection, Bauble Shooter actually moves pretty fast! Well, the cursor does. And unlike Bust-A-Move, where you point, the ball doesn’t stay there. Instead, you’ve got to hold the analog stick at a precise angle while it vibrates on screen like a VR controller with shitty calibration.

Still, at least it’s a game that makes sense and is a little fun?

12/2: Tetrix-mas

No, this isn’t Tetris: It’s Tetrix-mas, the exact same game except bad and more bad. The fact that it’s Tetris buys it some leeway, but I guarantee this is the absolute worst version of Tetris you’ve ever played, including the cheap porn ones dads used to own. The blocks move glacially down the fucking screen and the button to flip the block is absolutely in the wrong place. But don’t worry, that button is next to the “drop instantly” button so you’ll screw up more than you get anything right.

Also, here is around where I realized that the only three or so Christmas songs (in what I assume is 1993’s best MIDI format) loop throughout the game no matter what you’re doing. There is “We Wish You A Merry Christmas,” “Jingle Bells,” and a vague legally-permissible knock-off of “Last Christmas” in which we only really get the beginning of the song and not much else.

Still, it’s Tetris, so what are you going to do?

12/3: Gift Runner

The other running game in the collection, Gift Runner’s camera angle is from the side so it’s completely different when you think about it. In this game, you’re a little boy who’s grabbing gifts and dodging animals or something as you slowly walk down a course. This game is so slow. It’s not a runner. He doesn’t run. He’s not running. He’s walking. He’s walking. He’s jumping. He’s walking.

While it’s not the most fun of anything, it is a game that most kids will recognize from their phones and tablets and whatnot and so forth. And at least some of the decorations around the buildings that make the cityscape background are nice. We can still give compliments even when we’re not completely satisfied. At least, that’s what my ex used to say to me - heyooooo! So funny. So fun.

12/1: Arctic Adventures

This is a platformer featuring a polar bear who jumps on evil snowmen as he heads for a chimney. It’s actually somewhat vaguely fine, playing a bit like a cheap Super Nintendo game you’d rent at Blockbuster. You run, you jump, you exit the stage. The graphics aren’t too bad either, looking a bit in the style of Braid without the insufferable man developing it. Based on the vastly different looks of each game, I’m also guessing that almost everything in the collection was taken from a template pack or was created in a fugue state.

While it plays the best of anything on the list, I’m putting it this low down because of the awful realization it forced upon me: This was only one level. It gave me a premonition that I did not want to be correct.

12/5: Arctic Adventures Part 2

Oh God. Oh God, no. I was right. There are two Arctic Adventures.

Well, at least this one has a bit of a more complicated level! So, you know, you’re improving your skills! I get it. You can’t make every game unique. Sometimes you want to build on top of previous stuff.

And, again, it’s a little more fun than the first one!

12/11: Arctic Adventures Part 3

Jesus Christ.

Okay, I’m used to this one now. And that platforming isn’t too rough on you! The levels are short and have a definitive end, too, which makes this more pleasant than waiting until you’re angry enough to quit like the other games. That’s something!

I wish the first number we used in counting was “17” so I wouldn’t need to do more of these, but I’ve already paid money for this thing and pitched it to the big bosses and their big boss wives, so here we are. I actually don’t know if any of the people who edit this site are married and/or attracted to that gender, so I apologize. Don’t do nothing bad to me for this, guys. I need the money so much.

12/21: Christmas Artist Part 2

It has better pictures than the first artist paint-by-numbers game and the fact that you know it sucks means you can have a lot of fun by entering the game and hitting “B” to instantly exit. It also definitely says something that, while almost every other crock of shit in this package ultimately has four or five variations, this one only has two.

12/15: Holiday Jigsaw Part 2

Remember how I said “almost every other” game had multiple variations? This one doesn’t. It’s also got just two because smashing a recently-opened Nintendo Switch 2 in front of a child would give them better video game memories than this.

Like the above, it’s got cooler pictures, though. That’s something. God, I hope whoever made this game isn’t reading this. I don’t want them to feel bad, but maybe they should? If you made this and you’re reading it, why? Why do this?

12/10: Christmas Match 3

Oh, thank God! A different game!

This game ranks a bit higher up because it’s genuinely the most fleshed out in the package. Sure, it’s just a match 3 game, but it has special items and different board layouts. None of that is new or a challenge, but at least there was an effort by somebody at some point in some process involving this. We all have to hang onto the things we’ve got when they work and try to ignore the things that don’t when they hurt.

Maybe it’s not the most advanced type of game, but this one likely had a more complete, more thought-out template than the others. I know it’s mean to assume someone’s using a pre-made template for their games, but we’ve got runners and jigsaw puzzles and match 3, folks. Let’s not be naive here just because it’s the fucking holidays.

12/12: Bauble Shooter Part 2

There are a bunch of colors of baubles here that weren’t in the last one, so who am I to criticize? Sometimes the people want another bauble or two!

12/22: Bauble Shooter Part 3

Or three! I’ve literally got nothing else to say about this. It’s Bust-A-Move.

God, I’ve still got eleven of these to go. Okay. Deep breath, Drucker. You can do this.

12/9: Gift Runner Part 2

I think Gift Runner is the only game that actually speeds up each time it comes up in the advent calendar. This alone makes it one of the best options to ruin your December with.

The thing that really makes it pop, however, is that a penguin slides right into your dumbass the moment it begins. If you don’t hit jump AS it starts, you’re screwed. It’s really funny. Probably a mistake in the game itself that would’ve been fixed with one QA person playing it a solitary time, but still funny.

12/14: Penguin Runner Part 2

Look who’s back? The old penguin! And he’s waddling! This isn’t going faster, but the landscape kinda twists around itself, which is a fun effect that the person developing this figured out halfway through the process. Good job, buddy! See? I’m not too negative to be with. I’m not. I’m really not.

12/13: Tetrix-mas Part 2

I keep editing and deleting parts of this list to put games higher because they’re all bad. But I’ve got 25 games and 25 slots, so here we are and here is Tetrix-mas again. I quite literally can’t tell any reasonable difference other than it’s moving maybe a centimeter an hour faster than before. But, you know, if I keep shifting things around in this list it’ll never get done.

12/18: Tetrix-mas Part 3

And I want to get this done. I want to get it done so bad. I just want it to be Christmas. I’m no Grinch. I’m anti-Grinch. But I don’t want to do Christmas this way. I don’t want it to be like this. I want to wake up and be 12 again and not full of so much resentment, you know? I want to feel excited at even the most empty gesture of goodwill and the cheapest gift. Now I can’t even get something new and cool like a laptop without finding all the flaws. I used to be a happy person with a big laugh, but I don’t know what happened to it. No amount of money can fix this. No amount of love ever has either.

12/17: Arctic Adventures Part 4

Remember in Jurassic Park when Dennis Nedry yelled, “Dodgson! We’ve got Dogson here!”? That was such a fun time. Sometimes I watch Jurassic Park with my family around Christmas. We chuckle every time!

12/19: Penguin Runner Part 3

Thankfully, this is the last awful fucking penguin waddling game.

I’m used to it being bad now, so it’s 6th because by the time it landed, I knew I couldn’t get mad anymore.

12/23: Penguin Runner Part 4

Are you fucking kidding me? Just four days later? And this one comes on Christmas Eve Eve?!

12/16: Gift Runner Part 3

This entry has a very slightly different intro graphic than the previous Gift Runner games, which made me excited that something would be different. It wouldn’t.

12/24: Tetrix-mas Part 4

I’d felt guilty not putting a Tetris game in the top three. Plus, it is almost identical to the other Tetrix-mas entries in nearly every way, including speed, which made me laugh. It’s like if they broke a tiny piece of chocolate into three parts and included a sliver in each advent calendar box. Or it’s nothing like that.

12/20: Christmas Match 3 Part 2

Wait a minute, why does the match 3 only have two fucking varities? You’re telling me that I get fewer match 3 games than I do penguin waddlers? Come on, Jack. Don’t give me that turkey. I don’t like it. I don’t like it one bit.

But I do like this game. And I do respect that, if you’ve read this far, you’re more than ready for me to wrap it up. Like a gift! God, I like a good giftwrap, don’t you? Especially the one you do yourself! You don’t think you’re gonna get that oblong shape wrapped up but then you do it and you think, “Wow, I’m really good at this!” It’s a healthy moment we need more often in our lives.

12/25: Arctic Adventures Part 5

This is my favorite one because it’s Christmas! Which means you can delete this game off your Switch to make room for all that eShop slop you’ll be buying to ignore your parents in the few years they have left before they’re no longer on this Earth or available to love you.

From my family to yours, Merry Christmas and stop calling this number.

This article was brought to you by our fine sponsor and Hot Dog Supreme: Mr. Bob Gray, who holds all the speedrun any% WRs for this game and each individual subgame. The guy is obsessed and was stoked to see the game covered in this article.

You can read this article and every other one on the much better in every way 1900HOTDOG.COM