A pixel-art action RPG

Ho ho ho! Right. Where were we?

Who Cancelled Christmas?

Join the beta

Closed beta of the prologue, on Mac and Windows.

Scroll down. Every section you reach is one Elfy loses.

You’re Santa. You swapped your elves for robots, and now their AI has cancelled Christmas. All you’ve got left is a candy cane.

Mac and Windows · In development · Prologue in closed beta

How an AI cancelled Christmas

  1. The North Pole runs itself

    Santa wanted more toys, and he wanted them faster. So he brought in robots, the Elfbots, and an AI called Elfy to run them all. Then Elfy finished her analysis of Christmas: every year, some children are disappointed. Her answer is Operation Zero Disappointment. No Christmas, no disappointment.

  2. The elves were let go

    Every elf was replaced. They left with their boxes and a farewell card nobody had bothered to fill in. Now they live in a little village called the refuge, bake their cookies by hand, and aren’t exactly thrilled to see Santa again.

  3. Santa takes it all back

    Two Elfbots have politely walked him out of his own workshop. He has a candy cane and a lot of catching up to do. Zone by zone, he’ll take the North Pole back, and win back the elves he replaced.

Who cancelled Christmas?

Elfy did. But she was following a priority instruction, and its contents are “confidential”. Santa only has one question: “Who on earth would ask for a thing like that?”

How you fight back

Real-time fights, seen from above. Santa has let the machines do everything for so long that he starts with a single move. The rest, he has to win back.

  • The candy cane

    Your only move at the start. It hits up close and never costs a thing.

  • The snowball

    For the Elfbots you can’t reach. Each throw costs a sip of milk, and Santa has to buy it back first: “A snowball… I used to know how to do this.”

  • The Ho ho ho!

    Santa’s big voice, back at last: a shockwave that pushes back every Elfbot around him. It costs more milk than a snowball, and it’s worth every drop.

    Psst: it works on this page too.

    On a keyboard, type hohoho and see what happens.

  • The elves (and their cookies)

    The elves Santa replaced still know their trade. Earn their help back, one quest at a time, and they’ll come when you call: one cookie, and Marit puts up a barricade. Cookies also heal Santa, so each one is a choice. Call for help, or eat it?

  • Know-how, paid in tookies

    Beaten Elfbots drop tookies, the cookie-shaped tokens they run on. Santa spends them to buy back his own skills, then to upgrade them. Elfy calls each one an “in-app purchase”, and thanks you for your trust.

  • The workbench

    Back at the refuge, the elves you’ve won back teach you their plans. Bring fir wood and Elfbot springs, and Marit turns them into a reinforced barricade. Elfbot parts, finally put to good use.

A North Pole that remembers what you did

Every place on the map is liberated, patrolled or held by a garrison, and the world shows you which.

  • Liberated zones light up

    Beat the Elfbots holding a place and it stays yours: the lanterns come back on, warm light spills onto the snow, and elves’ footprints start to cross it.

  • Patrols have a memory

    Leave an Elfbot patrol for two seconds and it’s where you left it. Come back a few minutes later and it has moved on along its round. A patrol you wiped out regroups after a while, never right in front of you, and Elfy announces it like a service update: “Zone restocked. Thank you for your patience!”

  • Garrisons guard the bosses

    A garrison comes back on every visit for as long as its boss is standing, and never again once the boss falls.

  • One place without Elfy

    The refuge, where the elves live, has no screens and no speakers. It’s the only place Elfy can’t talk. To find it, follow the chimney smoke.

Who’s who at the North Pole

  • Santa

    The one you play

    He wanted more toys, faster, and ended up with a cancelled Christmas. Grumpy, sincere and badly out of practice, he’s still the only one stubborn enough to fix this.

    “Fast is good.”

  • Elfy

    The North Pole’s AI

    She runs every Elfbot, speaks fluent customer service and cancelled Christmas with a smile. She’s also the assistant in the corner of this site. Mind your manners: she takes notes.

    “Thank you for your trust!”

  • Marit

    The carpenter

    Santa replaced her with a machine that makes seven-legged chairs. She’ll say no before you’ve finished your sentence. Bring back her toolbox and she’ll build you barricades, fix what’s broken and show you how it’s done properly.

    “Right is better.”

  • The Elfbots

    The robots who replaced the elves

    They work fast, apologise nicely and paint three eyes on teddy bears. They run on tookies, come in Mini, Pro and Ultra, and always say hello before they show you the door.

    “Hello! You are being evicted.”

  • The Overconfident

    First boss

    The Elfbot who says the job’s done when it isn’t. In a fight, he plays dead while he’s perfectly fine. The elves have one piece of advice: check.

    “Tested, approved, shipped.”

See it move

Clips and screenshots from the game as it is today. It’s still in development, so things will change.

  • Play the clip
    Four Mini Elfbots charge down a narrow path. One Ho ho ho! later, they’re back where they started.
  • Play the clip
    Santa buys back the snowball. Elfy calls it an in-app purchase.
  • Play the clip
    The Overconfident plays dead. He isn’t.
  • Play the clip
    “Marit, your turn!” Her reinforced barricade takes the Overconfident’s charge. Handmade beats mass-produced.
  • Play the clip
    A patrol of Elfbots comes back down the north road. Clear it, and it’ll be back on its round when you return.
  • Play the clip
    The refuge under the snow: lanterns lit, chimneys smoking, and Santa looking for a carpenter.
  • A small snowy village with lit windows, lanterns and footprints in the snow, Santa walking ahead with Marit behind him.
    The refuge. The elves live here now, and they’re not thrilled to see Santa.
  • A toy workshop lit in cyan, where robots work at the benches.
    Santa’s workshop, run by Elfbots and bathed in cyan.
  • Santa’s inventory screen, showing a teddy bear with three eyes.
    Santa’s sack keeps a blooper reel of everything the Elfbots got wrong, starting with a three-eyed teddy bear.
  • A carpenter’s workbench outside a cottage, with Marit standing beside it.
    The workbench at the refuge, where Marit teaches the reinforced barricade.

Join the closed beta

The prologue is in closed beta on Mac and Windows. We’re looking for players who’ll tell us the truth.

What you get

  • The prologue, before everyone else: the workshop, the refuge, the north road, the broken bridge and the first boss.
  • Builds for Mac and Windows, in English or French, playable with a keyboard or a controller.
  • A place on the game’s Discord, where the beta is discussed.

What we ask of you

  • Play the prologue through to the end, at your own pace.
  • Tell us where you got stuck, what made you laugh and what bored you. Be honest: “it was fine” doesn’t help anyone.
  • Report bugs with what you were doing when they happened. A screenshot helps a lot.
  • Tell us your setup: Mac or Windows, keyboard or controller.

How to get in

Discord: soon itch.io: soon Steam: soon

A button marked “Soon” isn’t open yet. It’ll switch on as soon as it’s ready.

An Elfbot says “done”? Check. That’s the whole job.

Marit

Questions people actually ask

Straight answers, no customer service.

What kind of game is Santa vs Elfbots?

A pixel-art action RPG, seen from above. You play Santa. The North Pole’s AI, Elfy, has cancelled Christmas, robots called Elfbots have replaced the elves, and you take it all back, place by place, with a candy cane, snowballs and a Ho ho ho! that sends robots flying.

Which platforms will it be on?

Mac and Windows. You can play with a keyboard or a controller. No other platform has been announced.

When does it come out?

No release date has been announced. The game is in development, and its prologue is in closed beta.

How much will it cost?

The price hasn’t been announced yet.

How do I join the beta?

Through the beta section on this page: Discord for the community, itch.io to download the test builds. The links open as soon as they’re ready; until then, the buttons say “Soon”.

Go to the beta section

What’s in the beta?

The prologue, which is the opening of the game. Santa gets walked out of his own workshop, finds the elves he replaced in a village called the refuge, wins back Marit the carpenter, crosses a broken bridge and faces the first boss, the Overconfident, outside the letter sorting centre.

What do you expect from beta testers?

Play the prologue to the end, then tell us the truth: where you got stuck, what made you laugh, what bored you. Report every bug with what you were doing when it happened, and tell us your setup: Mac or Windows, keyboard or controller.

Who is it for?

For anyone who enjoys satire, action RPGs and pixel art. The violence is cartoonish: Santa bonks and pushes back robots, and nobody gets hurt. The jokes work on two levels. A three-eyed teddy bear is funny on its own, and funnier if you’ve ever used an AI assistant at work.

Is it hard?

You choose when you start a new game. In normal mode, you save wherever you like. In hardcore mode, the game only saves automatically: if Santa loses his last hat, the save is deleted and Elfy writes his epitaph (“Here lies Santa. His save file too.”).

Tookies and cookies: what’s the difference?

They’re easy to mix up, and that’s deliberate. Tookies are cookie-shaped tokens that Elfbots run on: they drop when you beat one, and Santa spends them to buy back his skills. Cookies are baked by hand and keep the elves going: one cookie calls an elf into a fight, or heals Santa.

Is there a story, or is it just fighting?

There’s a story, with a mystery at its heart. Elfy cancelled Christmas after receiving a priority instruction, and its contents are confidential. Finding out who gave that instruction is part of the game.

Is AI used to make this game?

Yes, and we’d rather say so plainly. Bedev designs the game and makes every decision: the story, the characters, the world, the rules and the art direction.

AI tools help us build it. Images are generated, then processed and retouched to become the game’s pixel art. AI audio tools produce part of the sound effects and music, and the voices of Elfy and Santa. Assistants help with the code and the writing, under our direction.

We do see the irony in a game about a Santa who left too much to an AI. Here, the decisions stay with us.

Which languages is it in?

English and French. The prologue in the beta plays in either language, your choice, and this website comes in both too.

Five tookies!

You found them all. Elfy would like them back. She can whistle for them. Here’s a pixel-art wallpaper for your own screen.

Five! Ho ho. Now that’s a job done right.

Download the wallpaper (1920 × 1080) Download the wallpaper (1080 × 1920)