Posted March 26, 2025 by zemane
#flash #action #side scroller #concept #gameplay
The Merlin Christmas Series of games has almost 20 years, it was a Flash game we created that was published by Miniclip in their website. One of the games, the second one if i am not mistaken, can still be played at the Flash Museum website (Merlin's Christmas - Play Online on Flash Museum 🕹️). The game is about one of Santa's Elf, named Merlin, tried to save Christmas which as sabotaged by the Crazy Avocados from Waterloo (who would have thought about this?).
Another important thing worth mentioning is that I decided to work on Action Side Scroller games with mechanics similar to classics like Double Dragon and Golden Axe (screenshots below) but with a very different approach to combat (or no combat at all).
Since the game jam theme is Spring, the idea of the game is to portray the Elfs during Spring. Have you ever wondered what happens at the North Pole when it is not Christmas? So, they planted some presents to be cropped. Avocados are trying to destroy the crops, Merlin and other Elfs must make sure this doesn't happen.
When I am designing a game, I like to start by describing how a gameplay session would be. Basically, a not so detailed, step by step description of what happens as someone plays a level of the game. The next post should be one of these gameplay session descriptions.