Jump to content
IGNORED

Oldest Christmas-Themed Game?


Recommended Posts

I stumbled on a really old Christmas game called "Santa's Sleigh Ride" from 1981. According to Moby Games, the oldest game of this genre is 1984's "Special Delivery: Santa's Christmas Chaos". I did a review of this old title if you want to see it, but I was wondering if there are other obscure Christmas titles missing from the list. 1985's Ho! Ho! Ho! is also missing from there.

 

  • Like 2
Link to comment
Share on other sites

The C64 however wasn't launched until the summer/fall of 1982, so if the hunt is to find anything available 1981 or earlier, it limits the number of possible platforms. Obviously in the time span 1982-1984 there should be more to list.

 

I had a brief look at the listings for Atari 400/800 on Atarimania, but didn't find anything in particular. Then again I don't know how complete that database is, in particular if type-ins and public domain are taken into account.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Are you limiting this to commercial releases? If not, I suggest checking those computer magazines that existed prior to 1981 (and prior) for published listings of Christmas-themed games.

 

TRS-80 Microcomputer Newsletter was launched in 1977:

http://www.os9projects.com/MAGAZINES/MicroNews/MicroNews.html

 

Creative Computing was launched in 1978:

https://archive.org/details/creativecomputing

 

Compute was launched in 1979:

http://www.bombjack.org/commodore/magazines/compute/compute.htm

 

 

There are probably some other system-specific magazines that I am unaware of, but this should provide a reasonable starting point.

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Not a game, but Creative Computing had a listing about computer generated season's greetings already in November 1978.

 

In December 1980, Stephen Berggren writes a program for the Apple to simulate a Christmas tree so you can decorate it to your liking and even have the "lights" flashing. It still isn't a game in the meaning it has a score or unwanted ending.

 

When it comes to COMPUTE!, they didn't have much in terms of entertainment and games until at least 1982. The magazine by the way started off as PET Gazette and once it became COMPUTE!, they added subsections called Apple Gazette, Atari Gazette and SBC Gazette (SYM-1, OSI etc). Eventually they added sections for TRS-80 CoCo and VIC-20 as they became available, and in October 1982 they added C64 and ZX-81. Not until January 1983 they seem to have covered the TI-99/4A, which I believe was remarkably late. On the other hand, the IBM PC wasn't featured until February 1984. The magazine ran a small feature on the TI until October 1986, and had a miniscule VIC support until September the same year, then both formats finally were cut off.

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

I don't know if you'd call it a game, but I have an old "game" that came on some floppy disk subscription, kind of like the "Big Blue Disk," but during the late 70s and early 80s. Anyway, all it did is play Christmas songs using the PC speaker. It was all in ASCII (no ANSI even). On anything faster than a 4.77Mhz 8088, and it's almost unlistenable.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 2 months later...

Not the oldest, but does anyone remember an old PD/Shareware game called something like "A Christmas Eve Nightmare"? I remember reading about it in an old catalog, and sooooooooooooooo wanted to play this game. Probably 1989, and likely for the Atari 8-bit if I remember right.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Still my favorite to play: Christmas Lemmings But its not as old as some mentioned. It came out in around 1991

That has to be the most commercially successful Christmas videogame of all-time. Before that, it was probably 1985's Jingle Disk. I had that for my Atari 8-bit and loved it.

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 3 years later...
  • 1 year later...
  • 3 years later...

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.
Note: Your post will require moderator approval before it will be visible.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

Loading...
  • Recently Browsing   0 members

    • No registered users viewing this page.
×
×
  • Create New...