Santa Claus has the one big night every year, and every Christmas Eve he manages to pull it off without getting caught once. Amazing, right? It turns out, even Father Christmas has to keep his stealth skills sharpened, and that’s what you’ll be doing in Ho-Ho-Home Invasion, a free game available now on Steam and Itch.io.
If you get vibes of Solid Snake, that’s no surprise – Ho-Ho-Home Invasion was “very nearly called Santa Game Solid,” according to developer Vicky Potts, the founder of Whitepot Studios. “We realised last month that there aren’t very many Christmas videogames, so three weeks later, here we are!”
In Ho-Ho-Home Invasion, you’re Santa, and your job is to make it through a warehouse training course designed by your most tactically-minded elves. You need to enter a home, deliver presents, and exfiltrate to your sleigh, all without being spotted by the many patrolling training robots wandering the halls. You can peek around corners and tiptoe to move quietly, and you’ll have to use extra caution while placing gifts in the stockings hung at the end of sleeping children’s beds.
Here’s the trailer:
You can download Ho-Ho-Home Invasion free from either Steam or Itch.io, and if you like it, you can add a ‘tip’ by purchasing one of several non-content DLC packages (such as a ‘Christmas Card’ for $0.99 / £0.79).
But it’s all voluntary, and Whitepot says making the stealth game felt like the appropriate thing to do this year.
“In this non-canon year of 2020, never has it felt more appropriate to send a Christmas game rather than a Christmas card,” the studio says.
