About Sunburnt Santa

Sunburnt Santa is a free advent-calendar game made by one person, Ben Cooney, who trades as vibe_dm, in Yungaburra, a small town on the Atherton Tablelands in Far North Queensland.

Sunburnt Santa in sunglasses, hat and zinc cream waving from a red ute with a Christmas tree in the tray as a kangaroo bounds alongside. — Santa swapped the sleigh for a ute.

Why a sunburnt Santa?

Christmas in Australia lands in the middle of summer. Santa in a fur suit makes no sense when it's 35 degrees, the pav is sweating and the cricket's on, so this one wears short sleeves, sunnies and zinc and drives a ute. The name also tips its hat to the real "Sunburnt Santa", Alf Harris, who brought Christmas to families along the Nullarbor on the Tea and Sugar train: read his story.

The game

24 short mini-games, one behind each door of an advent calendar, plus six bonus games. Every leaderboard round is replayed on the server, so the boards stay honest. It runs on iPhone, Android and in the browser. There's no AI in the game itself.

How it was made

The painted worlds and characters were made with AI image tools, then cut out, outlined, composed and animated by the game's own art pipeline. Each level is getting its own comic song. The full story of how it was made

Ben Cooney

Ben lives in Yungaburra, cassowary country, the setting for Door 13, Cassowary Crossing. More from vibe_dm at vibe1ai.com.

Get in touch

Players: Support or Report a problem. Press and creators: the media page.