The Commodore 64 game, on the PC and in your web browser: the same store, the same shoppers and the same ten days to Christmas, with a mouse in your hand.
It plays in your web browser, with nothing to install. You need a mouse, so it won't work on a phone. The sound starts on your first click.
The story
Black Friday, 1985. You work at the Shack, the electronics store at the edge of the mall parking lot. The manager has one rule: nobody comes through those doors until he says so. Five of them get past you, and you're fired. Read the whole story >
The game
Shoppers walk in from the right, down five lanes, a wave at a time. You put gear from the shelf onto the street to send them home before they reach the store.
- Batteries are what you spend. They drop from the sky, and Battery Racks make more.
- Gear only works on its own lane. A boombox blasts a sound wave down it. A stereo stack makes shoppers stop and gawk. An answering machine sends one home with a single message.
- The velvet rope runs across the front of the store. Shoppers who reach it push at their lane's stretch until it gives, then walk in through the door. Now and then a gift drops with a rope kit in it, to put a stretch back up.
- Five shoppers in the store and you're fired.
There are ten days, from Black Friday's 5 AM doorbusters to Christmas Eve. Each day you win puts something new in the catalogue: twelve pieces of gear in all, from the pocket stereo to a robot arm. The shoppers and the weather are the 64 game's.
How to play
The first day shows you how, a step at a time. After that, pressing P or Esc brings up the break menu, with everything about how to play beside it.
- Place gear: click a card (or press 1 to 8), then a square
- Pick up batteries and gifts: run the mouse over them
- Let go of a card: right click, or Esc
- Mend the rope: R, then the lane (it takes a rope kit)
- Unplug gear: U, then the gear
- Break menu: P or Esc
- Fast: F
- All sound off: M
From the title you can also read the story, browse the catalogue of every piece of gear and every shopper you've met, and see who is Employee of the Month. Get through Christmas Eve and your name goes on the plaque.
Your progress is kept in your browser, on the computer you play on.
The music
The tunes are Christmas carols arranged for the Commodore 64's SID chip, played here by the same SID player as our jukebox: Thomas Mogensen (DRAX), Jim MacKenzie, Richard Bayliss, Debby Cruz, Dave Marquis, Don Williams, Ronny Engmann (dalezy) and Fredrik Bengtsson (Batsman). The sound effects are made the way a 64 game makes them: three voices, pulse, sawtooth, triangle and noise.
On the Commodore 64
This is where it's going next, and where it started. See the Commodore 64 version >
Keep it coming
If you like what we're doing and want to see more of it, your support helps us keep making new things for our Commodores: games like this one, Asteroid Base Defense and Hazelwood, demos, tunes and more.
Pay what you like, securely through Stripe. Thank you!