Christmas and nostalgia go hand in hand, and this year I’m overdosing on both with the help of my Raspberry Pi. One thing I remember fondly from childhood is playing Christmas-themed games and demos on my Amiga, so I figured now is the perfect time to relive the classics.
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Christmas games were once a big deal
Despite seasonal themes making an appearance in modern games, this often takes the form of a seasonal event, like a holiday-themed map. Games like Animal Crossing and Stardew Valley incorporate some form of festive event, and other games like Spider-Man Miles Morales and Batman Arkham City take place during the holidays, but these seem more like the exception than the rule.
This probably says more about the way that video games evolved as an industry than it does the holiday spirit of game developers. Whereas seasonal films and music are churned out year after year, these are short-lived affairs. Video games usually take weeks or months to complete, and years to make. This makes them somewhat unprofitable tie-ins for short-lived seasons.
But the festive games I fondly remember were far simpler affairs than today’s hundred-plus-hour affairs. Many of them were just reskins of existing releases with a bit of snow here and a Santa hat there. While some full-priced festive games exist, the ones I most fondly remember (and own myself) are the free holiday-themed releases that appeared on demo disks along with magazines like Amiga Power, Amiga Format, and The One Amiga.
Video game magazines are another nostalgia pit that I often find myself falling down, but in a time before the modern internet (and even afterwards, when connections were unimaginably slow), they were vital for experiencing new games. At Christmas, cover disks often included some festive reskin of the year’s big release with exclusive levels.
Considering I was around 7 when I received my Amiga 1200 in the early 90s, to say that revisiting some of these has been a trip would be an understatement. Since my partner never experienced these games, this feels like the perfect excuse to “share” the wonder. That’s what I’m telling myself, anyway.
The Raspberry Pi 500+ is the perfect Amiga emulator
This year, I picked up a Raspberry Pi 500+, which is pretty much a Raspberry Pi 5B in a mechanical keyboard case with 16GB of RAM and a 256GB SSD loaded up and ready to go. I’ve already spoken about how this feels like the perfect modern throwback to my beloved A1200, so it’s a fitting use for the 500+.
The simple ARM system-on-chip is more than powerful enough to emulate the A1200 and other computers of the day (including Windows 3.1). It’s also incredibly easy to do so thanks to the Amiberry project. This is an Amiga emulator for Linux and macOS that works flawlessly and even looks like a genuine piece of Amiga software.
All you need to do is supply Kickstart ROMs (BIOS files) and floppy disk images, and you’re good to go. There’s also support for hard disks, CD-ROMs, plus excellent support for emulated peripherals like joysticks and gamepads. This is basically WinUAE in Linux clothing, which is the gold standard for Amiga emulation.
Just keep in mind that copyright law applies even to old games. It is illegal to download games that you do not own, though this is admittedly a gray area when they’re demos that were given away for free in the first place.
Some of the games I’ll be playing
The first game I booted up is arguably the definitive Christmas game: Christmas Lemmings (also known as Holiday Lemmings). In 1991 and 1992, DMA Design released two four-level festive demos, and in 1993 and 1994, followed this up with two full-priced releases. It’s the same addictive strategy puzzle game that it always was, with a lot more snow and festive music.
James Pond II: Codename Robocod is a full-game sequel to the original platformer in which you must infiltrate Santa’s grotto at the North Pole and save Christmas. Santa’s Xmas Caper is a simple side-scrolling platformer with the kind of loud colors and audio design that was so typical of the games released for the Amiga in 1992.
Another personal favorite is 1994’s Cannon Soccer: Amiga Format Christmas Special, a festive crossover that marries Sensible Software’s beloved top-down action game Cannon Fodder with its equally revered Sensible Soccer, where you fight soccer players on a pitch. The second game received a festive tie-in too, known as Not Very Festive Fodder 2, a series of four incredibly challenging levels in which enemies wear Santa hats.
Other highlights include the Theme Park Xmas Demo, which was little more than a winter reskin, and All Terrain Racing Christmas Demo, which was released in 1994. Fire and Ice Christmas Edition is another demo that was released in 1992, with a challenging Christmas-themed level that was released on an Amiga Power cover disk.
You can find these titles and many more listed at The Amiga Christmas Tree, with Retro32 also releasing a games pack. Lastly, there’s also Santastic, a modern game that received a boxed releasein 2025.
Looking for more modern releases? Check out our favorite festive games. I’d also like to point out that one of the best games of all time just happens to take place during December.
- Storage
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256GB Raspberry Pi SSD
- Memory
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16GB SD
This Raspberry Pi model is built into a mechanical keyboard, giving you everything you need in one peripheral.
