Christmas Factory cover

Cooking game

Christmas Factory

Direct elves across a gift-wrapping line and keep every station staffed to hit the Christmas Eve target.

Difficulty
Easy to moderate
Compatibility
See device support below

Game overview

Christmas Factory puts you in charge of a toy workshop with a hard deadline. Elves work the wrapping stations and you direct them, moving hands to whichever part of the line is falling behind so gifts keep coming off the end. The pressure is deliberately silly and the management is real: a station left unstaffed backs up the whole line, and the target for the night only gets met if you rebalance instead of watching one station work perfectly.

This title is best suited to players who enjoy light production-line management.

How to play Christmas Factory

  1. Look along the line to find the station falling behind
  2. Assign an elf to the bottleneck
  3. Keep every stage supplied so gifts reach the end of the line
  4. Meet the night's production target before time runs out

Controls

  • Tap / left mouse button: Assign an elf to a station
  • Drag: Move workers between stations

Objectives and failure conditions

Objectives

  • Produce the target number of wrapped gifts
  • Keep every station on the line staffed
  • Complete each shift before the deadline

The run ends or fails when

  • The line backs up and the production target is missed

Gameplay mechanics

  • Worker assignment across a production line
  • Bottleneck management
  • Timed shift targets

Device compatibility

Desktop browsers

Mouse or trackpad: Christmas Factory loads straight into the page on desktop Chrome, Edge, Firefox and Safari with no download or plugin. Controls used: Tap / left mouse button, Drag.

Phones and tablets

Touch controls: Christmas Factory is driven by pointer input, which maps to tap and drag on a touch screen.

Tips for Christmas Factory

  • Staff the last station first, because a blocked end stops everything behind it
  • Move one elf at a time so you can see the effect
  • Watch the queue length at each station rather than the workers themselves

What worked well and what did not

Pros

  • Bottleneck management is genuinely engaging
  • Bright, readable presentation

Cons

  • Late shifts become hectic rather than tactical
  • Little variety between production lines

Player comments

No published comments yet.