The Santa Shift

You make the toys. Santa takes the credit.

It’s Christmas Eve and you’re an elf on shift in Santa’s workshop. Grab kits, hammer toys together at the bench, tie on ribbons, shovel coal for the naughty kids and ship everything down the chute before the letters run out of time.

The catch: your boss keeps shifting the rules. Suddenly every gift needs a red ribbon. A rush order lands from a “very important child”. Engineering moves the parts around on the bench. Hit your quota to survive the shift, pick a perk, then do it all again, faster.

Features

• Five-minute shifts with a rising quota each round
• Santa’s surprise rule changes: ribbon policies, rush hours, new assembly orders
• A quick hammer-the-parts-in-order build minigame
• A naughty-and-nice list (coal is a delivery too)
• Perks between rounds, plus unlockable hats and bonuses
• A guided first round, and a Relaxed mode for a gentler shift
• Keyboard and mouse or a controller, with every control re-bindable

Update 11/12What's New:

• 4th Toy & Updated Crafting: Added a new toy and tweaked the building process to reward memorization.
• More Variety: Introduced additional toy variations while building.
• New Cart: Added a cart that can hold up to 3 toys at once.

Coming Soon:

• A larger workshop, helpers for harder levels, and more unlockables.

Controls: WASD or the arrow keys to move, the mouse to look, E to use, 1 2 3 at the bench, Esc to pause.

Downloads: Windows, Mac (Apple Silicon) and Mac (Intel). Nothing to install, just unzip and play. The game isn’t signed yet, so the first launch needs one extra click. Each download includes a How to play note with the steps.

Made for GitHub Game Off 2026 (theme: SHIFT).

Music: “Toy Factory Jingle” and “Cozy Christmas Game Ambience” by blueeyedmonkey.

Source code: https://github.com/WattsOfCode/Santa-Shift