Gifts, Please

Gifts, Please is a Christmas game about checking children’s records and deciding whether they receive presents. You play a packer promoted during the holiday rush to Junior Elf Controller in Santa’s “Behavior and Delivery Verification Department.” Your decisions affect the sleigh’s deliveries, your rating, salary and career, and too many mistakes can lead to demotion or a meeting with Santa.

Review each case

A new stack of cases arrives at your desk each morning. Children’s folders can include a letter and wish list, behavior card, registration form, “passport,” naughty list and a document for Santa’s stamp. Some cases also contain certificates or complaints from neighbors. You compare names, surnames and ages across the papers, check for blacklisted children and judge whether a child’s behavior matches the requested gift.

After reviewing a case, you can approve the shipment, replace a dangerous or unsuitable gift with a safe alternative, deny the gift and assign coal, or send nothing in special cases. Forged parent signatures, photos that do not match their descriptions and attempts to erase names from the naughty list are among the deceptions you must catch.

Difficult decisions

Some cases pose moral dilemmas: a child may have behaved badly but written a sincere apology, or a well-behaved child may ask for something forbidden by safety rules, such as a live dragon. An address may contain an obvious error, leaving you to decide whether sending the gift could disrupt the schedule.

The workload grows each day, the rules become more complicated and the children become more inventive. Twin look-alikes, secret codes in letters and contradictory instructions from different elf superiors add to the challenge.

Workshop and progression

Your decisions affect your rating, salary and career. You can decorate your nook with trinkets or earn a promotion by working accurately; poor performance brings complaints and fines, and can send you back to the assembly line to make wind-up mice as a workshop elf.

The game features dozens of children’s stories, each with its own character, wishes and secrets. Pixel art depicts both the cozy Christmas workshop and the clerk’s desk, while the soundtrack shifts from calm melodies during routine checks to tense music for deadlines and audits.