Come in New Year

Category: Adventure, Arcade Plays: 36 Rating:

(0.0 / 0)

How to Play

Game Overview

Okay so I actually played Come in New Year and it's this weird little game set in a town called Shpupelstitz that's all covered in snow and Christmas lights. The visual style is kind of cartoony and bright, like a Nickelodeon holiday special or something. You wander around talking to these meme characters that are your companions, which sounds dumb but the jokes actually landed for me more than I expected. The main thing you do is find these Christmas toys hidden around the place and bring them back to decorate a big tree, which feels less like a chore and more like a scavenger hunt with a purpose. Controls are fine on PC with WASD and mouse, but the phone version works surprisingly well with the touch joysticks and camera drag. The vibe is super cozy and lighthearted, like a warm blanket and hot cocoa kind of feeling. There's a soundtrack that's catchy in a cheesy way, makes you want to tap your foot. Who would get hooked? People who like exploration games without combat, maybe fans of point-and-click adventures but with free movement. It's not deep or complex, just a fun distraction for a couple hours. If you hate memes or holiday stuff, skip it, but if you want something chill and funny, this is a decent pick.

About Come in New Year

So you're dropped into Shpupelstitz, this tiny snow-covered town that's basically a meme zoo. The game opens with you standing in front of a bare, sad-looking Christmas tree in the town square, and some random NPC--a talking gingerbread man with a terrible sense of humor--tells you to find toys to decorate it. That's the whole mission, on paper. But the real loop is running around talking to these weirdos, each one a parody of an internet meme you've probably seen a thousand times, and they give you these mini-quests that are never just "fetch X items."

Movement is standard WASD, mouse to look around, space to jump. The interact button (F on PC) is your main tool for starting conversations and picking up objects. Early on, you'll do simple stuff like finding three red baubles hidden behind a bakery, or helping a sad Pepe the Frog meme find his lost hat in the park. These first few quests are straightforward--run, look, press F. But about fifteen minutes in, the game throws a wrench in the works. You get a quest from a Doge meme that requires you to solve a simple pattern-matching puzzle on a wall panel, where you have to rotate symbols to match a sequence. That's the first new mechanic: mini-puzzles tied to specific meme characters.

As you progress, the difficulty ramps up in a sneaky way. Around the third area--a frozen lake called "Lake Shibe"--you encounter your first real obstacle: a group of snowmen that block paths until you find and activate three hidden switches scattered around the lake. The switches are timed, so you have to sprint between them before one resets. This gets frantic, especially with the wonky jump physics that sometimes send you sliding on ice. Later, in the "Cemetery of Memes" district, there's an NPC called "The Chad" who gives you a grappling hook (activated by holding F near a grapple point). This changes everything: you're suddenly swinging across rooftops and avoiding bottomless pits filled with snow.

The satisfying moments? For me, it was finally decorating the tree after collecting all twelve toys. Each toy you place changes the tree's color and spawns a little firework sound effect. The game also has a "meme meter" that fills up as you complete quests--once full, you unlock a secret area behind the town hall with a boss fight against a giant "Keyboard Cat" that shoots music notes at you. That fight is genuinely tricky, requiring you to dodge patterns while using the grappling hook to reach weak points. There's no upgrade system per se, but you can find collectible "meme coins" that unlock silly hats for your character at a kiosk near the starting area. The soundtrack is catchy as hell--a mix of chiptune Christmas carols and dubstep remixes of meme songs. By the end, you've laughed a lot, cursed at the ice physics a few times, and somehow gotten attached to a town full of animated JPEGs.

Tips & Tricks

The Christmas toys can be tricky to spot--some are tucked behind snowbanks or perched on rooftops that require a well-timed jump from higher ground. I wasted a solid 20 minutes circling the main square before checking behind the bakery. Talk to every meme character more than once; their dialogue changes after you complete a quest, and a few of them give you hints about hidden toy locations that aren't marked on any map. When you're climbing, hold the jump key just a bit longer--there's a subtle extra height boost that saved me from falling into the river repeatedly. The camera can get snagged on trees during the toy hunt, so switch to the overhead angle in settings if you're stuck; it makes spotting that last red ornament way easier. I kept forgetting the interact button works on objects too, not just memes--there's a snowman near the church that gives you a rare gold star toy if you press F on his scarf three times in a row. One thing that clicked late: the memes react differently depending on how many toys you've collected, so revisit them after grabbing five or more for bonus jokes and sometimes a shortcut to a new area. Don't rush the decorating--placing toys in a specific order on the tree unlocks a special animation that the game never mentions, but it's worth the extra seconds for the cheer.