The Winter Soltice

The Winter Solstice is a fast-paced shooter created for the YoYo Games Winter Competition 2007. Chronicling the winter season's effect on the earth, the game is set on an abandoned stage of a barren desert where the natives put on a play in an ancient amphitheater. As the San Aruba region never experiences winter, the play goes through shows the different stages of the season in six acts.

The player controls a Chinese lantern against a fixed stage. The lantern, as well as all the objects that appear on the screen, are lowered on ropes. The player can freely move the lantern around the screen and fire ice gel. The other objects that appear on the screen need to be shot at a fast rate to score points. Small lights are harmless, but light balls of different colours take more fire to bring down and shoot flares at the lantern. For each object destroyed, points are awarded. Occasionally a snowflake drops down, doubling the gel's power and providing more points per hit.

The player has four lives per act and an unlimited amount of continues. After the rehearsal (tutorial), acts unlocked in the Theater mode can be practised in the Single Play mode. While playing, a large list of medals and milestones can be unlocked, as well as Bonus modes (three Precision modes, a Survival mode, game notes and deleted gameplay).