Christmas is almost here, so it's time to play Skeal once more

Much as every Christmas cracker must contain a paper hat and every Christmas stocking must give a satsuma, every Christmas's gaming must include Skeal. No one knows when this tradition started but it's tradition, and so we must play Skeal. I'm sure many of you already celebrate the season by playing Skeal with your family round the hearth, laughing and singing together, but for the uninitiated I'll explain: Skeal is a free slalom skiing game which teaches us the true meaning of Christmas - power, pleasure, and pain.

I'd say more about Skeal but what kind of a monster ruins the surprise of a present? It's wrapped (in a zip file) for a reason. No peeking!

Head on over to Itch to download Skeal for Windows or Mac, and creator Nick "Whymog" Cummings even released a virtual reality edition in 2017. Both are free. I haven't tried the VR version but I imagine it'll be a right lark to spring on people if you're breaking out the goggs this Christmas.

I do like a good single-joke game. Cummings pointed to Arcane Kids' superb Room Of 1000 Snakes as an inspiration, a game which tragically is a lot more fiddly to play since Chrome stopped supporting Unity's browser plugin.