• Hey Guest. Check out your NeoGAF Wrapped 2025 results here!

Steam Winter Sale Gift Obtaining Guide for Santas

well well well, just for completing that Spiral Knights achievement
DbsvX.png

That is well deserved... I for one think everyone who did the Spiral Knights achievement should have gotten this. It was such a chore. I only got a coal, btw. :(
 
That is well deserved... I for one think everyone who did the Spiral Knights achievement should have gotten this. It was such a chore. I only got a coal, btw. :(

Are you factoring in getting the crowns, too? Luckily I had a friend with some extra so I got the achievement within 30 seconds of booting the game.
 
Anyone here actually got something worthwhile that wasn't coupons for valve games, valve gifts or coal?

I don't think it was someone on gaf but a picture was posted of someone winning Skyrim in a gift. That's the best single gift I've seen so far.


The Spiral Knights achievement isn't hard is it? Thought it was just throwing a snowball at someone.

Nah but you need to play the game enough to get 200 crowns, which takes probably 10-20 minutes if you just play the game and run to dungeons. It's kind of like a WoW battleground but you need the 200 to pay the entry fee, but once you're in it takes about 10 seconds to find snowballs (they're all over the place in the battleground) and try to hit someone with it.

The easiest way was waiting for an enemy to get frozen in the ice trap and then hitting them with a snowball. Otherwise they're running all over the place and it's hard to hit them.
 
Don't forget to take account that the arena is apparently random, so you might not get a snow arena in your first join.
 
How hard is it to do Flurry on Defense grid? I've owned the game for a long time now but just reinstalled for the achievement.

As for Spiral I got really lucky then cause I had no idea the maps were so random. I installed the game. Played the tutorial, played a dungeon and walked out with 242 crowns and just joined a match and got a snow level instantly even got lucky enough to hit someone on the first go though I believe the person was frozen.
 
I used to put one game on each steam account back when I treated it like a disposable thing rather than it's own sort of permanent thing, so atleast I'm getting some coal out of my old mistakes. So far im to about 8 coal and 1 copy of killing floor :D
 
It must be using Steam cloud cause I haven't had the game install for like two years and I have a lot of levels already unlocked.

I'm hoping it uses the cloud. I haven't turned my PC on in quite some time and think I reformatted and didn't reinstall Defense Grid. I do need to get it downloaded again though, since I'm hoping the new DLC that came out for it a few weeks back goes on sale.
 
Phew, took me 8 online games or so but finally got the Swords and Soldiers achievement.

You would other aztec player would play it cool but nooooooo. Finally got when playing against an Chinese opponent. Played defensively but not too passively either and did not try to overwhelm him too much. Not that easy thing to do, neither winning or losing. Was fun doing it though.
 
I was playing on EU. Switched to US like you said, but still didn't get it. I guess I'm not worthy of receiving more coal.
Actually reading around some folks are saying they have it hours later. No notification. It is just there. I've got the crowns so its time for me to try in a sec (too many achievements to get before I go on vacation :( )
Edit: Coal get. Was it worth playing Spiral Knights for an hour. No.
 
Just spent an enjoyable couple of hours getting the Defence Grid cheve. Could've looked it up but I thought I'd have a go on my own. Holding down the F button to speed up helped with my sanity a lot once I remembered it. d'oh!
 
I didn't think the BoH one was that bad. Quite enjoyed it. Got bored past the wave we needed, got up to 26 then gave up.
 
I can confirm the BoH one unlocks now. Didn't know there was a mod, I did it normally with four players online in easy mode. All I can say is to skirt the enemies constantly and be aware that your respawn timer increases with the amount of times that you die. If you see your team is dead, just do barrel rolls and stay alive until at least one of them respawns.

The Guardians of Graxia one is really easy, probably takes a minute or two. Like the wiki says, choose the In the Shadow of the Valley Skirmish map, set your first card down, then you can skip buying any other cards if you want. If you then get a Gift of Efficacy card, wait until your turn then use it on yourself. If you don't get the card just restart until you do.
 
Just did Sanctum. I like the game more than I did in my first impressions.

Just spent an enjoyable couple of hours getting the Defence Grid cheve. Could've looked it up but I thought I'd have a go on my own. Holding down the F button to speed up helped with my sanity a lot once I remembered it. d'oh!
In options you can set it to just one press turns on fast. Also, I like turning on the show enemy health one.

The RUSH achievement is doable. Solutions video Don't have time to unlock Hard :(

Edit: Audiosurf goes down too. Faster than watching the "solution" video :P
 
Broke down my list of played ones


Easy ones or 10 minutes or Less
-Audiosurf 1/1
-Beat Hazard 4/4: Using the Disconnect
-CounterStrike Source 1/1: Bots with no guns
-Dino Day 1/1: They have servers for it and each one lasts a while. Just pick allies
-Shogun 2 1/1: Using the save file
-Frozen Synapse 1/1
-Red Orchestra II 1/1: Join empty server on Allies.
-Psychonauts 1/1:Using the Save file, otherwise its hours into the game.
-Sequence 1/1
-Universal Sandbox 1/1
-Greed Corp 1/1: Create local player game on one of the levels that sound like they have snow on it. I did it on a 4 player map.
-Cave Story+ 1/1

Half Hour or require somewhat skill.
-Bastion 1/1: Just don't fall off on the second stage.
-L4D2 1/1: Stick with No Mercy 1.
-Team Fortress 2 1/1
-Defcon 1/1: Make a local game with everyone on player 1. Try your best.
-Jamestown 1/1: Take about 4-5 levels to unlocked charged ship. Use a controller, so much easier.
-Killing Floor 1/1
-Rise of the Immortals 1/1: Pick PvE and stop attacking when the bot reachs under 1/4 HP.
-Sanctum 1/1: Its a fairly easy stage. You may have to replay if you miss Santa, but otherwise should be good.
-And Yet it Moves 1/1: Got to clear up to that stage.
-Dungeons of Demeor 1/1
-Magicka 1/1: Shift plus Magic combo creates AE version. Follow guide from Wiki.
-Atom Zombie Smasher 1/1: Let about 2/3 of your civilians die on the first two maps while focusing on collecting Bombs.
-Soldier and Swords HD 1/1: Follow guide on Wiki, its pretty easy to get. Just make sure you don't get overun in the first 3 minutes.
-Trine 1/1: You'll have to play through the first 5 stages.
-Defense Grid 1/1: Play through the first 4 stages and follow video guide on Wiki


Hard or Time consuming
-Super Meat Boy 1/2: Use trick for the third stage, but expect to spent a lot of deaths trying to beat each one. The maps are hard.
-Spiral Knights 1/1: Play a few stages to collect about 1000crown, then go into lockdown. Entirely based on luck, but I'd say expect to take about an hour+. Achievement is easy though. Infinite amount of snowballs, AE throw, and its easy to hit someone.
-Beat Trip Runner 2/3: Trine achievement requires beating nearly the entire game.
-Toki Toki 1/1 You have to clear all of normal, most of hard. You can quit after you get the snowflake
Spacechem 1/1: Once again, you need to clear stages prior. Use google/youtube to get results.
Champions Online 1/1: 2 and a half hours for me. You need to play through the prologue, then get access to the city. And presents are entirely based on RNG. So expect to spend a while. Get fly once you get to the city and fly around. You have to be careful too. You are lvl 6 and most of the normal mobs around there are 20. So expect to die too.
 
Of course I don't own any of today's featured games. I wish Terraria had cheevos, it would be a perfect fit for this type of deal.
 
For games like Super Meat Boy that have several holiday achievements will all those count as extra gifts/coal or do you only get on thing per game? I have "The Kids Xmas!" so I want to know whether to bother with the other one.
 
For games like Super Meat Boy that have several holiday achievements will all those count as extra gifts/coal or do you only get on thing per game? I have "The Kids Xmas!" so I want to know whether to bother with the other one.

No one knows.

edit: Except maybe.
 
Probably 1 each given Psyconauts has 2 achivements.

Edit: Defcon is insisting my bought through steam copy is a demo version as I can't reach their authentication server (probably due to port issues I can not control). Thanks a lot Introversion Software for your "brilliant" DRM, exactly why I use Steam (I'd be interested to see my DRM free Humble Bundle one acts the same way but that won't get me coal)

A bit of a sour note to end the achievement hunt on :( Well, who knows maybe my Netbook can run some games.
 
The other Psychonauts one is time specific so maybe it will be one of the objectives on the 24th or 25th...

I would wait on the SMB achievement, just to make sure though.
 
For games like Super Meat Boy that have several holiday achievements will all those count as extra gifts/coal or do you only get on thing per game? I have "The Kids Xmas!" so I want to know whether to bother with the other one.

During summer, there were some games that had several summer achievements, but only one that counted towards the prize booth.
 
During summer, there were some games that had several summer achievements, but only one that counted towards the prize booth.

We have 6 a day, 13 days. 7 are going to be Steam centric. Leaving up with 71 for games. I believe 68 games are listed on the Wiki site. So ones like SMB, Beat Hazard, and Revenge of the Titans, will be forced to have less.

2nd, The Psychonauts one is actually different from the one initially listed too. So they could be different than ones expected, though most have been right on the money.
 
7 cheevos, 7 coal.

Time to craft them to see what shitty coupon I get :D

LOL

50% off Sequence. Not even worth giving away on here.
 
50% off Sequence. Worse than getting Sequence itself.

We have 6 a day, 13 days. 7 are going to be Steam centric. Leaving up with 71 for games. I believe 68 games are listed on the Wiki site. So ones like SMB, Beat Hazard, and Revenge of the Titans, will be forced to have less.
I ended up counting 72 :( Though I was lazy and subtracted known achievements (which I counded at 85) when there were multiple ones.
 
The Defense Grid one isn't too bad: do it on the first stage available with the adrenaline challenge option, then use Temporal Towers, Concussive Towers and Command Towers in the top right island to rack up the money. When you need to, make another Temporal+Concussive+Command hotspot in the bottom right. As the strong individual enemies start coming out, put in a couple Cannon and Laser towers at the top left, then add some things along the right vertical strip if you need to. Upgrade everything. Getting the gold is all about sitting on a huge pile of money at the end and placing as few towers as possible (at least, that's how it seems to me).
 
Swords and Soldiers is pretty easy. Choose Aztec as your team and go online. Make sure you hire a lot of money people at first, then focus on hiring some soldiers and putting down a couple traps so you don't get steamrolled. If you're lucky, your opponent will also be going after this achievement so there will be some downtime to upgrade to get the mind control power. Eventually money becomes frequent so it just becomes a question of waiting to have enough mana to use mind control. Small enemies like skeletons take less amount of mana so just use it on them until you've used it five times.
 
He never said anything about the Frozenbyte Collection.

As far as I can tell, the only Frozenbyte coupon is for the Frozenbyte collection, making the coupon worthless. Reading someone's text literally does that. The guy probably just didn't bother/didn't realize it said collection.
 
Does anyone know about how long it takes to get to the required point in Jurassic Park? Just wondering before I get started on it.
 
I'm leaving work soon and will be gone all tonight due to pre-arranged plans. Won't be able to update the OP until tomorrow night where I'll do both days (and try to get some gifts myself!)
 
Top Bottom