If you’ve ever worked in an office, there’s a good chance that you’ve participated in a Secret Santa game around the holidays. While there are different types of gifting parties, AlbinoPhant is a creative solution which brings the gifting party online. The format is a “white elephant” party in which participants compete for gifts. It’s a pretty entertaining way to share a gifting experience among friends and family.

The gameplay is relatively straight forward. At the end of each game, the players receive the actual gift in the mail. Each game has a specific price point for gifts. For example, the game can be at a $25 price point. The system will then automatically find gifts on Amazon which are below the set price point in the game. After the price point is set and the users have RSVPed to participate, you then get to select which gift you’ll contribute to the game.

The application then randomly selects which order users get to select their gifts in. As each user opens up a gift, other users can steal it from them. The more users involved, the more stealing that typically takes place. The entire game is about the strategy involved in stealing other peoples’ gifts. It’s pretty fun and at the end, everybody get the gift mailed to them. Personally, I found the game to be an entertaining one, however the fact that every user needs to pay to play will most definitely generate some hurdles for the app to get off the ground.

Given the close proximity to the holidays, now is the perfect timing for this application to launch. If you have distant friends who you are connected to, or if you work in an office in which nobody has time to go out and pick a gift, this application will make things a whole lot easier. While in person gift theft tends to be much more entertaining, the online counterpart has its clear advantages. If you want to have a holiday gifting game with some of your friends, check out the Albinophant application.