The "Great" British Weather by bradleypollard

[raw]
made by bradleypollard for LD25 (COMPO)
Written in C# with XNA. Windows only I'm afraid.

Installation instructions:

1. If you do not have XNA, or have not run an XNA game before, you will need this (very small) redistributable from Microsoft to run my game:
http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=20914

2. Double click "The Great British Weather.exe" in the zip folder, after you have extracted it!

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Description:

You take control of an every-day villain that any British person will know well: the weather!
You must attempt to make the crowd of festival goers have the worst possible time - without making them leave before the band's set ends!
After all, you can't have any "fun" if no-one is about, right?

---
Controls:

As the weather, you have the following at your control ([letter] indicates which key to press):

[R]ain - Press the R key to start/stop a downpour of rain.
Everyone in Britain dislikes the rain. It rains a
lot however, so we don't mind it as much as some
other weather conditions.

[S]torm - A few people hate storms. Really hate them. And,
to top it all off, if someone gets hit by
lightning, they will leave the festival straight
away!

[W]ind - A lot of people can't stand the wind. In fact,
if someone gets blown over by the wind, they will
get really unhappy!

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Tips:

1. People either dislike wind, or storms. Not both.
2. People act as a multiplier, more people means bigger score!
3. You need to find a balance between keeping everyone unhappy as long as possible, and not having them leave.
4. If someone is jumping up and down, it means they are more than 50% happy! You should do something about that.
5. The speech bubbles provide information on who dislikes what. People will talk about what they dislike (or that they're happy, if you aren't doing your job!)

X. The wind blows the rain sideways. (Not really a tip, I just want someone to notice because it's pretty :D)

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Known Bugs:

+ As far as I'm aware, the game itself is stable. I haven't managed to crash it in the last 6 hours.

- HOWEVER: There is a huge issue with the compiled version of my game. DO NOT click off of the game window while playing.
After a few seconds of not being the active window, the game will hang (game logic and audio will continue to run, but the window will be non-responsive). This is not the fault of my code, but something XNA has done while compiling it.
It never, ever happens while debugging in Visual Studio. If anyone knows more about the AppHangB1 bug and XNA and can help me fix it I will be grateful.

---

Thank you for checking my game out!

Ratings

Coolness 64% 3
Overall 3.63 69
Audio 3.33 95
Fun 3.25 174
Graphics 3.50 166
Humor 3.69 45
Innovation 4.26 9
Mood 3.20 163
Theme 3.78 114

Feedback

Aswissrole
17. Dec 2012 路 13:43 UTC
This turned out really nicely and the graphics and sound really fit the style. Great creative idea. Not really sure how to improve my score or when or how to use wind and lightning.
TuxedoFish
17. Dec 2012 路 13:48 UTC
I liked this game it was quite intresting, the sound and graphics were cool. Its just there wasnt really much interactivity you just pressed 3 buttons and it was almost too simple in my opinion.
馃帳 bradleypollard
17. Dec 2012 路 13:55 UTC
Do check the tips and control descriptions above to get an idea of how the happiness works (to improve your score)! And thanks for playing.
Smaxx
17. Dec 2012 路 13:58 UTC
Very interesting approach. I like the art style, the band could need at least some animations I'd guess, but overall very nice.
dvdking
17. Dec 2012 路 14:34 UTC
I like it very much! Graphics style is amazing. I like when people fall when wind blows. Overall idea is very
interesting.
Zazibar
17. Dec 2012 路 14:36 UTC
Interesting concept and a fun little game. I originally thought the objective was to scare everyone away though.
馃帳 bradleypollard
17. Dec 2012 路 15:38 UTC
@Zazibar But that would be too easy (and no fun)! :P
Cthu
17. Dec 2012 路 16:13 UTC
Nice graphics and audio.
Frolacosta
17. Dec 2012 路 16:23 UTC
Haha, very nice concept! Not quite sure how I'm supposed to score, it wasn't really explained.
Edocentrique
17. Dec 2012 路 16:26 UTC
It's nice to play as the weather !
quill18
17. Dec 2012 路 16:43 UTC
I thought Canadian weather was bad. Then I visited Britain.

Great concept!
killmonday
18. Dec 2012 路 14:12 UTC
The song was superb!
Beerman
18. Dec 2012 路 20:55 UTC
Brilliant simulation of the classic British festival experience there. All that was missing was someone peeing on my tent!
Love the minimalist visuals, trying to make people as miserable as possible without driving them away makes for a cool mechanic.
Zanzlanz
18. Dec 2012 路 20:57 UTC
I really like this one! I love the little details you added in, like the how they can fall down as they walk. Great job! ;D
moomoo112
18. Dec 2012 路 21:30 UTC
I really like how this game looks
somethingbeautiful
19. Dec 2012 路 09:22 UTC
Fun game to play! It is the truth as well, I live in the Uk :)
Great entry!
Rex Peppers
20. Dec 2012 路 20:47 UTC
Can't play windows games :-(
DaGamesta
20. Dec 2012 路 20:48 UTC
Bwahaha, you are the weather, genius. I'm loving some of the interpretations of this topic. Graphics and music weren't overly fantastic, but they fit together well, and I enjoyed the end product.
馃帳 bradleypollard
20. Dec 2012 路 20:55 UTC
@Rex Sorry, I don't really have any experience with Monogame so wouldn't know how to get XNA games out of Windows!
@DaGamesta Thanks! You're right, there are a lot of very interesting interpretations :P
zenmumbler
20. Dec 2012 路 21:47 UTC
Music reminds me of the NES title The Battle of Olympus, which is a good thing. Very original idea and fun implementation. Good balance of keeping people in but miserable. Quality work!
doos
20. Dec 2012 路 22:00 UTC
Really glad I got to play this one.. I was worried it wouldnt run until I installed XNA!
Jeremias
20. Dec 2012 路 22:39 UTC
Yeah, that is an interesting take on the theme. The graphics are abstract, but they fit very well. If you make a post-compo version, improve the visual feedback respective annoying them with the weather :D I like what you did with the fell over by wind.
馃帳 bradleypollard
20. Dec 2012 路 23:57 UTC
@zenmumbler I haven't heard of that game before, but I will certainly check it out if I subconsciously imitated the music haha!
@doos Thanks for going to the trouble of installing XNA to try it out :)
@Jeremias I will definitely consider taking another look at this once I've had a break over Christmas. Never had so much feedback on anything I've made before, it's great to hear people's thoughts!
SecondDimension
21. Dec 2012 路 00:04 UTC
This was cool, I really liked the use of particle effects; the wind especially looked awesome. It was great to hit people with lighting and imagine they were that guy that spilt his beer on me during Elbow's set. Boom!
Cake&Code
29. Dec 2012 路 09:14 UTC
A solid game, though it seemed a bit more on the difficult side (which is not necessarily a bad thing!)

The graphics were fitting, the sounds were fun, and the controls worked perfectly. Awesome job! :D
CMaster
02. Jan 2013 路 17:56 UTC
Great idea, neatly executed. Don't feel much urge to replay, but really enjoyed it once.
Neonlare
03. Jan 2013 路 09:28 UTC
Well wow, this came as a surprise. loved the creativity behind this and the presentation.
tripleVisionGames
06. Jan 2013 路 13:22 UTC
I liked the music, I'd have stuck around to watch the band. I got a score of 42 my 2nd go. 1st go I didn't read the instructions and just made everyone leave :S