The Night Before Christmas
v1.0 (December 23rd, 2010)
See at the bottom of the file for updates.
 
By S. Borgquist aka. Sokurah.
Website: http://tardis.dk/wordpress/
E-mail: retrohead@tardis.dk


'The Night Before Christmas' is an original retro-inspired Christmas game where
the object of the game is to collect presents and put them under the Christmas tree.

But that's not all - you also have to make sure not too many kids are awake at the
same time. In the game there is an alarmclock and once 65% of the allowed kids awake
is reached it will start to ring, to warn you that there's too many awake. You can
control this by zapping the kids with your trusty sleepgun and sending them back to bed.
As if that wasn't enough - items will appear in the house and kids will eat most things
they come across and the more they eat the more full they will be - and the fuller they
are (shown with a bar over their heads) the longer it will take to send zap them back to
bed. If the kids are completely full they will stop up and start to cry and only stop
after a lot of zapping with your sleepgun. Be aware that crying kids make a lot of noise,
so they will count for 1˝ kid and make the alarm go off faster than normal...
...no time to waste then. :)

You also have to eat yourself - to keep your stamia up...which is also a good reason to
keep the number of kids down, because they'll eat the things you need. Luckily the kids
knows what Santa likes the most - milk and cookies, so they won't touch them at all. Those
are also the things that'll give you the most energy.

You use the lift in the middle of the house to go from floor to floor. It will run by
itself but you also have limited control over it, so if you step into the lift on the
middle floor, while the lift is going up, you can press down to take the lift down
instead of going all the way to the top first.

It may start slowly in the beginning but you will be rushing about in no time, having
to make choices such as going away from the christmas tree even though you're carrying
a present, to zap kids somewhere else, to make sure their number is kept down.
Santa is a busy dude. :o)O<


Installation:
-------------
Unpack the ZIP file and you’ll end up with a folder called 'The Night Before Christmas'
that contains the game files. Run the file with the Santa-icon to run the game.
The game has been tested and is works on (at least) Windows XP, Vista & Windows 7.
Make sure that you have full access to the game folder, as the game may have problems
writing the DAT file if it can’t get full access to the folder.


Controls:
---------
Use the arrowkeys to control Santa and Left Control to shoot your sleepgun.
All keys can be redefined.


Legal Blurb:
------------
This game is FREEWARE and must remain freeware. The game can generally be distributed
however you want, as long as all the files are included and unchanged. It shouldn’t be
sold or given away on any kind of compilation without my permission. I would like to ask,
that if you’re going to include this game on a CD for a magazine or somewhere else, that
you contact me first – I would like to know what kind places my little project goes…also
it shouldn’t be asking too much, but then I’d also like a copy of the magazine or CD.


Copyright:
----------
This is an original game and the rights to the game are held by;

S. Borgquist (aka Sokurah) for the gameidea and the coding (http://tardis.dk/wordpress/).
Lobo - graphics (http://infectuous.com/)
Spacefractal - music (http://www.spacefractal.com/).


Notes:
------
This game is the second year in a row I've decided to make a Christmas game, and I started
a bit late so this game has been coded from scratch in less than a month, so if there's
any bugs or if any part of it seems a bit rushed - that's why. :-) I do think the game
plays quite well and is relatively bug-free, though.

However, if you do find any bugs, or if you just want to give me some feedback on it,
you can write to me at the e-mail address at the top of this file.


Version history.
----------------
v1.0 - 23 december 2010
Initial release.

v1.1 – January 9th, 2011
Added the “Redefine Keys” option I’d forgotten.

v1.1 – December 2nd, 2011
Released a Mac OSX port.

v1.2 - 28 November 2014
Fixed issues relating to online scoring (Windows).
