Cloudburst Manual
02.25.2025 • cloudburst
Synopsis
Real-time weather. On your Playdate.
Curious what the forecast looks like? Easy! But…your laptop’s out of reach, your phone’s battery is dead, your smart assistant’s brain is busted, and your curtains are shut. It’s just you, and your Playdate. What can you do? Well, here is your answer! Leveraging state-of-the-art networking capabilities, Cloudburst is a fully seamless, on-line enabled weather app for your Playdate!
Get the forecast here, there, or anywhere — it’s compatible with cities around the world! (And don’t worry, it works with Fahrenheit or Celsius — metric or imperial.) See detailed stats such as hourly forecast, precipitation, wind, and more. Change settings to your heart’s content, and even use it as a low-power screensaver — the perfect desk buddy. No external tools or setup required, just download and go — it’s weather, untethered.
Basics
This app connects to an external on-line API, to enable sending and receiving of data including weather information. To use this app, make sure your Playdate has an active Wireless connection.
Controls
The D-pad and A and B buttons are used to navigate menus. The crank is optionally used in menus, but required to display detailed weather information. Within the app, context is provided as to which controls will perform what actions.
Initialization
When you first start the app, you’ll be prompted to provide an approximate location. This data will be shared with the API service to gather information about your area. This information isn’t shared anywhere else on-line, but will be saved on your Playdate’s local disk.
After providing a location, you’ll be prompted to adjust a few settings — namely, temperature preference, and measurement preference. After this, the Playdate will attempt to connect to the Internet and grab weather data for your area. If your Playdate cannot connect to the Internet, an error message will appear and you’ll be prompted to try again later.
Where are you?
If the resulting API data doesn’t match your location, try being a bit more specific with your data entry. For example, instead of “Portland”, try inputting something like “Portland OR”, or a direct ZIP/Postal code. Cloudburst should work with most (if not all) areas around the globe — if you live in or discover an area that you just cannot get to work, let me know!
Weather
Main Screen
The main screen always shows your area’s current temperature and estimated forecast, your console’s local time, and current battery estimate.
When the Playdate is plugged in to power, animated wallpapers will refresh at 30 frames per second. When running on battery, the display will enter a lower-power state to save energy, refreshing at 5 frames per second.
The Fold™
By using the crank on the main screen, you can wring up The Fold™. This contains more detailed weather info for your current location, such as:
- Current temperature and estimated forecast
- “Feels like” temperature, and HI/LO temps for the day
- Estimated temperature and forecast for the next six hours
- Current wind speed, gusts, and direction
- Air quality (EPA and DEFRA index), and information on particulate matter
- Humidity, now and within the next hour
- Precipitation, now and within the next hour
- Estimated forecast, HI/LO temp, and sunrise/sunset times for the next day
- Current moon phase
- Sunrise and sunset times
Options
In this app, there are a variety of options you can change to fully optimize your experience.
- Change area: Edit your location area used for gathering weather data. This can be changed as many times as you wish.
- Save recent areas: Choose how many location inputs are saved to disk for easy access.
- Temperature: Choose between Celsius or Fahrenheit readings for temperature info.
- Measurement: Choose between Metric or Imperial readings for measurement info.
- Idle refresh rate: Decide how often the app will try to grab new weather data while idling.
- Auto-lock %: When the console reaches this battery percentage, it will automatically lock after three minutes without input.
- Time display: Whether clocks in the app should follow 24-hour or 12-hour time. “System” will force the app to respect your OS’ clock setting.
- Music: Toggles music in the Initialization screen.
- Sound Effects: Toggles sound effects throughout the app.
- Wallpaper: Choose the wallpaper that is displayed on the idle screen.
- Default: The default setting; chill Cloudburst waves.
- Earth: A replication of the “Initialization” screen; a spinning globe in a starfield.
- Temp. Focus: A lower-power display that brings the temperature front-and-center.
- Clock Focus: A second low-power display that shows the current console time in large text.
- Custom Img.: If the console detects a 400x240 .pdi-converted image (no transparency) in Data/wtf.rae.cloudburst/images/custom.pdi, you can use this image as your wallpaper.
- Invert display: choose whether the display should be inverted. “On noons” will flip between them automatically — non-inverted from midnight to noon, and inverted from noon to midnight.
Credits
- Art, code, and music — Rae
- Weather data — weatherapi.com
- Addtl. music — Scratchminer
- SFX — pixabay.com; License
- Planet animation — Pixel Planet Generator
- Tanuk library — Toad and Schyzo; MIT
- Sasser Slab, Roobert, Asheville, and Mikodacs Clock fonts — Panic; CC BY 4.0
- Thanks — Andy, Toad, Vachi, Jackson, Scratchminer, and those who waited patiently!
Changelog
Version 1.0.0b4
05.19.2025
- Hopefully fixed bug where auto-lock would behave incorrectly
- Fixed bug where any networking calls after launch would crash the app
- Added tips to the pause screen
- Added scrollability to the Credits screen
- Fixed scrollbar behavior in the Options menu
- Change “city name” to “local area” in setup
- Added exit animation and sound
Version 1.0.0b3
04.01.2025
- Fixed embarrassing bug when refreshing data from weather screen
- Added pause screen images with instructions for each screen
- Moved the version number in here, too
- Added recent locations list when changing your local area
- Also added option to decide how many locations are saved (if at all)
- Added scroll bar to Options menu
- Fixed bug where crank noise in the weather screen would change at the wrong height
- Options can now be cycled through with the A button as well as the D-pad
- Added save flags on every scene change, instead of just on exit.
- Added “Time display” option, with 24-hour, 12-hour, and System selections.
Version 1.0.0b2
03.03.2025
- Adds moon phase to The Fold™
- Added air quality/particulate matter info, too
- Different SFX if you try to crank too far
- Seamless transition from loading screen, if wallpaper is set to “Earth”
Version 1.0.0 rev Cata 1
02.25.2025
- Initial beta release.