<a href="https://bit.ly/iOS_NeonPlat">NeonPlat iOS is now available in the AppStore</a>. o/yeayo/
There are a few changes, most notably that you no longer get to paint the tiles.
The tile painting was one of the complaints when things were in giant HD graphics, so I kinda figured things might be even worse when downgraded to such a teensy tiny screen!
Hmmm..
<a href="https://AGameAWeek.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/02/NeonPlat.pn...

<a href="https://AGameAWeek.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/02/iPhone_31.png"><img src="https://AGameAWeek.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/02/iPhone_31-300x200.png" alt="" title="iPhone_3" width="300" height="200" class="alignright size-medium wp-image-2313" /></a>You can now head on over to the <a href="https://bit.ly/iOS_Unijuggler">iOS AppStore</a> to grab a nice new version of Unijuggler!
You can juggle the balls, ducks, clubs and rings, and aim for a super highscore to annoy...

Welcome to 2012
..or, more importantly..
Welcome to AGameAWeek, Year 4!!
The games start, right here... in a couple of days!

A lot of elements are currently coming together, and things are getting a little more chaotic than I'd like them to be around Xmas time.
If the past 2 years of Xmas themed chaos (12 games of Xmas, Advent Collection) have taught me one thing, it's not to EVER plan anything around Xmas!
Presents, family visits and the general filling of my face with Xmas cake, will usually get in the way of the coding time, and as such I decided not to push myself into anything moronic this year.
I apologise...

You know what's annoying?
When you've been sitting, typing away for about an hour, then stop to make a brew, and suddenly realise how bloody cold it is!
Somebody needs to invent some sort of keyboard with heated keys. That'd be great!
.. A mouse would be cheaper, but I then only my right hand would be toasty warm.

ugh..
I need to make a calendar for the iOS edition.
The Win/Lin/Mac (WiLMa) edition is also a bit screwy, so we'll add "New Calendar" to the 2nd releases todo list.
Might as well see if I can code 2 things at once, then, and rework the calendars at the same time.

1. Socoder Newsletter
2. NeonPlat Adventures iOS
3. That 4-pack thing I started ages ago, and still haven't finished yet. (Yeah, so much for the "make 4 quicky games" plan, there, Jay!)
4. I'm apparently not doing an Advent Calendar this year. Either that or I'm going to be really really late with it!!!

The following blog post contains words, which are built up using various letters.
You are expected to read the words in the correct order, moving your eyes from left to right to read each line, and then moving on to the left hand side of the next line.
Continue in this method until you have read all of the words of this blog post, and are <em>happy</em> with your und...

Today's long, long, long day of development was 100% iOS related.
Having put it off entirely yesterday, I figured I'd better port that level builder doohickey.
I opened TextEdit on the Mac, copied the level builder function from BlitzMax, and set about converting it, line by line, to something that XCode would compile for iOS.
800 lines of code, an estimate of "should only take a few hours, surely!" and then a completely exhausted Jay who just about managed to get the thing working...

I wasn't aiming to do the Final Beta until about Wed/Thursday this week.
Today, the Final Beta went out.
A few days early, but there was nothing more I could come up with.
The game is done.

Saturday's my "At work for a while" day, so I usually get a lot less codey time done, but I still managed quite a few bits and pieces in the morning.
A couple of new baddies, and a teensy bit of AI are in there, as is something which may or may not be confusing, depending on whether you remember the 7 year old oddity or not.
Suffice to say, the bananas do definitely appear to be coming from below the arrow.
.. not sure what that's all about..

Tap inside to see Jiro25 playing the NeonPlat Adventures Beta!

Over the past year or so, I've done a few month-long iOS projects, but NeonPlat Adventures is the first time in a long time that I've tackled a nice big Windows/Mac/Linux project.
Today, 11th October 2011, marks the one-month anniversary since I officially started this project.

<img src="https://AGameAWeek.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/09/platneonplat.png" alt="" title="platneonplat" width="128" height="64" class="alignnone size-full wp-image-1847" />
Platdude vs NeonPlat

This morning, I took Voxel's advice, and overdosed myself on Jelly Tots and Milkshake..
If I didn't finish a game, I was in for a whole heap of trouble..
Did I make it through the day?!
Did I finish a game?!!

You could say I crapped out, and gave up.
I aimed for 52. I aimed for a 2nd whole year's worth of games, within a startlingly short amount of time.
..
But I probably would've managed it..

A couple of weeks ago, I set Sheep Goes Left as free for a nice big long happy weekend stroll.
During this time, the reviewers (or is there just Stu doing it?!) at Free App Hero decided to write a nice big review of the little fella.
Look inside for the complete review, then grab the <a href="https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/free-app-hero/id403095549?mt=8">Free App Hero</a> app, to find more fantastic free apps.

Mark this down as a "Well, it DOES work, it's just not for me" kinda game.
<img src="https://AGameAWeek.com/complete/Word_Trundle_20110524_Logo_thumb.png">

A random game idea on Sunday, with a totally random name, and then a shock co-incidence when Monday turned out to be Roger Hargreaves' birthday, and the Mr Men ended up being plastered all over Google!
I couldn't have planned that.. I'm far too lazy to have planned that!
<img src="https://AGameAWeek.com/complete/Mister_Smash_20110510_Logo_thumb.png">

<img src="https://AGameAWeek.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/03/HammerTime.png" >

<a href="https://AGameAWeek.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/03/photo.png"><img src="https://AGameAWeek.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/03/photo.png" alt="" title="photo" width="320" height="480" class="alignnone size-full wp-image-1285" /></a>
hmmm....

About 40-odd times I've decided "Right, let's give GLBasic a try!!"
This morning, I was finally ready to actually do that!
...
And then, right out of the blue, and totally co-incidentally, a twitter conversation began with <a href="https://twitter.com/#!/Indie_DIJ">@Indie_DIJ</a> about that very language.

Am I doing the RPG or not!? Damnit, Jay, make up your mind!
<a href="https://AGameAWeek.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/11/dungeon8.png"><img src="https://AGameAWeek.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/11/dungeon8-150x150.png" alt="" title="dungeon8" width="150" height="150" class="alignnone size-thumbnail wp-image-985" /></a>

(URL "https://blog.nielsen.com/nielsenwire/online_mobile/u-s-teen-mobile-report-calling-yesterday-texting-today-using-apps-tomorrow/">Today's Big News Story) is that kids are texting an average of 3000 times a day!
Good gravy, that's HUGE!!!!
...
Except, of course, it isn't.

Cee Lo Green's song, Fuck You, is the song of the summer.
As such, when I was in town yesterday, (Bury!) I figured that'd be the one thing I'd aim to buy.
I've not bothered buying physical games for a while, iPhing, Steam and Wii online ones do me just fine. Music CDs are just the same. I think the last one of those I went out, specifically to buy, was probably the Relaxed Muscle album! ©2003

I did post the pre-release of NeoPlatDS, this week, so that's nice.
If you want to give it a whirl, try (URL "https://desmume.org/">DesMuMe), it's what I used 95% of the time during development, and has now overtaken No$GBA as my dev-emu of choice.
I can't get FAT read/write working on it, though, so you'll have to make do without highscore load/saving. Other than that it runs nicely, and the default keys are easy to remember.
Cursors to move, Z to throw, X to jump.
Exactly the s...