A sigh of relief, as the game is finally in an upload worthy state.
I'm sure there's plenty of bugs, mounds of forgotten features, and odd little untweaked things that aren't quite right, but what's here is plenty enough to be counted as Release 1.
<a href="https://agameaweek.com/?Game=37">
Download Alien Deathmatch 2</a> 3Mb!!!

Yesterday was spent playing with the editor some more.
As the game and editor become more closely entangled, I'm finding lots of little extra tweaks that need to be made to the game, so that the editor can be that little bit more complex.
Here's a nice list of things you can currently tweak within the editor..
The start weapon (1-16 so far.. there are 16 forms of Basic weapon, and then the Super weapons on top. I've yet to add any Super weapons, yet, though!) and also how fas...

I won't post a screenshot.. you wouldn't be able to tell the difference!!
But there is a difference..
Today I spent most of my day working a little more on the "Building up" stuff. That is, setting things up so that you start off easy, and things gradually get tougher.
I've put into place a huge number of little variables, all over the place, that should help decide how things progress in a level. Again, these will (somehow?!) be accessible within the editor.. once I bother...

The other day I considered redoing the whole wall structure. I considered making nice wonderful multidirectional walls, and levels with all kinds of diagonals, straight, and maybe even curves.
It seemed like a good idea.
Then I started to work on it, and... well.. it wasn't exactly super fast!
In fact, things were painfully slow.
As the game struggled to draw a single wall, with nice detail like the old one, I realised that drawing an entire arena in that way would only lead to ...

Having headed back to Blitz3D (from BlitzMax, with it's annoying incompatibilities) I decided to make something quick and easy to test it out.
Snake!
With a 1 minute timer on it.
Get all the points you can, as fast as you can.

In what can only be described as a complete disappointment, I've given up with BlitzMax.
Technically, the engine's great, the language runs fast, and things are good.
But.. It doesn't run on some systems..
And some of the features I'd really like to use run really stupidly slow on certain other systems.

A quick update, albeit not a proper one..
If you download (URL "https://socoder.net/uploads/1/jnkplat08ds.zip">this new version) of JNKPlat, you can use the inbuilt editor to play around with all the nice new features I've been adding in, lately.
I've not really gotten around to building a bunch of levels, yet, though! So you'll have to wait for that.
I'll be posting a new version next week with some new packs of levels, and maybe even a bunch more new features, too!
Head inside ...

I'm not the type of person who usually does a lot of things! For starters, you'll probably notice that 99% of my games are locked to the refresh rate of your screen. If your screen's higher than 60hz, my games will run all that much faster.
The reason for that is that all my systems are set at 60, and.. to be honest, I tend to forget that other people's aren't!
Whenever a game relies 100% on framerates and specific timings, I'll more than likely bother to sort that out, but usually I'm onto th...

This week, Socoder's <a href="https://socoder.net/?Workshop=Challenge&Week=163">Wednesday Workshop (#163)</a> challenge was to create a game with Money in it.
I initially was going to create a top-down dungeon romp, but as the plan grew and grew in scale, I scrapped it and just ended up making a nice quick platformer instead!
??
<img src="https://socoder.net/workshop/dlds/163_mr_money_grabber.gif">
Mr Money Grabber features you rushing through the level coll...

I tried to keep a blog. It didn't work.
It's no surprise, though. I've never been one to keep a working active blog.
No matter, I'll try something else.
Welcome to A Game A Week.com

Another week, another pile of retro-mania!
You get the idea by now, 6 extra games and the odd bugfix.
I had to redo a lot of Tetris, this week, since I'd ballsed up quite a bit of it last week! But it's all working rather well now, so you can happily settle down to a nice long game on Extreme modem and it'll now actually get faster as you head up the levels!
And the T shape's in it this week, too!
The Joust game's as good as it should be, without being much more. ...

If you're following development of Platdude's Retro Collection hoping for a new batch of great games, then you're in luck! TWO great games have been added, TWO rubbishy games have been added, and ONE more game is being worked on right now, as I type this..
Games 1 and 2 are listed in the official page, the Missile Command and Extract games. Nice, simple, retro, fast and fun.
Game 3 was also simple and fast. It's the usual "Things pop up, then you tap them. You get a minute, s...

<a href="https://AGameAWeek.com/dsdev/colbox_800.png"><img src="https://AGameAWeek.com/dsdev/colbox_400.png"/></a>
Platdude's Retro Collection was first released in November 2007. Each new release will contain a handful of new games.
How many will there be in the end? Who can say!
The latest release, <a href="https://AGameAWeek.com/dsdev/col018.zip">Download Here</a>, contains 18 games from the list below.
Note : If you'd like to play, but don...

And so it begins, the long boring task of making lots and lots of games
I lie. It's not boring!
<a href="https://AGameAWeek.com/dsdev/col001.png"><img src="https://AGameAWeek.com/dsdev/col001_thumb.png" align="left" /></a>Centipede took shape, gradually, over the course of a day. Most of the tweaking was in the main engine, as opposed to the game itself, since I had to be sure of all my different variables, and how all the pieces...

Having started and given up on a fair few projects over the past couple of weeks, I've decided to go back to basics. It's time to bring return to the 8-bit Tiny collection, and get things started once and for all.
So today I got working on a base program that can use a series of includes to incorporate a bunch of games. I've designed a neat collection of generic looking graphics, and started listing games that may or may not be included. I'll try to make all the games as Repeat-Play-...

I get bored. I get bored a lot. Especially when working on large projects. It's nice to occasionally have some weird random thing to do.
That's why I set up the Wednesday Workshop.
A weekly challenge. Make a game based upon a given theme, or task. Everyone who enters gets put through for a vote. But it's not really about the winning. It's about having something to do when you're bored. And .. I get bored a lot!
Click <a href="https://socoder.net/index.php?a=13&...

Platdude. A 16 pixel, 3 color character. Deftly defying the world of 3D models and amazing realism, in favour of good old fashioned gameplay.
Over the years, Platdude has been in plenty of games.. Here's an approximate history of Platdude, along with Downloads where appropriate. (Or skip to the bottom for the latest stuff!)