I've about 20-odd projects on the go, this week, so you'll have to excuse the lack of blog entries, and even a decent AGameAWeek game.
Most of this week was spent trying to roll a dice! (die, whatever)
I figured that, with 4 frames per roll, I'd need around about 200+ frames of animation.
I tried to work out all the animations, and it drove me crazy!

I'm not really sure if this is good, to be honest, but here it is anyway..
Counters Strike

BlitzBasic Sourcecode included.

I haven't started it yet!
Uhoh!
This week's Wednesday Workshop (#201) asks us to create a game within a 3 hour limit.
Looks like I'm aiming for that, then!

Occasionally, I like to jot down my current doings. It helps keep track of projects, and ideas, and sometimes getting a bit of feedback helps.
So feel free to do that!
1. Java/MidletPascal
Since I got my latest phone (an LGCookie) I decided to get back into Java coding... Except, without that horrible Java bit.

This week's Wednesday Workshop (#200! wowie) asked us to create a game using no more than 2000 characters.
I managed to recreate the classic 8-bit title "Splat!", whereby you control a spider through a maze, picking up fruit.
In order to squeeze all that into 2000 characters, I opted for simpler mouse movement, and few other bits and pieces.
Then I figured, what the heck, and decided to make it a wee bit bigger for AGameAWeek.
Guide the worm through the maze, grab the circles, av...

My cookie work's kicking off, now. With a fully working keyboard, and sprites flying around the screen, I'm ready to start building games.

I've a few games in mind and am hoping to get some work done during the week.
But what does that mean for AGameAWeek?

I've added bloom, and a few more tweaks here and there.
The complete list of changes can be seen inside.
Otherwise, the usual two things.

I'm taking a day off from H~S~R today, thinking ahead for next weeks game, which may/may not be a word game.. not sure..
Anyhoo, there are bugs, and Swarmer found a couple, so head inside to have a good read about 'em.

Yeay! It's Horizontal Shooter Redux!!
In this first release, there's a few pointers. Read inside for those.
Otherwise, nice and quick, here's a picture.

<a href="https://AGameAWeek.com/2008/11/and-a-smidgeon-of-vaseline/">Vaseline gives me migraines</a>
Anyway, we managed to go, what, 30+ years of gaming without it, so I think we can manage!
Maybe..
Even more extra lovely glow, today. With a few tweaks, the background's starting to smear! Not sure why, but damn if that doesn't look cool!!

A bizarre mismash of random thoughts this week, alongside an eventual plan of action, and only a day to impliment it!!
woot!

I'm jumping all over the place, lately, aren't I!!
With Skeleton files to update, Menus to rejig, and even super-complex Socoder work, there's lots and lots and lots for me to do!
This morning, I've hopped back to Platdude's Retro Collection 2. Day 14 is a whole day away from Day 13. That can't be good! The game won't be finished for another year and a half at this rate!!
Right then.. Menus!

OK, as I said earlier, I've been playing with the Skeleton stuff today.
Whilst I was in there, I wondered how fun it might be if I added some kind of overriding features into my default engine.
You might (or not) have noticed, but since Wednesday Workshop Week #1, I've been placing all my game's data into the System folder, then into it's own Weekly numbered folder within.
If you get ALL my games (from the past couple of years), you can bundle them all together into the same folder.
...

OMG! The complaints are everywhere!
I guess the general verdict is that my games are too hard.
To be honest, I never thought of them as being "hard". I just kinda skip over the dull early parts, *ARRGGHH!! TUTORIALS!!!!* and get the player right into the game, instead.
But folk are complaining. So a new plan of action must be decided.

Yesterday I filmed some stuff, a nice big 250Mb video file, and posted it to Youtube.
It took 2 hours to film, and then about 2 more hours to upload, before YouTube spent another couple of hours decoding it, before finally deciding that they weren't going to bother showing it in HD.
FFS
So, rather than go through all that, and waste another entire day trying to sort it out, I'll just post the annoyingly blurry crap that YouTube have left me with.

A long forgotten game gets a remake today.
Platfire was originally made, way way back in Wednesday Workshop #2!!
To be fair, #1's probably the better game, style wise. (As in, it wasn't rushed within a few hours, since yesterday!!)
But Platfire 2 is in the "It's super hard, and you won't get much of a score" style that I seem to be leaching onto, these days.

BAH!! DS Coding is annoying!!
Techy stuff inside..

I'm still building up the basic reusable map functions!
Had some crazy memory issues, yesterday, but everything seems ok, this morning, so it's time to move from silly map things, to actually building the game up.
Starting with a strange grouping of maptiles, I'm going to have to add crates, and a player, and get the movement up and running.
It should be pretty easy to do, though, as all the arts ready and waiting.

For DS Development, I use PALib and DevKitPro.
DevKitPro compiles everything nicely for the DS, whilst PALib is a set of functions that makes everything nice and usable, as opposed be being a baffling chaotic mess!
However, if you try updating it, a whole fleet of incompatibilities arise, be it because of DevKitPro changing, or PALib. And, it's not just little things either. A simple PALib upgrade will mean that pretty much all of my old games start getting little breaks in them, and it...

My mum likes crosswords!!!
And, heck. I like crosswords, too!
Except, the trouble is, there's not really a decent crossword game on the DS.
Don't get me wrong, there's a fair few games, and The Times (released this week) in particular, has a cracking selection of clues/answers, and some really nice layouts.

Doing your homework on the back of the bus..
A crazy week of illness, busyness, and a party, have meant that this week's game had to be done..
..
um.. today!

This week's Wednesday Workshop <a href="https://socoder.net/index.php?topic=1414">#186</a> was to create a nice Asteroids game.
As I started creating it, I was planning a nice Horizontal Shooter-esque game, with powerups and all kinds of crazyness.
But I ran out of steam midway.
A shame..

This week, I've been working on an Asteroids game.
On Thursday, it was a bog standard Asteroids game, that seriously needed updating.
On Friday, I changed the controls to mouse. The game plays like a cross between Asteroids and Horizontal Shooter.
On Sunday, I tweaked the controls further, and added particles.

I've had it in my desk's cupboard for years.
I bought the game not long after my original Playstation broke, thinking I'd pick up a PSX cheap somewhere..
I never did.
And, I never bought a PS2, or a PSP, or PS3, or anything else that could play it.

I've had a couple of emails about the donate button already, so thought I should clarify why it's there.
I write a game a week.. Sometimes they're good, sometimes their rubbish, and sometimes they're really fun, playable, and can keep you playing for a good few hours.
I can do this, because I have a lot of free time. And by "a lot of free time", I mean A LOT of free time.
The webhost is pretty much minimal cost (GoDaddy), the programming languages range from 0 cost (DS/XN...

A short and sweet game, this week.
Would've been more (extra graphical niceness) but I ran out of time! Aw well..
Here's the basic form.
<img src="https://socoder.net/workshop/dlds/184_go_left.gif">

I'm not sure if you figured it out from the picture I posted the other day, but it seems that the project I'm currently working on in XNA will turn out to be Centipong.
To be honest, I wasn't actually planning to do Centipong!
I was actually just shoving in a basic sprite, and getting it bobbing around on the screen, in order to duplicate my basic "Blitz 2D-in-3D" command set within the XNA environment.
So far that's working out rather well, and I've near enough created...