Uhoh, here we go again!
To be honest, I really wanted some time off. I planned to make a nice lengthy game, take my time, and maybe even finish off Patent Wars a bit, but as is usually the case.. I've written a game.
Well, it's not really a game, it's more of a toy. A play thing, if you will.
That's ready for release tomorrow.

It's been a couple of weeks since I added the new Suggestion box, up there at the top right of the site.
Let's take a peek at what ideas we've got..
Tuesday 28th of July 2009 08:10:03 PM
Name : CodersRule

The AGameAWeek 2008-2009 Retrospective

(URL "https://www.agameaweek.com/2009/08/agameaweek-2008-2009-part-one/">Part One), (URL "https://www.agameaweek.com/2009/08/agameaweek-2008-2009-part-two/">Part Two), (URL "https://www.agameaweek.com/2009/08/agameaweek-2008-2009-part-three/">Part Three), (URL "https://www.agameaweek.com/2009/08/agameaweek-2008-2009-part-four/">Part Four), (URL "https://www.agameaweek.com/2009/08/agameaweek-2008-2009-part-five/">Part Five)

10 weeks, 3 ...

The AGameAWeek 2008-2009 Retrospective

(URL "https://www.agameaweek.com/2009/08/agameaweek-2008-2009-part-one/">Part One), (URL "https://www.agameaweek.com/2009/08/agameaweek-2008-2009-part-two/">Part Two), (URL "https://www.agameaweek.com/2009/08/agameaweek-2008-2009-part-three/">Part Three), (URL "https://www.agameaweek.com/2009/08/agameaweek-2008-2009-part-four/">Part Four), (URL "https://www.agameaweek.com/2009/08/agameaweek-2008-2009-part-five/">Part Five)

AGame...

Just a quick post, today.
There's now a suggestion box, over on the righthand side of the site.
|update| 2018 : This box has long since vanished. Tweet me your suggestions! |update|
A simple form.

First things first, here's this week's AGameAWeek game.
I've done a few dozen "Get the Greens" before, so I figured I'd keep this one short.
Simply put, get the greens, and avoid the holes.
No enemy this time, just you and the floor, so if you're nice and gentle you could probably get quite far through and score a decent score.

I can't believe I've still not finished this yet!
Seems that, no matter how much work I do on this game, it's still not quite done.
This week, I finally decided on the complete "Not Chance" and "Not Community Chest" card selection. 12 of each, ready and waiting in the engine.
Next, I added all those lovely patents.

Last Wednesday I started a new project, it's since gotten out of hand and I need some ideas to help bring it all to a close.
Let's start from the top.
Over at the MyLGCookie forums, someone asked if there was a nice touchscreen Monopoly.
As usual, Jay jumps in and says "Yeah, that'll be nice and easy"

Just a quicky, this week, as I know the spam is spam!
But there were still a couple of oddities that stuck out.
My Amazing Weight Loss Story writes...
Thanks for writing, I truly liked reading your most recent post. I think you should post more often, you obviously have talent for blogging!

Today I start a new feature, mostly due to 2 odd posts in my spambin.
1. Invispnib writes..
Should they even be there? Please comment on this video clip. I don't think Robert Cooper or Brad Wright would ever let these two ever have any serious part on Stargate Universe. Well maybe the brunette???
The link in question

1st attempted Java App.
It's a nice quicky program.
Pick a time, click start, when time's up it plays a tune.
..

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.

<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!!

Giving yourself more work!
Bugger.
Last week I bought myself a new phone.
A lovely little phone!

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.
...

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..

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...

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!!!

Today I did a few fiddly little menu based things..
Things like...
1. The menu->Level switch now plays the "Beeeoooo-weeeee!" sound as the level starts.
2. There's a progress bar whenever a level is being rendered. ('cos it takes a teensy bit longer than it should! 160x160 tiles over a 5120x5120 pixel area!!)

The main menu of AD2 is still pretty much a blank screen! Albeit a red blank screen, with a couple of white rectangles sliding into place..
So is the addiction of the game at this point, that it's quite easy to click the mouse, and accidentally play for 20-minutes.. whoops!
I have managed to tweak a few ingame things, though. And the Menu -> Game -> Menu transitions are more or less working, except for one small thing.
I'm not sure how to fade in a level, at this point.

I'm quite happy with the level compression, now. Things are nice and trim, and everything's fitting into a small enough area.
So, today I'm thinking about how the server should work.. Note, I've not added the server yet, but I'm definitely getting prepared! What I've decided to do is implement an Author name and Level name directly into the checksum.
This way, when the server checks your game for new levels, it can automatically dig out the new stuff, and it'll know...

Nothing Alien Deathmatch related today (since Saturday's the day I work the most, and get the least actual coding done.. and sit and watch Stargate a lot.. )
However, today, a Spanish fellow named Adael made me a level editor for JNKPlat DS 08!
It's online, it's Javascript based, and it's right here. (Update : It's been nearly a decade since I posted this... It's not there, any more!!)
<a href="https://socoder.net/uplo...

Another quicky, today.. In fact, it's a little later than usual, but that's only because I'd only just thought of it, this morning!! Panic coding at it's best..
Wheel of No Prizes sees you spin the wheel, guess the place name, Hangman style, and carry on as much as you can until you've run out of lives.
Neat!
<a href="https://socoder.net/uploads/1/wheel.png"><img src="https://socoder.net/uploads/1/wheel_thumb.png"></a>
Nice and simple stuff, but...

I spent most of this week rebuilding a few of my older games with the new Highscore stuff, so there's a couple of nice new-ish games to play.

First off, we've the 3rd version of Horizontal Shooter.. <a href="https://agameaweek.com/?Game=49">Get it here</a>. It's pretty much the same as ever, but with Mr Scouter from the original, thrown back in for good luck.
The new highscore method should help ward off nasty hackers from the scoreboard system.. Or at least for a...

Dum-dum-durrrr..
Over at Socoder, someone (Naming no names.. he knows who he is..) figured out that the encryption on my Highscore system wasn't exactly the most foolproof of encryptions, and that it's fairly easy to hack in a few fake scores.
Can't have that!
So I worked my arse off, early this week, and a new encryption method has been successfully trialled and put into place. It's no super-amazing method either, but it oughta do for a while.
The extra workload has meant that I mi...

This week's game will not include Super Online Highscore functions. The way it works makes it impossible to stop people from cheating.
Ho hum..
 
In the meantime, here's a couple of bonus games.

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.
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