Something's been annoying me, lately.
I've known what it is, but no matter how I wrangle the numbers in my head, it just doesn't seem to work out.
So, apologies to all, but I'm going to have that well earned rest, whether my schedule accepts it or not..

Another donation received today.
That's the third donation this month.
Quite frankly I'm gobsmacked by the generosity of people at a time when, to be fair, AGameAWeek's actually been a bit shit!

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?!!

Jay's Crazy iOS Sale!
<a href="https://socoder.net/uploads/1/crazysale_798.png"><img src="https://socoder.net/uploads/1/crazysale_798_thumb.png"></a>
2 free games, and another half price.
What could possibly go wrong!?!?

Rant Ahoy!!!

The plan
1. Do 3 quick pieces of music.
2. Finish off the 50-level version of Sheep DS.
3. Check it.

Happy sheepy updates for everyone!!! (Except the PC edition... not really sure what I'm doing with that one!)
<img src="https://socoder.net/uploads/1/SheepFake_256.png">

..wait a minute, wasn't I trying to take a break!?

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..

February.
The iOS edition of SpikeDislike was kicking arse, the WiLMa edition was doing well, and the PlayMyCode edition was being played quite a bit, too.
What else could SpikeDislike be ported to?!

Yeay! More Sheep!
I need to make a feckin' level editor for the DS Sheep Goes Left game, and then rebuild all the levels, all over again.
Baa!!!

Too tired..
Instead, I've been working on Sheep Goes Left DS, which is proving 17,000,000,000% more popular than it's iOS rival.
Quite why, I don't know, but the fact that it's being mentioned quite a bit is a good sign.

I tried, today, but I just wasn't quite into it once the game started to build up.
Today's unfinished game, Unknown.....!

PlayMyCode games no longer work

<img src="https://AGameAWeek.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/08/pmc_unknown-300x193.png">

Over the years, I've settled into somewhat of a set of "Bad" habits.
I clump everything into unnamed arrays, with unnamed numerical references for everything.
I reuse arrays for anything from enemy locations, collectables, particles and anything else.
If you open up my PlayMyCode games (click the edit button!) you'll see my habits.

Hmmm...

(Apologies, it's a bit "half-asleep/randomly ranty/jumping through topics/freeflow" today!!)
As an iDev guy, I get 50 codes per Update for all my games. I can hand these out to reviewers or folk I know.
Handy.
So, off they go, sent out, willy nilly, to all the reviewers/people I can find, and see where it takes me.

Won't be posting a blog tonight, so might as well do it now.
Long long night..
Sat up writing the newsletter 'til late, then posted the short blog, then headed to bed about 1am..
After lying there playing Sheep Goes Left for an hour or two, I finally drifted off, only to wake up at 5am.

Last night I said it might be worth my while making a new set of Sheep Goes Left levels.
Right after I said that, I started doing it, and by about 2pm today I'd done it.
14 hours, 100 levels, with a sleep and AGameADay inbetween!
Blimey!

I had a decent topic in mind for the blog, earlier.... *shrugs*
Should've wrote it down..
No matter, I can randomly waffle for 10 minutes! I usually do ok with that...

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.

I was really hoping to start on Socoder today.
I kinda promised myself I'd get shifting on that, on Thursday.
Unfortunately, I'm at that "Must Finish!!!" stage doing Daisy Chains, and I'm finding it really difficult to pull myself away from it, both as a developer, and more annoyingly, as a player.
Anyhoo, here's the trailer.

Got the Google Plus thing today and spent about an hour or so playing about with it's features.
Twitter Lists seems the closest thing to it, in that you follow people, separate them into different groups, then flick through the groups to read/interact.
Unlike Twitter Lists, though, here the grouping works both ways.. Now I could happily clump a bunch of iOS reviewers into a single group and quickly fire off a PR'ish spam bucket to all of 'em at once, without pissing off all my regular "we want c...

I currently seem to be lasting in 2 hour sessions at the minute.
An hour of wide-awake, followed by an hour of drowsy half asleep nonsense.
That's the followed by a 2 hour nap, and then the cycle restarts with me desperately trying to claw as much stuff into my wide-awake hour as I can before I start to fall asleep again.
SUX!

Today I'm focussing my blog on iOS trials and tribulations. The basic steps of designing a game when working with iOS.
These are pretty simple things, and should be apparent, but .. having played a fair number of iOS games.. they're not always done!
Note, this isn't really about my actual development, as such, more the train of thought that generates the end result.
In a future bloggy thing, I might focus more on the what/where, than the how/why that this does. Let me know if ...

I'd already got bogged down into doing the Socoder Newsletter, there, when my beepy alarm reminded me to do my new daily bloggy thing!
Good job I set that, or there'd be no blog today!

AGameAWeek teaches us one thing.
Some games you win, some games you lose.
When you lose, there's not a lot you can do.
Pick yourself up, dust yourself off, and move on.