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.

You might have noticed a distinct lack of AGameAWeek, this week..
Since I'm getting little or no work done, this week, and.. what with being Xmas and all, I've decided to be lazy, and take a week off.
Nothing wrong with that!
If you feel you really need something new to play with, nip to yesterday's post, and you can grab the WhoSave thing. That's quite nice.. And you can pretend I posted that today, in time for the Xmas episode in 2 days time. Very festive!!
If yo...

( border="0"><tr><td>Blimey!
What a year, eh!
I decided to round off the year with a nice big, old fashioned list, with everything in it.
Except this doesn't have everything in it, because I've forgotten to add the DS games.. I'll do that later!! (Took me about 3 hours to do this, so I'm not going to tweak it, now!!)

Sometimes Copy and Paste works..

Having finally put the nice simple swooshy spawning sound back into the game, and got a couple of nice test levels up and running, and inside the scoreboard, and then got the whole "Nth position on the online scoreboard" display going, I decided to move onto more pressing matters.
I already copy and pasted most of the control scheme stuff early on in the project, so to help give the game a little consistency, and so as not to have to recode the whole th...

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...

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.

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...

This week, I haven't entered the Wednesday Workshop. Instead I had a try at the Monthly one (#013), which asked us to create a game with lots of guns, and bullets and shootyness.
Since I'd already done a decent enough shooter the other day (H~S) I decided to try my hand at something a little different.
<a href="https://AGameAWeek.com/windev/sheriffmunky.png"><img src="https://AGameAWeek.com/windev/sheriffmunky_thumb.png"></a>

A while ago, I made <a href="https://AGameAWeek.com/?p=14">this</a>. Horizontal Shooter.
Fly about, shoot the bad guys, guard the good guys.
A nice enough game, lovely lines all over, but somehow lacking in something extra.
This week.. I added something extra!

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 ...

<a href="https://AGameAWeek.com/media/puzzobomb_webuser_189_med.png"><img src="https://AGameAWeek.com/media/puzzobomb_webuser_189_med_thumb.png"></a>
Puzzobomb gets a place in WebUser, issue 189.
That's exactly 20 issues after Horizontal Shooter was in.
And, if you're counting, it's exactly 2 pages earlier.. I've been bumped up to page 38, now! Woot.

For starters, let me just point out that Alien Deathmatch has still been slowly updating over the past couple of weeks. It's strange that a single game has taken up so much of my time. I guess that once you find the right type of game, you're more motivated than usual.
Still, more weeks playing with 1 game = less time to get some actual new games coded.
As such, there's not really been a whole lot to report over the past week or so.
No new games, no new ideas, nothing.
I had initia...

Last year I drew some graphics!
A set of sprites and background tiles for a DS game based on the classic Alien Breed on the Amiga.
The plan fell apart soon after.
<img src="https://AGameAWeek.com/windev/adlogo.png">

Imagine if all your favourite Arcade games were in fact Slot Machine games.
Arcade Slots reproduces a handful of games in this style. With games ranging from Frogger to Hogan's Alley, there's plenty to keep your playing.
<a href="https://AGameAWeek.com/dsdev/arcadeslots.zip">Download Arcade Slots</a>.
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<tr><td valign="top"><a href="https://AGameAWeek.com/dsdev/as_pac.png"><img src="https://AGameAWeek.com/d...

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Windows

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(URL "https://www.agameaweek.com/?p=70"><img src="https://jnk.homedns.org/hs2_thumb.png" height="90" width="120" />
H~S<br>Horizontal Shooter)<br>
(URL "https://AGameAWeek.com/?p=65"><img src="https://socoder.net/workshop/dlds/165/cowbell_hero.gif" height="90" width="120" />

The DrunkenCoders Christmas Compo finishes tonight.
I bothered to enter the new JNKPlat Xmas Special (You can download that (URL "https://AGameAWeek.com/dsdev/jnkplatv0_2.zip">here)) but it's nothing too special..
So, this morning, at around 8am, I decided to get my arse in gear and actually make something nice and snowy for the compo.
Around 5 hours later, give or take, and (URL "https://AGameAWeek.com/dsdev/snowman.zip">Snowman Attack) is the result.
(URL "https://AGameAWeek....

Those expecting another Saturday filled with happy retro memories have a long wait.
I took the week off!
Mostly because coding 18 games within 3 weeks takes quite a lot out of you, but also 'cos my DS finally gave up trying to hold onto the tiny shred of hinge it had remaining. (ie, it did that whole "R-trigger side snap" thing that DSLite's tend to do!)
During this week, though, I've been thinking about Galaga.
On the one hand, it'd be nice to make a tiny retro version of the Amiga...

<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...