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.
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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.

Nice and big, specifically in the title, so as not to get ANYONE excited!
I will be VERY surprised if anyone gives a rats ass about this week's .. um.. "game".. but here it is anyway.
"Made for my cookie", although it's not a cookie anymore.. it's a viewty.. this J2ME Java App will allow you to play along with a real-world game of scrabble.
See, lately I've been playing a LOT of Scrabble.
I bought a ??40 "Scrabble 60th Anniversary Edition" set, thinking it's be al...

Aww.
Didn't work.

This week's Wednesday Workshop (#209) asked us to create a game with some kind of Gravity.

A simple game, this week, but one that's already evolved quite a bit.
As I mentioned the other day, I actually got this game done earlier on in the week, and it was quite a bit of fun even then.
Since then, I've updated it a couple more times, and now it's even better than it was! woot!!

Well, not all suck.
Let's take a quick run through my week, shall we?
Tuesday
Posted last week's game, got prepared to work on PatentWars some more.

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"

At the start of this week, I completed a nice quick game of Atoms for my phone, so here's that..

It's a classic Amiga PD game from many many years ago. Tap to place an atom, place too many to explode them, capture all the tiles you can.
Simple gameplay, but lots of fun!

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 made a start on this game a few days ago, and things seem to be progressing at a decent enough rate.
The basic gameplay engine is in there, now. The test level (200x50 blocks) loads, platdude can run around, grab onto bars, jump around and use ladders. He can also work plungers and have the blocks open and shut accordingly.
So, that's all nice!

Another nice subtle title for Google to pick up, along with the odd sprinkles of text within.
Last time we posted LG Cookie KP500 Java J2ME Free Games to Download *cough* we had the following 3 games.
#1. Hangman
#2. Slots

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...

Is that title subtle enough for Google, d'you think?
This week, I've been getting to grips with MidletPascal, and dodging it's annoying mid-compile crashes, in a vague attempt to get some games onto my phone.
Sorry folks, this week's AGameAWeek is entirely Java based.
Boooo!!

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.

<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!!

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.

I had intended to update this a fair bit. Add music, add extra pickups, things like that.
But in the end, I instead decided to leave it as it is.
This is (with added Highscore table) pretty much as it is at the end of the two hour session.
A nice simple game, with a basic gameplay method.

With more tweaking than my head could stand, I finally got Game #2 wrapped up yesterday, so I'm finally starting on Game #3, today.
As stated previously, Game #3 will be reusing quite a lot of the core engine that Game #2 used, so it should be short and sweet putting it all together, like some kind of coded jigsaw puzzle.
Once that's done, Game #4's ready to get going (ie, I have a vague idea in my head!) and will also be coded in Blitz for this week's AGameAWeek, so watch out fo...

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

Just a nice simple game this week, mostly done after my shouting at Worms, earlier this week..
It's nothing fancy, as I've been short on time, but.. We'll call it a Start.!

Ship Flinging!

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.

Yeah, I figured I'd forgotten a few things, and as Sokoban gets built up, slowly but surely, all the forgotten things are poking their heads out, waiting to be sorted.
Click inside for coder-heavy stuff.. or just grab Sokoban from earlier today and play that for a while!!

Yesterday was spent getting Sokoban to work in BlitzBasic for Windows. It ended up reasonably well, but there's a few things that should be tweaked, including one persons complaint that bundling all 600+ levels into a single pack kinda kills the fun of it.. A dull trek through a long list of simple levels before you even touch on the slightly more difficult levels, does not a fun game make.
So, I'll split them back up into their seperate packs, and give folk a nice selectable menu system.

This time around, every game will have it's own quickly made titlescreen.
Not wanting to spend too much time doing each one, I figured I'd get away with doing NES style titles. They're simple, but effective.
I'm deciding all this, now, because it's so much easier than having to frantically throw it all together, later on, with 10 or so games all needing to be worked out!
So, the style right now is, Title of game at the top, highscores below, and "Press Start" below tha...