My mum had a couple of games of Cardagain, today!
That's how far along it's come!!
In less than a week, I've not only finally managed to get a grip on the language, I'm actually making a pretty damn good game, too!
In the next couple of days, there's still a few bits and pieces to work on.

Jayenkai's World Cup Challenge : <a href="https://AGameAWeek.com/2010/06/jayenkais-world-cup-challenge/">A plan to do something, rather than sit watching football for 90 minutes each and every day..</a>
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I'm off to watch the season finale of Stargate Universe!
Meanwhile, here's my first 45 minutes.

Jayenkai's World Cup Challenge : <a href="https://AGameAWeek.com/2010/06/jayenkais-world-cup-challenge/">A plan to do something, rather than sit watching football for 90 minutes each and every day..</a>
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Well, that didn't go to plan, but it's not entirely awful, either.
In fact, it's turned out so nicely that I've even added it to the Archive.

Balls.
I was hoping that "Buy Mac = Make games for Mac", but apparently it's only "Buy Intel Mac = Make games for Intel Mac"
I have no idea what the current Intel vs PowerPC ratio is, but if you've got a PowerPC Mac, you're going to have to wait a wee bit longer.
Like, until I make a fortune!

Gettin' a wee bit messy, this week, isn't it.. hmm.. Lots going on, and commenting all over the place.
Might need to do something about that..
Anyhoo...
WarioWare DIY

Mmmm.. Wallpaper!
(URL "https://AGameAWeek.com/Platshot%20Brick.png"><img src="https://AGameAWeek.com/Platshot%20Brick_thumb.png">
(URL "https://AGameAWeek.com/Platshot%20Metal.png"><img src="https://AGameAWeek.com/Platshot%20Metal_thumb.png">
(URL "https://AGameAWeek.com/Platshot%20Dirt.png"><img src="https://AGameAWeek.com/Platshot%20Dirt_thumb.png">

Things aren't going too badly in the Level Editor.
<a href="https://socoder.net/uploads/1/JNKPlat_EditorShot2.png"><img src="https://socoder.net/uploads/1/JNKPlat_EditorShot2_thumb.png"></a>
A nice bar, Selectable objects, Test button, Tabs..
In many ways, things are about the same as they were before, and that's exactly how Platdude likes them!
Keen observers might notice the lack of lights and switches. The whole purpose of the lights was to limit what th...

aka BadgeBox, because I kept changing it's name, but forgot to update the exe's title! d'oh!
A nice simple maze game, with health points and power points.
Collect the gems to up your health and power, and collect Badges to increase your abilities.
If you manage to collect the four outer "Cornerstone Badges" you'll open up an exit in the level, which completes the game.

For something that just looks like this..
<a href="https://socoder.net/uploads/1/bmaxtesting_game.png"><img src="https://socoder.net/uploads/1/bmaxtesting_game_thumb.png"></a>
.. I have actually but a heck of a lot of work into the framework, so far!
Take a peek inside to find out some nice nuggets of info, and take a look at the future of AGameAWeek!!

This week has taken many twists and turns.
I started off making a nice game with a snowman, then that turned into a game with Greenie, then the new PC turned up and I spend a day or two playing with that but the whole network's down, and now I'm waiting on a new Router being delivered! blimey!
Meanwhile it's a chore getting from one system to the other, and that means I'm relying on a slightly-dodgy-not-quite-Win7-compatible edition Paintshop Pro 7 and a slightly-dodgy-not-quite...

Aw, what the heck, EARLY RELEASE!!
Mostly because it's 2am, I can't stop playing it, and I probably won't wake up in time to post this if I don't do it now!!!

A game that took AGES to get going, but definitely got going soon after!

Hello all, Welcome to year two!
This year, I'll be keeping track of the weeks, and games, and things like that, so we can tally up as we go along.
Week 1, Game 1, 1:1 ratio! Good stuff!
This week's game isn't a game. It's more of a toy.

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)

Back to work...

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.

Game 3 needed a few tweaks, here and there, this morning.
Mostly due to the controls being a little twitchy.
Plus, something's missing.
And annoyingly, it's becoming increasingly apparent that the missing something is indeed Ingame Music!

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

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.

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...

So, I spent a while, last night, playing with the graphics.
Now that the game's out there, and since so many people are complaining about it's lack of fancyness, I decided to make nice with the special weapons..
<img src="https://socoder.net/uploads/1/whooshy.png">
The game's now officially 75% More Whooshy, with the superweapons looking much more fancypants, and the dead baddies giving off a little red "poof!" as they go.
I've also switched the ingame text from...

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...

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...

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 sequel/repeat this week, as the <a href="https://socoder.net/?Workshop=Challenge&Week=167">Wednesday Workshop #167</a> asked us to create a game with 2 main characters.
At first I considered doing a Bill and Ted game, but couldn't think of a decent gameplay element other than "Move the blocks".. That'd be a most excellent waste of the characters.
So I resurrected Bibbleman and Bobbleman, and just used them instead.
Still the same game, mind.. So if you're wo...

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...

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...