I can't exactly say I've been enjoying the time off..
To be honest, 95% of September was spent working on the big BlastTrax update, and so far most of October has been similarly working on Sheep Goes Right.
It's actually a heck of a lot of stuff to cram into such a short amount of time, and it's been so much effort that I've been neglecting AGameAWeek.
But.. You know.. They're both nice big games, and they're both sort of worth the effort. Or at least, I think so, anyway!
Meanwhile ...

Want a nice free game to play on your tiny OUYA console?!
How about NeonPlat Raw?!
Since I'm still learning the OUYA ropes, and still trying to figure everything out, I've not yet got my whole OUYA-Dev-Account stuff fully sorted. (erk, Tax forms!!?)
So, in the meantime, we'll have to resort to throwing random crap online for free!

Bah, humbug..
So, as I test out the many OUYA bits and pieces, I'm stumbling upon the many do's and don't's.
Apparently, one of the don't's is "Don't attempt to read data from images".
..

Do you have an OUYA?
Would you like to see my Monkey Framework running on your telly!?!
It's nothing amazing, and is entirely developer-test-functionality-stuff as opposed to being something that you can actually play with, but if you'd like to give it a whirl, you can download the .apk file right here.
(URL "https://socoder.net/JaysButtonTest_ouya.apk">

Testing time, again.
Today, I purchased 2 very different, yet entirely similar devices.
First, a wire. Very cheap!
It allows me to plug an X360 controller into my Nexus7 device, and use it as an ingame controller, but only on games which support it.

Sorry folks, I appear to have gotten bogged down with Sheep Goes Right.
Although I figured it'd be a nice simple little project that I could work on "behind the scenes", it's once again proved that I never can plan ahead!!
Sheep Goes Right has now become a much bigger project, and as I'm currently working on a way to make level building easier, I'm having to deal with all the testing that goes with it.
I'd forgotten how much time proper level building actually takes up!!
(URL "https:...

I finally wrangled my way through "the big update" over the course of two nights..
Day one was having to upgrade to Mountain Lion (I was in hospital when it came out, and hadn't bothered to upgrade since).. This was swiftly* followed by installing XCode5.
The reason for all this, is that iOS7 devices need XCode5, and XCode5 needs Mountain Lion. It's Apple's special way of making sure all us developers constantly upgrade everything!
* Given that my Mac is at the exact opposite side of the ...

September's over, and I've had a lot of fun bulking up BlastTrax, and playing GTAV!
The plan was, come October, I'd get straight back to business.
I'd upload BlastTrax's big update, and then start doing AGameAWeek again.
The reality is slightly different, for two main reasons.

I've no idea how far I'll manage to get with this game, and currently only have the main sprite, and logo drawn.
That's pretty much the entire extent of this game, so far!
But I'll carry on, and see how far I can get with it.
Since I have such wonderfully high-resolution assets, though, I decided to make a lovely little wallpaper with them.
(URL "https://AGameAWeek.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/09/sgr_logo.jpg"><img src="https://AGameAWeek.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/09/sgr_logo-...

September is nearly over, and I've played a good six or seven hours of GTAV.
Hmm..
Anyhoo, I've been working away at BlastTrax and have done quite a fair amount of work on the thing.
I should be uploading the new edition to Apple in the next couple of days, (I have to faff about updating my MacMini first, though) so watch out for that appearing on your iPhing in the next week or so.
After that it's time to get back into the AGameAWeek swing of things, and I'm tempted to do another sl...

People keep asking about how I manage to code AGameAWeek, and one thing they all eventually pick up on is that I'm currently doing it all with Monkey.
(URL "https://monkeycoder.co.nz">Monkey) is a fantastic language which allows for all manner of different targets, and does a great job doing what it does.
It isn't perfect, and it's not for everyone, but it suits me down to the ground.
As with any development tool, it all comes down to preference, and whether or not you agree with the me...

I'm taking a slight break from my usual AGameAWeek schedule.
Over the course of September, I'll be spending extra time building up a super awesome edition of BlastTrax, whilst also taking the time to enjoy GTAV properly!
Hurray for games!
Meanwhile, I'm digging through my archive of old forgotten gems, and plucking out anything that isn't yet part of my Archive for reasons of terribleness, or general forgetfulness!

Just because I'm taking September off from my regular AGameAWeek schedule, doesn't mean there won't be fun times ahead! I've decided to keep you entertained with a few oddities that have collected on my hard drive for the past decade or so, but have mostly been unpublished due to being "a bit shit", or me having lost their sourcecode.
These are games that I've always considered to be part of my archive, but for various reasons I've never actually bothered to add to the thing.
Games that I occas...

To mark five whole years since (URL "https://AGameAWeek.com/2013/09/agameaweek-gold-jnkplat-ds-08/">the release of the greatest JNKPlat game, EVER), I've decided to do a JNKPlat themed desktop this month.
Nice and simple!
(URL "https://AGameAWeek.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/09/out.png"><img src="https://AGameAWeek.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/09/out-1024x1024.png" alt="" title="out" width="590" height="590" class="alignnone size-large wp-image-3142" />
Click for MASSIVE!) (Only...

<img src="https://socoder.net/AGAWGold_128.png" style="float:right;">AGameAWeek Gold takes a peek back through the masses of the Jayenkai Archive, to see if I've released anything of importance on this day in history.
Today's game might not exactly have been released on this day in history, as it actually went through a series of three or four separate releases.. I'll have to trawl through the various forum posts to be sure.. But today's the day that I've marked, so I'm pretty sure it had some ...

This week, (URL "https://twitter.com/caffeinekid">@CaffeineKid) released his latest Android-based remake, a classic from the world of the 80s!!
A lovely retro game from the age of static screens, and proper dungeon crawling, where the game had to have actual gameplay, because in those days, you couldn't rely on 50 bazillion polygons to wow the audience. You had to have a bloody good game!!!
( width="480" height="360" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/HXjFlWNxxGs" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen&g...

BlastTraxFAQs

What's with the track?

BlastTrax was originally devised as a classic Retro-styled GrandPrix-like racing game, with weapons.
You would drive through the course, shoot the other drivers, and make your way through to the end.

Thankyou for waiting patiently, as 95% of the internet inexplicably got to play this yesterday, before I posted it to my own website!!
*sigh*
Ah well, lessons learned, must organise things a wee bit better in future. Doing worldwide launches at 10 in the morning, isn't all that easy!
Anyhoo, this one's a corker, so it's well worth the wait!

Rather than have a bunch of different posts all over the place, as usually seems to be the case here, I thought I'd create a game-specific page and dump all the reviews onto it.
<img src="https://socoder.net/uploads/1/BlastTrax_Logo.png">
BlastTrax seems to be gaining a teensy bit of attention, although exactly how much of that is due to one particular reviewer bombarding me with his over-excitement, thus making it feel like there's a bunch of excitement when in fact it's only his...

<img src="https://socoder.net/AGAWGold_128.png" style="float:left;">It's been a while since I did an AGameAWeek Gold.
There's not been a lot of stand-out stuff popping up on the old time-machine. Sure there's been a whole pile of games, but nothing that's really been noteworthy, so for the most part I've kind of been ignoring this section of the site.
Today, however, a lovely little game popped up, and I spent a good hour playing the thing! Whoops!!

This coming Tuesday, August 27th I'll be releasing Game #300 in the Archive.
Holy crumpets, 300!?!!?
It's been a long trawl, getting BlastTrax finished in time, especially since I actually had to have it done by LAST week, so's it could get through Apple Review in time for the #300th!
As a result, August has been one heck of a crazy month, and I'm pretty dang tired out.
I'm currently considering taking most of September off, or at the very least a couple of weeks. I've reached a nic...

BlastTrax has passed iOS Review, so all is looking good for it's target August 27th release date.
Since the game is now up on the AppStore, but currently locked tight until the release date, I thought I'd have a bit of fun with it, so I posted the following challenge onto Twitter.
(URL "https://AGameAWeek.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/08/photo-4.jpg"><img src="https://AGameAWeek.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/08/photo-4-898x1024.jpg" alt="" title="photo (4)" width="590" height="672" class="alig...

Little Ember over on the Monkey forums, has released his first Android game, and it's free, so o/ yeay o/
A nice classic retro Space Invaders styled shoot-em-up, with lovely LED styled graphics, and lots of lovely shooty bang noises
(URL "https://AGameAWeek.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/08/unnamed.jpg"><img src="https://AGameAWeek.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/08/unnamed-300x225.jpg" alt="" title="unnamed" width="300" height="225" class="alignnone siz...

Hello, I'm Jayenkai, and in 5 days time, I'll be adding the 300th game into my Archive.
300 games that I've single handedly created over the course of the past decade.
Today, I received the following email.
(URL "https://AGameAWeek.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/08/anemail.png"><img src="https://AGameAWeek.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/08/anemail-300x30.png" alt="" title="anemail" width="300" height="30" class="alignnone size-medium wp-image-3087" />

For the past week, I asked people on Twitter and Socoder if they'd like to join in with a silly new game by drawing costumes onto a sprite of Idigidragon.
The results came fairly slowly, but a number of decent attempts were made.
.. Then Rockford over at Socoder sent a HUGE batch of stuff, and I had to spend a good hour or so cutting them up into little parts! D'oh!
Anyway, this is the result.