When I launched the original demo of NeonPlat Adventures, way way way way way back in September, I made a complete backup of the game, code and everything. I thought it might be fun to look at it, and the progress it's made, by release date. To be honest, I'd mostly forgotten I did that.

And I've still got a todo-list as long as my leg!!! If I want a few people to beta-test the final-ish edition, that's gotta be done by about Wednesday, I think. So, I have about 5 days or so to get everything done, now. After that, hope for the best, and get everything bundled for the coming Sunday. .. eeek!

Before I headed off to work, I made a new little video. Or, rather, I tried to make a "little" video, yet it inexplicably ended up at over 300Mb!!! WHAAA!?!? So, with an approximate 450 Minutes remaining on the clock, I left for work, and the upload continued. I'm now back from work, and 2 people have already commented on the video! Awesome, folk are watching my silly vids (and not ALL of the subscribers have turned out to be spambots!!)

I'm sitting here trying to come up with a multitude of silly Badges/Accomplishments/Awards, and inexplicably getting nowhere. Not sure why. I DID have a list. I think it might've vanished during my iOS upgrade sessions. Silly thing. Today's task will be to add as many of those as is humanly possible, as well as finally sorting out the Level Builder once and for all.. (maybe!) *shrugs* Late night tweaking resulted in a couple of nice new features, and I also got around to semi-sta...

<a href="https://AGameAWeek.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/10/NeonPlat-Adventures-Screenshot_31-Oct-2011_105149.png"><img src="https://AGameAWeek.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/10/NeonPlat-Adventures-Screenshot_31-Oct-2011_105149-300x187.png" alt="" title="NeonPlat Adventures (Screenshot_31 Oct 2011_105149)" width="300" height="187" class="alignnone size-medium wp-image-2011" /></a>

And I'll be doing nothing again, today. .. well.. .. I say nothing.. What I mean is, I don't have a great big 12 item checklist to do, and I won't be struggling to type by the end of the day!!

Gah! Extra hats today! I now need about 3 hats, and annoyingly I think I might need an extra bunch of baddies, which also means more hats! D'oh! Still, those can wait until after the Friday Beta. The things that can't wait, are those annoying things that build and build, until you realise you don't really have a whole lot of time.

Today's been total utter chaos. I wrote a bunch of little Badges (Awards?!) the other day, so I've spent today trying to wrangle the code together so that they actually work. See inside for some oddly missing information.

First up, be aware that these aren't working yet, so the bit where one of the achievements would appear to be mostly impossible without the others, is actually down to the fact that they're 6 items apart, and nothing to do with anything that's been earned yet!!! .. having said that, here's the first screenshot of the Achievement table that I've been working on, today.

This is the plan. Week 1 This Friday I'm launching Beta2, so I have until Friday to add an alarming number of things. I thought I was on track, but then realised I needed... 1. All the hats! 2. All the badges. 3. A couple of bits of music. 4. Scoring methods This Beta will hopefully be, for the most part, the fully complete game. Any extras after this point should be neatness-tweaks, and nothing major, but.. well.. things always get in the way!!

Saturday's my "At work for a while" day, so I usually get a lot less codey time done, but I still managed quite a few bits and pieces in the morning. A couple of new baddies, and a teensy bit of AI are in there, as is something which may or may not be confusing, depending on whether you remember the 7 year old oddity or not. Suffice to say, the bananas do definitely appear to be coming from below the arrow. .. not sure what that's all about.. ---

Feedback

Got a little feedback, yest...

On Tuesday, things had started to go annoyingly slowly.. That part where the number of bug fixes grossly outweighs the number of fun happy additions you can be enjoying adding to your game. But I did a lot of fixes on Tuesday!

Phase One was the simple test engine I release WAY WAY back in the very early stages of this humongous project.. .. last month! Phase One was a basic engine, with simple platforming mechanics. Taking the rules of NeonPlat and adding a scrolling background, I wanted to judge if it'd be enjoyed. True, one piece of feedback was a little downbeat, but on the whole it's been well appreciated. You can't please everyone, but the original's not broken, so hopefully that makes up for it. Pha...

I'm in preparation mode, now, and am trying to fix the outer shell of NeonPlat Adventures, so that the game looks a little less rough around the edges, for all the people who'll be playing the lovely beta edition on Friday. Today I worked on the menu a little, fiddled with that "about" section that I never bother to fill in, and added nice level open/close sweepy things that make things look a little less slapped together. They're still just slabs of coloured rectangles, but they swoop left/...

One of the hardest things about adding baddies to this game is, surprisingly for me, not actually drawing things! With NeonPlat I've created a weird skewed world, where nothing looks exactly as it should. This gives me a little artistic license with my artwork. .. or rather, I can be shit, and nobody'll notice! If something looks a little too odd, I simply make it look odder in the animation, and it somehow cobbles together nicely. Want an example? The Bats don't flap, they kinda invert-...

Over the past year or so, I've done a few month-long iOS projects, but NeonPlat Adventures is the first time in a long time that I've tackled a nice big Windows/Mac/Linux project. Today, 11th October 2011, marks the one-month anniversary since I officially started this project.

Had another Migraine day, today, and thus managed to accomplish bog all. 'tis a bit of a downpoint, considering how productive I've been over the past couple of weeks, but I pretty much ended up reading forums, messing about on Twitter, and.. .. Relaxing a bit. Because, apparently that's important, even when you're kicking ass making a really great platformer. Go figure!

Apologies for the lack of daily blog/rant lately. Work schedule is crazy, sleep schedule is crazy, and AGameAWeek schedule is also all messed up. .. Well... I say that..

I've been mulling over this post for a few days, now, but the guy at work mentioned them being super cheap, and I found myself in a more pressed position. Would I, or wouldn't I?

For the past few weeks, I've gotten myself into a schedule on Wednesdays. Worklog posting on Socoder, iDev on the Mac, and now NNI Game of the Week, too. Today, all those things didn't happen.

<img src="https://AGameAWeek.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/09/platneonplat.png" alt="" title="platneonplat" width="128" height="64" class="alignnone size-full wp-image-1847" /> Platdude vs NeonPlat

Fuck game developers, and Fuck their publishers, too..

Sorry folks, kinda ran out of oomph again, there! Now, Where were we?

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!

Ugh.. Bank Holidays. Days when everyone around you is complaining that it's a "Boring Bank Holiday" again, and you have to play Mr Entertainer, whilst in actual fact you've just spent a whole weekend being ill, and now have a huge pile of work to do which you REALLY wouldn't mind actually getting around to doing.. Thanks everyone. FFS.

It's a great week for disliking spikes!! There's plenty of free spikes, all over the place!

How many things are on Jay's Todo-list now? um... 17,000!