This week there shall be no AGameAWeek.

Yesterday, Rob from RetroRemakes asked if he could do a spritesheet for Spike Dislike. After a lot of back and forth, I decided to write a how-to, so any future requests could go a little bit smoother! Here's some info on how to make 'em, alongside a bunch of all-important rules.

A nice slow paced shooter this week. Poor old CPC Basic couldn't really handle bullet-hell type games. Well, ok, maybe it could if you really really tried, and came up with a scrolling ascii grid of bullets, but for the most part it just wasn't happening. Instead, Cassette 50 creators had to rely on other ideas. Like trying to kill you with your own desire to kill!! <img src="https://AGameAWeek.com/complete/Inferno_20110125_Logo_thumb.png">

Since I'm going to be doing Cassette 50 for a while, we're not going to be needing the regular Suggestion Box for a while. As a kind of replacement for those, then, I'll be thinking ahead, and wondering about the "larger" projects. Obviously one of the new ones is going to be a new Platdude game.

I'm out of ideas. I ran out about midway through Advent, and I think finishing that off has sapped every last ounce of ideaness out of my poor little head. So, in order to continue to do AGameAWeek, I'm going to have to start doing things in a slightly different way. I thought about this for a while, yesterday, and it does seem slightly plausible, if a little dumb! <a href="https://AGameAWeek.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/01/Cassette_50_K7_Cascade_Games_1985_Standard_Jewel_Case_-_Front.jp...

The year is new, but the logo's old. Sod it. I love this logo! I should be doing a year-long roundup thing, but I've not had much time, what with the whole Advent and stuff. No matter, there's been some good, and plenty of bad, and that's what AGameAWeek's all about!

Top 10 of 2010

1. (URL "https://AGameAWeek.com/GameList.php?ShowJust=219">Platdude's Retro Advent Collection <img src="https://AGameAWeek.com/complete/Platdude__s_Retro_Advent_Collection_20101201B_thumb.png">

Hello all!

What follows is a review from PlayThisThing.com I screengrabbed it, because they're probably going to fix the "little" thing at the top, and I want to continue to take the piss out of them. Here's me taking the piss out of them.

Platdude Hungry!!

I've said it before, and I'll say it again. I'm happy for any/all magazines to put any/all of my games in their magazines, or on their coverdisks. If you do, TELL ME, and I'll do my best to purchase a copy of your magazine. Heck, you might even be nice enough to SEND me a copy, for free! But you probably won't, because it's actually really really really stupidly rare when you ever bother to even tell me.

Somewhere along the way, I got bored with RPG. Was it the stupidly annoying menus I half-assed my way through? Was it the annoying issues with the control scheme? Was it the fact that it's a smegging RPG? Who knows. Nobody can be sure. But I'm carrying on, and it'll be vaguely playable on Tuesday. I still need to organise the baddies, and spread out the pickups and things like that, and then there's the endgame, and figuring out how to keep the game alive... but it's mostly t...

Thursday = Suggestion day, and usually a lookback on Tuesday's game. hmm...

Or rather, Curse You, stupid USB drive that killed about 4 hours of my work at 3am on Monday morning.. Although, If that hadn't have happened, I'd probably still be way way behind. I had in mind, as I sat to code tonight, that I only (only!!) needed to add the weapons. But, as I sit here at midnight, that's not really it, is it... See, I have to build the weapon powerups, and tweak the weapon styles, and then integrate baddy health and all of that, too. "Only" adding the weapons is a much bigger ta...

If you've an idea for AGameAWeek, let it be known in the comments below!!! Meanwhile, thinking time...

"You just hold right, and jump a bit" <img src="https://AGameAWeek.com/complete/Super_Happy_Speedy_Gerbil_20101116_Logo_thumb.png">

This week's game will be slightly more minimal than originally planned. I originally was going to add baddies and pickups and progression and all of that. But then I started playing it. After about 10 minutes without a single blink, I figured it'd probably be a bit TOO much to add anything more. <a href="https://socoder.net/uploads/1/Super_Happy_Speedy_Gerbil_(Screenshot_14_Nov_2010_083303).png"><img src="https://socoder.net/uploads/1/Super_Happy_Speedy_Gerbil_(Screenshot_14_Nov_201...

Ooops, THAT's what I'm supposed to do on Thursdays! No matter, a day late, not to worry! Here's this week's suggestion box. Fill the comments with your ideas/suggestions for future AGameAWeek stuffs.

Right now, we'll call this version 0.5. The tool is at a working version, and most of the bugs are ironed out. I'll update it as the weeks go by, and hopefully we'll have something Most Excellent by the end. <img src="https://AGameAWeek.com/complete/Jay__s_Retro_Sprite_Tool_20101109B_thumb.png"> Sliders, menus, buttons, etc. Fiddle about, you might figure it out! There's a bunch of presets on the left. Click one, and a sprite appears bottom right. If you click "New" the spr...

As I've already mentioned, the MiniRPG's on hold whilst I build the sprite maker doohickey. The doohickey's coming along nicely, and make quite a large leap today, but I'm still fiddling about trying to get it to feel "Just Right" The thing is, although my old sprite maker seemed to come up with nice blobs, the new one appears to be much more random. Either they're preset shapes, or they're crazily splodged messes. <a href="https://socoder.net/uploads/1/Jays_Retro_Sprite_Tool_...

This isn't important.. I just sent off a nice lengthy reply to PixelProspector.com's Authentic Kaizen, all about plans for the future of the site, the possibility of me wrapping my head around Flash, thoughts about new new new new newer NeonPlat, and some kind of unpondered random top down maze thing. None of that's really important, just yet. It's all forward planning, and it all requires bits of learning all over the place. Less importantly, halfway through the email, I used the term "WiLMa" when ...

Have any thoughts? I'm a bit blank, this week. But then I was blank last week, too, and that didn't turn out TOO badly. (did it?!)

Stringy Things is out, for iPhone and iPod. Slightly annoying that this didn't happen earlier.. That would've let me do a great big "First AGAW of the year, Second iPod release" thing, earlier. No matter. It's up, now! <a href="https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/id397961479">Grab it from the AppStore</a> Hurray! Stringy Things!! And I'll be building it up as I go, so. .. If AGAW suddenly becomes a bit Wordgame biased.. .. um... that's purely co-incidental!

<img src="https://AGameAWeek.com/complete/Ted_Bob__s_Pet_Hammer__20101018_Logo_thumb.png"> An ever so slightly shorter edition of this week's intended game, which almost didn't happen!! Nice and playable, although it's probably much more playable on Hard than on the other two levels! This week sees the return of silly-name favourite Ted Bob, as he grabs an Amy Rose style hammer, and attacks oncoming crates. <a href="https://AGameAWeek.com/complete/Ted_Bob__s_Pet_Hammer__20101018...

(URL "https://blog.nielsen.com/nielsenwire/online_mobile/u-s-teen-mobile-report-calling-yesterday-texting-today-using-apps-tomorrow/">Today's Big News Story) is that kids are texting an average of 3000 times a day! Good gravy, that's HUGE!!!! ... Except, of course, it isn't. When I was a teen, I was on ICQ, AIM and MSN, ALL DAY! If you racked up the number of back+forth messages I used to achieve on that, all day, every day, I'm pretty damned sure it'd be a buttload more than 3000 a day. Except...

Arseholes. God damned feckin' arseholes. ---- A few weeks ago, my sister lost her job. She's currently in the midst of trying to get a new one, and so is hopping around site to site, grabbing Application forms, sending off CVs and all the other "Trying to get a job" types of things.

"Haniff" emailed me about 4 or 5 weeks ago, just as I was starting my lazyitis month, and asked if I could do a nice big video, showing how I create a game. I wasn't going to rush a game, there and then, so I figured I'd record my first AGameAWeek once I got around to starting things up again.. Turns out I haven't recorded my first AGameAWeek, because this game's shit! Still, here's a game. <a href="https://socoder.net/uploads/1/SomeGame.zip">Linkage</a> (Win only, but ...