Developments

Spent yesterday powering through a quick monster-maze game. Managed to build a basic dungeon layout builder, got monsters wandering around, and generally made a nice playable little game. (URL "https://AGameAWeek.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/11/414_006.png"><img src="https://AGameAWeek.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/11/414_006-1024x597.png" alt="414_006" width="604" height="352" class="alignnone size-large wp-image-5165" /> This i...

Developments

After basically deciding to mostly ignore the Multiplayer Controller code for the time being, I'm jumping back to the Advent Collection and trying my best to code what little I can, in what little time remains. Over the course of yesterday, I managed to get games 4 and 5 up and running, and also made a start on game 6. Progress is good, but is it good enough? Only time will tell. (URL "https://AGameAWeek.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/11/414_005.png"><img src="https://AGame...

Developments

Tearing my hair out over the Android Controller stuff. I can *nearly* get it working, but it's still playing up on that Archos Gamepad. I've now managed to somehow get the Archos' controller to control THREE players simultaneously, which is entirely the wrong bloomin' way 'round!! Today I'll probably strip everything back to basics and redo-from-start. That usually helps.. ... Sometimes. No new music, no new game stuff, no nothing. I've been super-focussed on the control...

Developments

Did I miss a day?! Yeah, I basically didn't want to make a "Still full of flu!" post, so.. I didn't! Anyhoo, back to coding, and Karl's Tiny Adventure (which is next on the fixup list) has a bit of a bug in it, when played on the GameStick. The music is hopping and skipping about like some sort of broken record. I'm really not sure why that's happening, but today I'll be trawling through my timing code to see if I can figure it out. I imagine it might be that it's heavily ...

Developments

The first of my games finally passed through PlayJam/GameStick review, yesterday. (Good to know that ONLY took 5 days, even though I was on "the fast track"!! Compare that to the fact that OUYA's reviewed all 5 of the games I've so far uploaded!) A very thorough review, where the only complaints were as follows. 1. If you pause the game, go into the menu, turn off the music, then turn it back on, it doesn't actually restart until you've quit the game. This has been a "feat...

Developments

After finally getting my Forge/NewYA stuff working, I figured I should let TeamOUYA take a look at what I've got so far. The feedback was roughly "Needs an Exit button". Because the Forge doesn't have the big obvious "OUYA BUTTON" that the OUYA controller has, it's much harder to assume the player has a single button to exit the game. As such, I spent a fair amount of time, yesterday, adding a Quit button into my frameworks. I now need to replace old menus with new menus, incorp...

Developments

Yesterday's devtime was mostly spent tackling the Controller code for future (and past) OUYA games, so that it works nicely with the new Forge TV doohickey. After a lot of tweaking, poking and prodding, I finally got my framework to work with a whole variety of different Android targets, from a single compile. This *should* mean that any future OUYA.apk's will work happily on all devices, instead of requiring both an OUYA special edition and a stock Android version. The Store stu...

Developments

All the main pieces of the menu system are now in place. Or at the very least, you can now start the bloomin' game again!! ( width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/aIRvCm9JEl0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen>> Pick a World, pick a Zone, start the game, get through or die, complete levels to unlock more worlds, rinse, repeat! The basics are in. The generator's generating, the levels are selectable, and that's...

Developments

With the music engine at a workable stage, it's time to start adding some extra danger into the game. Starting with Duck Turrets, and Jack's movements, I'm slowly starting to make the entire game a little harder. I'll also be trying to come up with a bunch of map-based obstacles to get in the way of the player, too. Basically, this is the bit that involves a lot of little tweaks, building up to a nice big fuller adventure, and sees me having to try to separate things, so that eac...

Developments

I spent most of yesterday working with the pathfinding AI. The basic idea is that, once the basic level has been generated, an AI player runs through the level, trying to reach the other side. To ensure at least one of these players survives, a fleet of 32 AI players are sent over the level, and each tries to find the "best" way through. (URL "https://AGameAWeek.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/NPA2_009.png"><img src="https://AGameAWeek.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/NPA2_009...

Developments

Yesterday I started to put some effort into the "Pre-Game AI Player" stuff. It's going to be a lot more complicated than I'd thought, but I'll try my best to get it working. I basically need to create a computer player that runs through the level, ensuring that you can at least reach the end without dying. Along the way, he'll generate a path which I'll use to plant various objects like the Checkpoint flags, and perhaps some evil objects to get in your way. This won't, of cours...

Gameboy Spikes

Do you own a classic Gameboy? Do you have a flashcart for it? Then today's (*yesterday) your lucky day! ( width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/JA34N332uTo" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen>> For the past week or so, (URL "https://socoder.net/?blog=rychan">Socoder member Rychan) has been working on a port of SpikeDislike for the Gameboy! You can (URL "https://socoder.net/?showcase=48655">grab it here)...

Developments

I tried doing some music, last night, but everything I attempted turned out terribly. I guess my spurt of musical talent has run out, for now! Aw well, at least I can concentrate on getting my game done, instead. ( width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/d0aJDTgu71k" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen>> Yesterday I tackled Object vs Object collisions so that thrown weapons could interact with enemies and vice vers...

Developments

Last night I added some blocks to the Level Generator, which of course then required me to faff about adding extra rules to the player, and the baddies, and the other objects, to ensure they collide "roughly" correctly with the tilemap. It didn't take too long to get the basics in, but having to essentially rewrite the rules for half-a-dozen different object types meant for a long and complex bit of work. ( width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/DHRCs3Md1To"...

Developments

Yesterday I loaded up JMTrackr for the first time in .. a LONG time! I spent most of the day creating a new set of instruments for the engine, and ensuring everything still sounded .."Not awful" After that, I fiddled with the engine a bit, and am now midway through trying to figure out a way to auto-generate Monkey-Code which includes a multitude of different choons, all in one neat little bundle. ( width="420" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/RQP8L_fdX_E" frame...

Developments

Yesterday's task was to get basically collectables, items, that kind of thing to work properly. I haven't yet added the whole lot, but thought that one useful "collectable" might be a checkpoint. ( width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/TOm4G0M6BSI" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen>> A simple looking flag, which lights up and animates when touched, and is your respawn point should you die. .. Of course, in the ...

Developments

Complications occasionally crop up as you're developing a game. The current complication is one of those "Everything NOW!!" issues. See, I'd like to get my character's movement to work, and ensure my screen scrolling works as it oughta. I've got left and right movement in, as that's pretty easy, but jumping requires that the ground collision is working properly. That means I need to stop working on the character movement, and switch to working on the tilemap collision detection,...

Developments

Uhoh! Forgot about colours!!! That's going to make NeonPlat Adventures particularly tricky, should I want to include an HTML5 edition. .. and, of course, I DO want to include an HTML5 edition, so I guess I'm going to have to retackle the whole "multicoloured scenery" issue. And so I spent most of yesterday drawing some basic template scenery and getting it all ready. I added a whole new section to my re-renderer engine, and now it's spitting out high quality assets in 9 differ...

Developments

As is the case throughout the majority of the past week, yesterday was spent mostly fiddling with my website. There are still a few minor errors cropping up on the error logs, but nothing worth hassling about. Little quirks like temporary variable usage, an old BASIC habit that refuses to go away.. If I want to disable a huge chunk of code, I tend to throw in something like "If (Aliens=Attack)" which does of course disable that section of code.. .. Yeah, I know, bad habit! Espec...

Developments

HURRAY! After 20 (TWENTY!) days in review, SpikeDislike3 is finally available on iOS! o/yeayo/ And it's about damn time, too. ( width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/KnfnkRnT2Ag" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen>> Feel the full dislike, as you bounce your way through the 15 different themes, and 150 levels of spikes! You can buy the complete SpikeDislike3 (URL "https://itunes.apple.com/app/spikedislike3/...

Developments

Oh, boy, did I sleep, yesterday!! Saturday night was FAR too hot, and I couldn't settle at all. I spent most of the night lying in bed, listening to music and not achieving anything at all. Sleep wise, I got around about 2 hours total, leading to a very very sleepy Sunday! Suffice to say, Sunday I got NOTHING done.. Nothing at all, except for sleeping. Lots and lots and lots and lots of sleeping!! Dev-wise, I'm a bit closer to getting a good feel in Boxsplosions, but it's sti...

Developments

Aaah, iTunesConnect. When Invisible Munky 2 launched, the other day, I noticed something odd in my iTunesConnect pages. Where there's usually a "Request Promo Codes" link, there was none. Basically, I can't give away Promo Codes for my iOS games, because I can't bloomin' well get any codes in the first place. I was baffled, and tried many things to get them back, including emailing and chatting with Apple themselves about the situation. After a good number of hours, they don't ...

Developments

So.. GooglePlay... I vowed never to return, but am already being bombarded by people meithering about the Android version of SpikeDislike3. The Story So Far Jayenkai created SpikeDislike2, and figured it'd be nice to get that onto GooglePlay. Jayenkai learned the ropes, filled the forms, and got SD2 onto GooglePlay. iOS Edition sold about 1500 copies. GooglePlay edition sold about 50. For the sake of my own sanity, it's best not to ask how many people on Android pirated t...

Developments

If there's one thing I hate, it's waiting for stuff!! I'm a very impatient person, and have gotten used to things moving along at a fast AGameAWeek-like pace. I now have TWO games, waiting for Apple Review, and quite frankly it's doing my head in! All this waiting. I can't hack it!!! I'm now pondering what my next project's going to be. Should I continue on this Gap-Year thing, and make something else that's way bigger than normal? Or should I do a couple of quicky AGameAWe...

Developments

A somewhat eventful day, yesterday, but one that took WAY too long!! As I finished off the last of the levels, and got the game working toa moderately lovely standard, I figured I might as well start throwing bits and pieces into iTunes. I've still got a number of days until Invisible Munky (hopefully) passes AppleReview, so I can relax and take my time with all the iTunesConnect gubbins. Starting with the the description, the screenshots, the icon, I continued on and decided to ...

Twitter Rant

This morning, I'm battling with Twitter. A short while ago, Twitter introduced a new "Easy to use!" way to reply to things, which is less messy and leaves more space for your reply. Essentially, the "New Reply" strips away everybody's @names, leaving just a single link back to the previous post. In many ways, this is a nice thing, as when you're in the middle of a conversation with 5 or 6 people, it can typically leave about 3 characters for your reply to fit in!! But there are ...

Developments

Well, it was somewhat inevitable that I'd keep the "Not Mario, Honest!" theme in the game. (URL "https://AGameAWeek.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/SD3_010.png"><img src="https://AGameAWeek.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/SD3_010-1024x597.png" alt="SD3_010" width="660" height="385" class="alignnone size-large wp-image-4605" /> After a number of tweaks and fixups, the theme doesn't look "too" Mario-esque. It's still got a Mario vib...