The great big 1.5 update of SpikeDislike2 is now available from the Android or iOS App Stores. This version brings the HUGE end mode, Choose Your Own Dislike, which features all those lovely options that the original game had, along with a couple of new ones. SpikeDislike2 v1.5 is available for (URL "https://itunes.apple.com/app/id604867277">iOS) and (URL "https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.AGameAWeek.SpikeDislike2_A1">Android). If you've already got it on your device, visit the ...

Every Single Week

Not Good Advice

The following is not advice, and should not be taken as such. People often ask me how I manage to do AGameAWeek. Particularly, how I manage to cram everything into a single week, and then somehow manage to do exactly the same thing every other week, without going crazy. What follows might possibly help you understand a little more of what goes on in the world of AGameAWeek. Or it might just be a whole bunch of rambling waffling text. Not sure!! ...

For the past few years, I've been building and rebuilding a silly little experimental shooter thing called "Horizontal Shooter" The basic gist is that it's a bog standard horizontal shooter, but with a weird control scheme, and a tail to catch things in. I also tend to use Horizontal Shooter as a simple testbed, to see what a language can/can't achieve in the realms of simplistic blurry lovelyness. This time around, since we're also focusing on mobile devices, I've decided to flip things around, and ma...

<img src="https://socoder.net/AGAWGold_128.png" style="float:right;"> AGameAWeek Gold takes a look at the games that I've previously released on this day in history. It's basically filler material! But that's ok, because it's usually a nice trip down memory lane.

<img src="https://socoder.net/AGAWGold_128.png" style="float:right;"> Each day, AGameAWeek Gold takes a look through the archive, to dig up any games that I've previously released on this day in history. Sometimes they're fantastic. Other times they're garbage. Let's have a look at today's, shall we!?

<img src="https://socoder.net/AGAWGold_128.png" style="float:right;"> Every day, AGameAWeek Gold takes a peek through the inexplicably large collection of releases, and digs out any old games that I've previously released on this day in history. Occasionally there aren't any. I'm not fast enough to have that many! But other times, there's more than one! How odd!

<img src="https://socoder.net/AGAWGold_128.png" style="float:right;">AGameAWeek Gold peeps through the Jayenkai Archive to see what games I've previously released on this day in history. Occasionally we'll pluck out some real gems. Today's a cracker! .. or rather, today's TWO crackers!!

On Friday morning, (URL "https://twitter.com/MadGarden">@MadGarden) suddenly popped up on Google Chat and started chatting about some sort of game he imagined might be interesting. Something about "a neat control scheme for a platformer/combat thing" being a bit like Tron, with the discs being both a weapon and a shield. Not entirely sure what he was on about, but it started one of those oddball pots of insanity bubbling, and soon enough a random game idea had emerged from my mind.. It's quite a way...

Evil pirates are everywhere. You know what really irks me, though? The way the pirates slap their name onto your game. They don't dig into the innards and fiddle with things that would intrude on the player's experience, but they do slap their name on the download filename. Eg, I could make a game called Mr Hippo's Happy Adventure, and the pirate download would end up as "[MrKipper] - Mr Hippo's Happy Adventure.ipa", thus giving MrKipper the fanfare, and taking it away from me. Grrr!! It's hard enou...

For the next few days, until April 16th 2013, Sheep Goes Left will be half-price, over at the <a href="https://bit.ly/SheepGoesLeft">iOS AppStore</a>. To celebrate this random decision, here's...

A Brief'ish History of Sheep Goes Left

After SpikeDislike was released, one of the AppStore reviewers complained that there's no way to save your progress, and that the infinitely continuing level was an issue because there are no checkpoints, and no ending. .. Well, yeah...

Last night I spotted something odd. On the ign.com/wireless frontpage is a little Top Ten list of "Top iPhone Games Out Now" And for some very strange reason, number 5 is currently Spike Dislike 2.

<img src="https://socoder.net/AGAWGold_128.png" style="float:right;">AGameAWeek Gold looks back through the huge archive each day, to see if I've previously released anything on this day. There's not always a game to play, but occasionally we'll stumble upon long forgotten gems. Today's is especially nice!

Many many many many many people have asked me how on earth I manage to cram game making into the space of a single week. Ironically, most of those people seem to have forgotten that they, themselves, have previously taken part in Ludum Dare "Make a game in only 48 hours" style competitions. Hmm..! Anyway, today's rambling waffling blog is about the steps I take to ensure I can achieve AGameAWeek.

<img src="https://socoder.net/AGAWGold_128.png" style="float:right;"> Sometimes, stripping things back to their simplest mechanics makes for a strangely more interesting game. Other times, however, it just makes an otherwise vaguely interesting game a little more dull. This is a great example of the latter.

AppStore is a wonderful place. For the first time, I've actually made some money out of my games!! Well done, Apple, on creating a wonderful ecosystem for indie devs. ... But there are niggling issues.. The number one issue is that I can't reply when I really REALLY want to. What follows is a reply..

<img src="https://socoder.net/AGAWGold_256.png" style="float:right"> Aaah, March 2010. The month of MAR10! I decided to dedicate the entire month to Mario, and spent the whole month remaking classic AGameAWeek games, but with Mario costumes on all the characters! I remember it like it was yesterday. Except it wasn't yesterday. ... It was three entire smegging years ago!! ARGH!!!!

The Amiga was nearing the end of its life cycle and my local Game store was slowly getting rid of its Amiga stuff. It was sad to find all your favourite games crammed into that little corner of the store where only the geekiest kids would huddle. Then one day, I spotted a bright blue stripy box. "Blitz 2.0!??? Oooh! I'd been using AMOS ever since I got it free on an Amiga Format coverdisk, but this was finally a chance to buy a fully fledged programming language. I whipped it up. .. I say that. ...

You know what I hate? Icons. You might've noticed that very few of my games include icons. Not only do I hate having to draw icons, I also hate having to create 70,000 bazillion different sizes for every sodding size that might be needed. Gah, I HATE icons!!! AGameAWeek on Android means I need 3 icons every smegging week. Oh, great : Today, I made a "Jay is too lazy for this" tool, called IconResizer. <a href="https://socoder.net/uploads/1/IconResizer.zip">Download IconResize...