<img src="https://socoder.net/AGAWGold_128.png" style="float:right">Sometimes, our occasional glance back at previous games, released on this day in history, reveals some absolutely abysmal game ideas. Other times, however, it brings about a classic game which makes me wonder why I've not remade it any sooner.

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...

<img src="https://socoder.net/AGAWGold_128.png" style="float:right;">AGameAWeek Gold delves into the history of the Jayenkai Archive, and plucks out any and all games that I've previously released on this date in history. And since the Jayenkai Archive goes way back to 2002, they're not just from AGameAWeek. Some of these games go right back to days before AGameAWeek was even a plausible consideration!

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.

Get used to seeing this, as you're going to see a lot of it. The other day I asked for opinions on what April might bring. Three people chipped up. One was over at Curly's World of Freeware, where Tormuse suggested I should go with the Word Games. Second, @moshboy suggested I should go with an unplanned stream of oddities. Oooh, a Tie!! Third was the deciding vote. And worryingly it didn't even come from the internet. Instead, My Mum suggested I should carry on doing Stringy Things....

I haven't got any! .. that's a lie.. I have about 3 big plans in mind, and I'm not sure which to go with.

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;">AGameAWeek Gold. An occasional trip down memory lane, to take a look at games that I've previously released on this day in history. Much like every other element of AGameAWeek, these can sometimes be great games that you'll play for hours, or bags of garbage that you throw away after ten seconds of looking at it at going "Umm.. no thanks!" Today's game from the past is an example of the latter.. With Zombies!!!!

A good old fashioned old-skool platforming game, harking back to the good old days of Manic Miner and that sort of thing. This week is VERY Manic Miner esque. Collect the items to open the door, dodge the baddies, jump around, die a lot, get to the exit, sorted!! <a href="https://AGameAWeek.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/ssa1.png"><img src="https://AGameAWeek.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/ssa1-300x225.png" alt="" title="ssa" width="300" height="225" class="alignnone size-medium wp-image-2728"...

<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.

Last week, one of my quickly cobbled together test tunes for JMTrackr was the old Manic Miner ingame music. If you download JMtrackr, you'll find it in the Retro folder. I created it quickly, made a little mp3 of it in random mode, and plopped it up on Socoder. People seemed to fall in love with the idea of me making a Manic Miner clone, and over the course of the past few days, that's escalated somewhat.. People really seem to want me to make a Manic Miner type thing.

Alrighty, time to buckle down and get a new collection started. It's actually been quite a while since I last did something like this, but 2010's Advent Collection kinda counts. The idea is simple. I write tiny versions of bigger games, keep them as short and sweet (and playable!) as possible, and cram them all together into a nice little bundle.

Before anyone complains, no, this is not a game! This week's release is a "Utility!" ooooh! Don't worry, I won't be making a habit out of this. To be honest, I was kinda expecting to be able to half-ass a game, this week, but I've spent so much time on this, that I just didn't get around to it. No matter, this is a silly little plaything, and if you're even slightly musically capable you'll probably get a kick out of it.

<img src="https://socoder.net/AGAWGold_256.png" style="float:right;">Before I'd decided on the "Blockman Gets" mechanic, I tried many a different thing with him. First, there was the Platform engine, where he had to run around and gather up the tiny blocklets. That worked nicely! After that I tried a "Pengo" approach, but he didn't seem happy pushing things around, so that never actually got uploaded anywhere. After that, I decided to go old-skool, and made a bog standard Pacman clone, but with a ...

<img src="https://socoder.net/AGAWGold_128.png" style="float:right;"> Today, we take a trip to something eerily similar to something I recently did! Five years ago I had my first J2ME compatible mobile phone. A Samsung U600 is actually a remarkably nice phone. Five years later, the phone is still in a lovely condition, and is in regular use by my Mum, who now only accidentally hits the incredibly sensitive call button once every week or so! It's a great little phone, and it's nice and neat and...

As we continue our trip down memory lane, I'm starting to head off into odd new directions. This week, I'm remaking a game that I made for DS, but never got around to doing a proper fully fledged Windows edition of. Obviously, though, a game full of Sprite-Rips isn't going to cut it in Apple's AppStore. .. Actually, given how fucking often those things somehow manage to get approved, I probably could, but let's not chance it! Instead of ripping old sprites from Arcade Classics, I'...

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;">Oooooh!!! When I went to add an AGameAWeek Gold function to my Archive's Admin page, I purposely decided not to add any sort of "Look Ahead" function. I knew it'd be as much fun for me, as it is for you, to find out what today's AGameAWeek Gold is! Just a week in, and I'm finding myself waking up in the morning just to click to my admin page, to see if we've got a good game today!! Today's is awesome! Today's was worth wak...

Last night I was asked how I got Monkey to do all the things that I managed to make it do. I tried to describe it as best as I could, but was already wrapped up in bed, trying to remember it all, whilst only holding an iPad! Not an easy job. I suggested to (URL "https://twitter.com/retrorusty">@RetroRusty) that he waits until the morning, when I can better write a nice big (BIG) waffling (WAFFLING!) blog-post about it all. .. This be that!

<img src="https://socoder.net/AGAWGold_256.png" style="float:right">Perhaps I should add a separate subsection here, for games that are old, and weren't even good when I made them...?? AGameAWeek Crap springs to mind.. Maybe another day. I have a big proper blog post to write, too, and no time to waste!! For today, we'll continue to pretend that AGAW Gold isn't just a daily trip through the archives to pad out the blog, and is instead, the cream of the crop!! Today, in 2009, I made a stinke...

<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. ...

<img src="https://socoder.net/AGAWGold_128.png" style="float:left"> Sometimes, I like to test different aspects of game development. Will a certain game work better with larger wonderfully presented HD artwork, for example? Since I'm no artist, as we're all well aware by now, I went the opposite way, and tried to figure out what Asteroids might look like in HD, if it used even smaller sprites!! <a href="https://AGameAWeek.com/GameList.php?ShowJust=228">

2011 - TinyAss

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IGN reviews SpikeDislike2! No, really!! (URL "https://uk.ign.com/articles/2013/03/05/app-store-update-march-5-2">Watch the video) from 2 minutes in. o/yeayo/ In other news, (URL "https://dynamicite.org/?p=307">Dynamicite) also reviewed the game, and only had audio complaints, which is great considering how shit it looks!!!

I was a little disappointed to find there was no AGameAWeek Gold waiting for me, this morning. I wondered... How often will it actually appear? Have I actually produced enough games to keep it going EVERY DAY? I wrote a little script to find out. There are graphs inside

<img src="https://socoder.net/AGAWGold_256.png" style="float:left"> I've been considering doing this for a while, but never bothered to come up with any sort of Database Scanner to find old posts. I'm lazy like that! Luckily, a new iOS App has come along to save me the trouble. The wonderful "TimeHop" is available (for free), and allows you to upload your Twitter Archive, as well as include your Facebook timeline.. What it then does is scan the archives for things that have happened on this day,...