A lot of elements are currently coming together, and things are getting a little more chaotic than I'd like them to be around Xmas time. If the past 2 years of Xmas themed chaos (12 games of Xmas, Advent Collection) have taught me one thing, it's not to EVER plan anything around Xmas! Presents, family visits and the general filling of my face with Xmas cake, will usually get in the way of the coding time, and as such I decided not to push myself into anything moronic this year. I apologise if you're deep...

Can't seem to make a start on things, this morning. Woke up early, expecting the Window fitters to come and get that done. Didn't happen. Rescheduled for next week, which is probably too close to Xmas, so probably won't happen either.. .. I blame Comic Sans.

Yesterday was the #Indievisibility awards ceremony, which involved a bunch of indie guys, a pub, a brawl and a number of teabags. Awards were given for all manner of things.. Different genres, games with certain features and other seemingly random reasons. You can scan through a list of all the <a href="https://www.sizefivegames.com/2011/12/11/indievisibilty-end-of-year-awards-results/">Awards here,</a> and read all about the joys of the fight! Awesome!

When I was building the beta versions of NeonPlat Adventures, it always included a little readme file. The final release didn't have one, but I figured that was ok, because it was so simple it didn't really need one. The original readme was only really there to explain that beta peeps shouldn't mention the Calendar, and then I kinda rambled on a bit! Anyhoo, if you find yourself in desperate need of a readme file, this is it!

You know what's annoying? When you've been sitting, typing away for about an hour, then stop to make a brew, and suddenly realise how bloody cold it is! Somebody needs to invent some sort of keyboard with heated keys. That'd be great! .. A mouse would be cheaper, but I then only my right hand would be toasty warm. .. I'm not sure I want to go for the "Coding Gloves" thing!

<a href="https://www.youtube.com/user/Slumlord27">Slumlord27/Moshboy's Youtube Channel</a> For a long time, Moshboy's been building a nice big list of indie games on his Youtube Channel. There's LOADS to see, and I highly recommend that you spend a month or two playing through them all! Great stuff. Today, he decided to add Kee Bo Ard to his list! yeay!

With only a matter of weeks left until 2012, I opened up Google Docs and created "AGameAWeek : Year Four", the Spreadsheet/Calendar! Fun fact : The Olympics will be on from 27 July until 12 August. This may or may not be relevant! I've filled a few interesting dates in, with themes and things. It should help to keep us a little bit on track, but if I'm honest, they're not BIG dates.. Just little things here and there.

The following blog post contains words, which are built up using various letters. You are expected to read the words in the correct order, moving your eyes from left to right to read each line, and then moving on to the left hand side of the next line. Continue in this method until you have read all of the words of this blog post, and are <em>happy</em> with your understanding...

<a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/gaming/comments/mmpdm/heres_the_deal_reddit_year_2012_one_man_365_games/">One man, 365 games</a> Luckily, he decided against that, and has now shifted gears to a much more manageable 52 games a year, or AGameAWeek if you will. As I always say, I'll wish you all the best on your quest. It's a toughy. You have a life, and unlike me, you probably also have one of those "Social Life" thingies! These tend to get in the way. As does enjoying yourself.

As I was falling asleep, last night, I had a great idea for a new game. I didn't jot it down, and now I can't remember what it was, except it had something to do with a stickman running around a black and white maze. ... bugger..

Korodny Just finished the game, so I'm here to say *Thank you* for some real good entertainment. A couple of things I noticed: Loved the game concept, and the visual design is spot on for that kind of game. Unfortunately, sound doesn't work on Ubuntu 11.10. It's a shame that the progress isn't properly recorded: The game should automatically offer me to play at the 'highest' levelset and the highest starting point I reached in my last session. Having to write ...

<a href="https://gfbrobot.com/2011/11/16/interview-with-neonplat-adventures-jayenkai/">Interview with NeonPlat Adventure's Jayenkai</a> A nice big interview, randomly waffling on and on, in that strange unplanned way that I do! Thanks to darthvid who sent all those questions over the other morning. A nice surprise to wake up to! Kinda makes me want to do more of the same.. <a href="https://www.formspring.me/Jayenkai">Jayenkai on Formspring!</a> Ask away.. I'll ...

<a href="https://bit.ly/NeonPlat_Adventures">NeonPlat Adventures : Available now for Windows, Linux and MacOSX</a> Inside, a list of all the features I had or hadn't planned, and why they are/aren't in there!

Tomorrow's the day you all get to play! Had a last minute email, last night, from Shadow1w2, filled with some really nice ideas that would be great to implement. Thing is, we've hit the point of no return. I'm off to work all day, and tomorrow's the release. So. dangit.. no time to fiddle. (I now remember why AGameAWeek is usually a Tuesday release!!) <a href="https://AGameAWeek.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/11/NeonPlat-Adventures-Screenshot_12-Nov-2011_130918.png"><img sr...

Today's long, long, long day of development was 100% iOS related. Having put it off entirely yesterday, I figured I'd better port that level builder doohickey. I opened TextEdit on the Mac, copied the level builder function from BlitzMax, and set about converting it, line by line, to something that XCode would compile for iOS. 800 lines of code, an estimate of "should only take a few hours, surely!" and then a completely exhausted Jay who just about managed to get the thing working 8 hours late...

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!

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...

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!!

Today, I became a complete and total recluse! It was the only way it was all going to get crammed into the day. Let's go through last night's list, shall we?

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.

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...

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-...

At the moment, I'm sending occasional beta editions of NeonPlat Adventures to two people. One is AuthenticKaizen (/PixelProspector). He got instant beta-status, because he started the whole NeonPlat thing. This is all his fault!! I've been sending him little hidden youtube clips, occasional "New Stuff!" screenshots, and discussing possibilities with him. The other is Spinal (/Spinal Cord) who recently redid SpikeDislike as Nintendo DS Homebrew. Spinal and I tend to think and code the same. ...

Hello developer, We added your games to our website. You can find the entries on <a href="https://html5games.de"> - and vote for it . In return we would love a backlink from you. Multiple banners and textlinks are on Thank you very much in advance and greetings from Germany The html5games.de team That's fantastic! Games get Spread, Games get Played, and more importantly they're all PlayMyCode games, so it's helping to get thei...