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!

"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 ...

As promised, a new weekly feature will be the suggestion box. No longer will your suggestions be hidden away inside the locked box. Instead, they'll be readable by all. The first AGAW game (still unplanned, unless I decide to use the rubbishy game I made today) will be posted on Tuesday. Meanwhile, suggest away!

In windows, to add a tab to the left of 3 or 4 lines, I've settled into the habit of doing either one of two things.. 1. Up, Home, Tab, Up, Home, Tab, Up, Home, Tab, Up, Home, Tab. Which goes up per line, heads to the far left, then places a tab. or 2. Select all lines, hit Tab. Which adds a tab to all the lines. On a Mac, my fingers are exercised a little more thoroughly...

(I'm not sure if that rhymes, possibly maybe..) Over at <a href="https://battle.onego.ru/forum/showthread.php?p=459813">[Battle]Forum</a> (|edit| I think this forum's long gone |edit|) they're having a nice chat about JNKPlat2010, and, more significantly, the insanity that is Shadow1w2's MASSIVE 100th level. It's a fantastic level, but they just can't quite fathom it. I had a go, today. Loaded up Taksi and the game, and tried abo...

In many ways, I preferred doing AGameAWeek. Mostly because I'd actually have something to post here at least once a week! As it is, I'm finding it hard to come up with interesting things to post during my little hiatus. Perhaps I should start posting silly Youtube links every day? Rather than splitting my blog off into 100 different sites, just clump it all together into one? *shrugs* Its an idea, right!?

The old suggestion box disappeared from the sidebar when I redid the theme, a while back. It had almost camouflaged into the sidebar, hidden from sight, due to the fact that it was always there. Instead, then, I've decided to make a regular feature of it. hurrah! Every weekend, assuming I remember to do this, I'll make a "suggestion" post, where regulars can contribute ideas, and perhaps even play about with each others ideas to build up something special. No guarantees I'll be making these ideas...

Oh, hell, I gotta start this all over again!! Year 3 : October 2010 - October 2011 It's a month away, and I'm still being all lazy and relaxing, but I need to try and keep the site looking half-assed, so it doesn't disappear due to lack of activity

54 games. Last year I only managed about 30-odd, so I think that's pretty good going. Sure, it might not have truely actually been A Game "Per" Week, but I did at least keep the ratio up. If I hadn't taken the time out to build the framework, I probably would've actually achieved the target a little better The stats show I was pretty much on top of things up until that point, but then things got slower and slower until my buffer zone was all dried up. Anyhoo, this is a nice big lengthy re...

54 games. Last year I only managed about 30-odd, so I think that's pretty good going. Sure, it might not have truely actually been A Game "Per" Week, but I did at least keep the ratio up. If I hadn't taken the time out to build the framework, I probably would've actually achieved the target a little better The stats show I was pretty much on top of things up until that point, but then things got slower and slower until my buffer zone was all dried up. Anyhoo, this is a nice big lengthy re...

54 games. Last year I only managed about 30-odd, so I think that's pretty good going. Sure, it might not have truely actually been A Game "Per" Week, but I did at least keep the ratio up. If I hadn't taken the time out to build the framework, I probably would've actually achieved the target a little better The stats show I was pretty much on top of things up until that point, but then things got slower and slower until my buffer zone was all dried up. Anyhoo, this is a nice big lengthy re...

... FFS, I can't count. FiftyFOUR weeks, FiftyFOUR games. Even with a miscount, I still managed to equal the weeks:games ratio. Lovely stuff! Here's the stats, straight from GoogleDocs and here's a great big blue and red google graph, looking all lovely and linely! <a href="https://socoder.net/uploads/1/AGAW_Y2_Chart.png"><img src="https://socoder.net/uploads/1/AGAW_Y2_Chart_thumb.png"></a> Yeay!

Fred is a happy Flea, and he loves to hop. He especially loves it when all the Dandelions are casting their seeds around in the air, as he can grab on, and go for a ride. <a href="https://AGameAWeek.com/complete/Fred_the_Parachuting_Flea_20100824A.png"><img src="https://AGameAWeek.com/complete/Fred_the_Parachuting_Flea_20100824A_thumb.png"></a>

Tuesday, Fred the Parachuting Flea. Needs a few "I didn't get that!!!?" kinda tweaks, but it otherwise working nicely.. If I drop dead tomorrow, at least the game's ready for release

Kept the random title.. It'll do! Not sure if it works better as "Kee, Bo and Ard", or just "Kee Bo Ard", but either way, here we have it! Kee, Bo and Ard must all be guided through the maze. They have to collect all the pickups, and once they're all done, you can progress to the next level. <a href="https://AGameAWeek.com/complete/Kee_Bo_Ard_20100817B.png"><img src="https://AGameAWeek.com/complete/Kee_Bo_Ard_20100817B_thumb.png"></a> Hit Z/X to switch between character...

Authentic Kaizen ((URL "https://PixelProspector.com">pixelprospector.com), ideaman behind NeonPlat) has sent a few new game ideas. Some are short and sweet, but the most tempting one feels like it needs a little care and attention. I feel like I want to do something with it, but am struggling to come up with a way to compress it into a week's worth of code. I think, what I might actually do, is leave it a few weeks. Once I hit the 52nd week of year 2, and another whole year's worth of games, I'll b...

Although, I did say that last week, too! Never mind.. Read inside for techy stuff!

Is it really 200, already?! Blimey!

The quickly made retrospective "look at what you've done" post..

I started writing games as a kid, went through school making silly games, and ended up with not-much-at-all to show for it. <img src="https://AGameAWeek.com/complete/JNKPlat_5_:_Resurrection_20020910A_thumb.png"> <img src="https://AGameAWeek.com/complete/JNKFruit2K2_20020807A_thumb.png">

<a href="https://socoder.net/uploads/1/rrII_editor.png"><img src="https://socoder.net/uploads/1/rrII_editor_thumb.png"></a> Mmm.. Editor! You can play along inside the editor, just like in the last one, but things get a bit shrinkied this time. The game scales down from 7*pixels to 4*pixels, so that a bunch of extra editor clickables can fit around the side. There's not a whole lot of clickables, right now, but it's all a WIP. The levels then save as nice neat XML files, so ...

The people at <a href="https://forum.curlysworldoffreeware.com/viewtopic.php?f=17&t=2606">Curly's World of Freeware</a> suggested that the original Microbes game might've been a wee bit too crazy. Sorry, CWFers, this one's takes the crazy up a notch!! There are powerups! .. and... ...um.. actually, there's not really a whole lot more to it than that! This is the original Microbes, with a little bit more, but rewritten to be smoother, and to run on Win/Mac/Lin! ...

The plan was as follows.. A couple/more Big Remakes due to be released on the week of my 200th game A couple of little piddly games to tide me over. The plan is now.. Spent too much time on Remakes, releasing remakes instead!! Aw well.. First up, Microbe2 A great little remake with.. um.. powerups are thus far about as interesting as it gets! ... <a href="https://socoder.net/uploads/1/MICROBE2__(Screenshot_04_Jul_2010_134833).png"><img src="https://socoder.net/uploads/1/MICROBE2__(S...

Am I still doing that 90 minute thing?! *shrugs* Seems to have faded out a bit. Oh well, no matter.. Today I spent about 2 hours working on this. <a href="https://socoder.net/uploads/1/MICROBE2__(Screenshot_30_Jun_2010_021525).png"><img src="https://socoder.net/uploads/1/MICROBE2__(Screenshot_30_Jun_2010_021525)_thumb.png"></a> .. Yep, that..

This one didn't really turn out, so well. It's a nice nature based bee game, with lovely floaty music, and some words. <a href="https://AGameAWeek.com/complete/Barry_The_Spelling_Bee_20100629A.png"><img src="https://AGameAWeek.com/complete/Barry_The_Spelling_Bee_20100629A_thumb.png"></a> You hit Tab to highlight the flower/bee, type it's unscrambled word into Barry's Belly, then hit return. Rinse, Repeat <a href="https://AGameAWeek.com/complete/Barry_The_Spell...

It's probably due to the sweltering heat, but my mind's not been very active today, and I've been really slow at getting anything done. I got quite a lot of Barry the Spelling Bee done, and then decided to do a little work on Cardagain. But, boy, that got messy. First off, I tried playing a bit of title music. That just plain didn't happen!! After 2 hours, I scrapped the idea of title music! Next up, the menu got half complete, and I figured I should add load/save mechanism for tha...

Wait, that title's gone all weird and wonky... What's up with that!?!? This week, I made TWO games! (URL "https://AGameAWeek.com/?p=680">Turret Rush) saw you running away from zombies, and shooting them from random turrets on the floor, before the turrets disappeared again. and (URL "https://AGameAWeek.com/?p=682">Space Monkey Climbs the Space Towers) where you have to try and get as high as you can. Neatly, the graph now becomes a height-o-meter! Which was a nice unplanned feature! Nice f...

There we go! Using the buffers I mentioned earlier, and pasting 100*32x32 pixel sprites onto those buffers (32x3200 pixel buffers) I've created 8 completely independent reels, each with their own selection of 100 slots. Drawing onto those reel buffers slows us down, and takes around about 2 or 3 seconds to do, so you wouldn't be doing that in realtime.. But once the reels buffers have been drawn, we can slam them up on the screen with pretty much no slowdown whatsoever. Essentially, that'...

OK, so I finally got my DevLicense, and the first thing I did was to slap the test engine onto my iPod Touch. If you've tried that, you'll probably found exactly the same thing that I did. ...that, rather than going "Weeee!" it went "... plod... plod..." at about 2 frames a second. This is not a good thing. Today I've been experimenting with all kinds of things. I've figured out how to draw images to a "buffer", and then have that buffer be one of our UIImageView things, so that it...