Having now sat up for more than 10 minutes, I figure I'd best get coding, but I can't really finish off Centipong in less than a day.. What to do? Well, assuming I now have all week to complete Centipong, I might as well spend today doing something a little different. One of my all time favourite (of my own!) games is Stringy Things. I know that a hell of a lot of folk don't like Word games as much as I do, but.. dangit, I love the things! I've always planned to add a huge wordlist into the BlitzMax ...

Today marks my fourth day of lying in bed feeling crappy with a flu. I wouldn't feel too bad about this, if it weren't for the following facts. 1. There won't be a game this week, again. 2. This is approximate the seventeenth time I've had a flu since about November, and it's really starting to tick me off. Guess all this snowy weather's not agreeing with me. Sucks.

legoman4032 asked in the Youtube comments if I had mp3's. Who am I to argue.. Extended, via the basic use of a repeaty bit in the middle, but in an instrumental stylee! Karaoke!! Sing along! You know the words! and, so it doesn't feel left out.. The original remix from last February (2009), with a bit that's not from "Devil in the Dark", and is instead from "Elementary, My Dear Data" (I think), and that I couldn't be bothered to hunt down to cut the video from, so ended u...

AGameAWeek 2010 - Game Number One! We'll call this a test game, because the whole framework thing still isn't quite up to scratch, with all kinds of missing features! Plus I've put in LOADS of little quirks, things that should be quick have been made extra lengthy, and there's a bunch of redundancy.. This is half-done on purpose so that I can see what the available systems can and can't cope with. Hopefully we'll find that they can!! <a href="https://AGameAWeek.com/compl...

Oooh, new engine this week, are you all looking forward to it?! First Linux release, too! Blimey! As the days drive on, I'm leaving myself with less time to actually code a game, here, but things are coming along nicely. Joystick controls are in, little pop up text things are happening, debug file's being created, everything seems to be working! It's usually at this point that things implode!!! Assuming that doesn't happen, I'll be coming up with some sort of quicky game, by ...

Audio! As you probably noticed, the past 100-or-so of my games have had a rather generic set of numbered sound effects, ranging 001 -> xyz.wav Today I decided that I might as well make that a more permanent feature, so super-BlitzMax-engine now includes quick "LoadSFX" and "PlaySFX" functions that will work solely with those files. Neat! Music will still probably be handled separately, since I'm still not quite sure what I'm doing with those, yet. Either way, there's a specific 256...

<a href="https://socoder.net/uploads/1/argh.png"><img src="https://socoder.net/uploads/1/argh_thumb.png" style="float:right"></a> Because there may or may not have been resulting copyright issues, I've left this post on the backburner until the magazine went off the shop shelves. Usually I'd happily scan in a bit of a page if my games are mentioned, but this time it's a whole entire page, and that's a completely different kettle of fish. (Although, to be fair, I've wr...

For something that just looks like this.. <a href="https://socoder.net/uploads/1/bmaxtesting_game.png"><img src="https://socoder.net/uploads/1/bmaxtesting_game_thumb.png"></a> .. I have actually but a heck of a lot of work into the framework, so far! Take a peek inside to find out some nice nuggets of info, and take a look at the future of AGameAWeek!! (It's a bit wordy, mind!!)

This week has taken many twists and turns. I started off making a nice game with a snowman, then that turned into a game with Greenie, then the new PC turned up and I spend a day or two playing with that but the whole network's down, and now I'm waiting on a new Router being delivered! blimey! Meanwhile it's a chore getting from one system to the other, and that means I'm relying on a slightly-dodgy-not-quite-Win7-compatible edition Paintshop Pro 7 and a slightly-dodgy-not-quite-Win7-co...

Nothing magical, this week, more a game that was started but didn't really go anywhere. If I had enough time this week, I'd have scrapped it and started something else, but it's been a bit of a tight week, time wise.. So.. Well, here it is! <a href="https://AGameAWeek.com/complete/Traffic_Cones_20091208A.png"><img src="https://AGameAWeek.com/complete/Traffic_Cones_20091208A_thumb.png"></a> Race around the 12 beautifully detailed (in traffic cones) race tracks, without hit...

It seems my decision has now been made. I'm going to reacquaint myself with BlitzMax, and give things another try. But first I need to build up a nice new Jayenkai Framework. There's a fair number of things that I want to put into place before we begin, so let's get cracking on the list. 1. Multiplayer : Not online...! Authentic Kaizen suggested I add multiplayer co-op to NeonPlat, and I kind of agreed, but the way the old framework is set up just didn't support t...

Aw, what the heck, EARLY RELEASE!! Mostly because it's 2am, I can't stop playing it, and I probably won't wake up in time to post this if I don't do it now!!! A game that took AGES to get going, but definitely got going soon after! The approximate diary was.. Tuesday : A few lines on the screen. Wednesday : A silly frog character. Thursday : Frog switched for Platdude Friday : OOoooh, It's a good Game!!!! And, boy, is it a good game. Three (or four, or five) chee...

This week a suggestion from Authentic Kaizen, who suggests having a neon styled platform game, with bubble bobble style components. The game has taken a few turns during the week, changing from spike induced terror, a game with a frog like creature, and a whole lot more besides! It now appears to be settling down quite nicely into some kind of obscure chaos. Hurray for chaos!! Coming Tuesday : NeonPlat!

-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- Socoder Newsletter -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-      "Bonus Round"           #031 - 27th November 2009                      <form method="get" action="https://groups.google.com/group/socoder-newsletter/boxsubscribe" target=_blank style="background-color: #ffc; width: 320px; padding: 2px 4px">...

I get to this point once every few months, and .. well.. here we are again! A few things are getting me here, this time around. Let's list the reasons, then think of some solutions..

This week, I've decided to try something a wee bit different. If you're a fan of previous AGameAWeek games, you'll notice that I'm more than a little crap at designing levels. It's a slight issue, but one that I've never bothered to care about. Usually, any games that NEED levels will include a built in level editor. And folk who like the games will spend minutes trying to make one, and that'll be half the fun. The trouble with this theory, of course, is that half the ti...

Last week was Bonfire Night in the UK, and as such RetroRemakes.com had a little challenge. (They've started to do a monthly challenge..) Create a game/story/etc with Fireworks in it. Here's my game. <a href="https://AGameAWeek.com/complete/Firework_Chaos_20091117A.png"><img src="https://AGameAWeek.com/complete/Firework_Chaos_20091117A_thumb.png"></a>

<a href="https://AGameAWeek.com/JNKx15.zip">Download JNKx15 Right Here</a> A nice neat 36Mb download, with 15 lovely little games included. Download, Unzip, Play away!

So, after having attempted to create a racing game and a word game, I've finally settled on a game that appears to be coming together nicely. Ninja Duck (temporary name, but they usually tend to stick) is about a Ninja who has a sword, and an oncoming swarm of ducks, frogs and birds. Simple stuff, on a nice small arena. <a href="https://socoder.net/uploads/1/arghfrog.png"><img src="https://socoder.net/uploads/1/arghfrog_thumb.png"></a> Not really too much gameplay, but just enoug...

Sometimes you can start a game and it grows and grows and is wonderful. Other times, you get about 10% through, and realise it's just not working out. Game Idea 1 This week started with a word game. A decent enough idea, place the tiles in a scrabble-esque crossword style, and make words. Each tile would have two points, Point A, the letter, and Point B, the link. The link is either to the left or below the letter. Tiles could only link to each other, so rather than having a grid...

Blimey, Blockman got big! 5Mb!! FIVE!! That's not like me! But with over 350 great big (for me!) 64x64 pixel sprites, the game was bound to get a little bit bigger than usual. Oh, and a bitmap font, too! I've really gone all out, this week! <a href="https://AGameAWeek.com/complete/Blockman_Gets_More_20091103B.png"><img src="https://AGameAWeek.com/complete/Blockman_Gets_More_20091103B_thumb.png"></a> To be fair, it's taken about 2 weeks to get this all done, but I ...

Blimey, that got complex! <a href="https://socoder.net/uploads/1/blockmansGreatBigMenu.png"><img src="https://socoder.net/uploads/1/blockmansGreatBigMenu_thumb.png"></a> Starting with "World 1-1, 2-1, 3-1, 4-1, 5-1" I built a set of sideways Arcade menu start points. Then I added the old "J/K" gameplay options in the style of World 10-1 and World 25-1.. Although from 6-1 and after, the theme isn't predetermined, and it's just picking random themes each time! Each world conta...

Sometimes you have really productive days. Occasionally, though, those really productive days seem to drag on and on, and not actually produce much at all! Here's what I've done today. 1. We're up to 5 skins, since I added a plain rock+lava one. Plenty of graphical variety, but only as much as it's still a bunch of squares making up a maze! 2. Added the nice filter down level drop effect back into the game. It's a nice enough effect. No need to jazz it up, nor remove it. It ...

<a href="https://socoder.net/uploads/1/KingPelLittsTomb.png"><img src="https://socoder.net/uploads/1/KingPelLittsTomb_thumb.png"></a> Poor Blockman, all alone in a gigantic maze. If only there were a way to zoom into the action..

If you're currently coping with a bad bout of depression, it's probably not a great idea to download this week's AGameAWeek game, because.. quite frankly.. it sucks! As I type this, the game currently consists of a badly drawn dog, a badly drawn bit of grass, and a few badly drawn birds. I've hit a dead end as far as this game goes. I also hit a dead end with Arcade Slots, and I even hit a major blockage with Blockman Gets More. All in all, this week has sucked! I've got practically nothing imagina...

I got the basic slot machine reels working. A couple of nice functions. 1 to fill them up, 1 to draw them. Nudges work, Holds work. Everything vaguely important works.. Then I added the Pacman sprites. <img src="https://socoder.net/uploads/1/pacslot.png"> and started to get that "I've already done this, there's nothing new I can add..." feeling. I think I'm done with Arcade Slots. I've already done it.. There's nothing new to add. :sad face: