Developments

Yesterday's task was to get basically collectables, items, that kind of thing to work properly. I haven't yet added the whole lot, but thought that one useful "collectable" might be a checkpoint. ( width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/TOm4G0M6BSI" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen>> A simple looking flag, which lights up and animates when touched, and is your respawn point should you die. .. Of course, in the ...

Developments

Didn't get an awful lot of stuff done, yesterday. I attempted to code, but leftover migraine seemed to be hammering away. I find that my migraines come in waves.. They usually last over the course of about 3 days, with days 1 and 3 being the worst, and day 2 being the eye of the storm. A calm, easy to cope with, day. Yesterday was Day 3, and as such I ended up sitting on the couch, reading Twitter and not getting an awful lot done. ( src="https://vine.co/v/edT1ujmI7uW/embed/...

Three years ago, I posted <a href="https://AGameAWeek.com/2012/08/home-again-home-again-jiggity-jig/">this post</a>, all about my time in and out of hospital having a rather large splodge of evil-stuff removed from the middle of my head.. It's become something of an annual ritual to post a similar blog each year.

Balance

Most of my current health problems stem from a lack of balance. The head is a fluid-filled place, and it all tends to slosh about in there, but it's all...

Developments

Motivation seems to have taken a bit of a nosedive, this week. I think the lack of SpikeDislike3 sales is starting to get to me, as every time I open the folder, I spend about 10 minutes staring at the code before closing it up again. I feel like moving on to something else. Maybe that'll help kick me back into gear again. But what project to tackle? I'm not sure. My head doesn't even seem to want to consider anything else, right now. Bah, humbug.. I'm not a fan of the...

Developments

More files.. Found a whole bunch of old videos on one of my old hard drives, so spent literally HOURS, last night, copying them over to the NAS drive. Bah. Windows 10 seems to focus a lot on file transfers, meaning my laptop was practically unusable whilst the transfer was taking place. I certainly didn't have that issue last week when transferring millions of files from NAS to NAS, so it's either Win10 that's doing it, or the fact that I was transferring from a USB-based dock. ...

Hunting for Files

As I poke and prod around my new NAS drive, there are still gaps remaining. My Midi and Mod archive is entirely missing. I never did manage to get them from my old hard drives, and now I'm starting to wonder how on earth I'm going to manage to do it. For the most part, the Mod Archive can be re-grabbed from Aminet, where I originally got most of it. But there were various other sites that have been and gone in that time, which had wonderful tunes. My Mini archive was mostl...

Developments

I could've sworn I did SOMETHING, yesterday! ..but can I remember what? I should probably jot these things down, as I go! I know I had SpikeDislike3's source open for a bit, but then I also had BlastTrax's source open, too. If I want to update BlastTrax, I first need to upgrade it's framework, and then add some music. hmmm. Then I messed about with Arcade Slots. I do enjoy Arcade Slots, but other people still hate the "randomness" of it all. Weird.. So, yeah, I actual...

Developments

Last night, as I lay in bed, a silence suddenly enveloped the room. It was unlike anything I'd heard in the past couple of weeks. Total, complete and utter silence. I sat up in bed, and looked around the room. Was it a power cut? No.. Then why so little sound? What was missing!? Seems that the new Western Digital NAS drive had finally (after about 2 weeks) finished cataloguing all the files I'd thrown onto it, and was happy with it's collection of thumbnails, enough to s...

Developments

The next edition of SpikeDislike3 will come with 5 brand new themes, each with a unique playstyle. In much the same way that SpikeDislike2 had it's Barry the Bee and Sheep Goes Right themes, this one will include a batch of themes that all mess about with the controls, and do things a little differently. The first attempt is, of course, the classic "Chase the Train" mode, which you might remember from the (URL "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JcbquXypuwc">Mastertronic 8-bit cla...

The Upgrade

Yesterday's blog was about an upgrade, and that's pretty much what today's is, too! Windows 10. Initial thoughts Everything is very very very very very very very very white. Even window titlebars are white. It's like someone figured out that White Emulsion is cheapest in bulk, so bought enough to cover the planet. It's THAT white! In fact, there's too much white, and the amount of white with light-grey is really hurting my eyes. I'm having ...

Upgrades

Annoyingly, not the upgrade I was looking for. Yesterday, for some bizarre and unexplainable reason, PaintShop Pro 7 suddenly broke. I'm not sure why it did, and I spent a good hour or so trying to figure it out, including a complete delete and reinstall, only to find the same issue. It's weird, and I'd never seen it ask for a "User Directory" before, but no matter what directory I told it to try, it failed, failed and failed again. I bought PSP7 in a Game store, way way way way b...

Developments

(URL "https://AGameAWeek.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/SyncComplete.png"><img src="https://AGameAWeek.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/SyncComplete.png" alt="SyncComplete" width="348" height="289" class="alignnone size-full wp-image-4884" /> Longest Backup.. EVER!! Finally, SyncToy has reached a point where it's no longer stumbling across oodles of random files that it somehow managed to miss on the previous 80-or-so passes. My B...

Developments

Not a very productive day, yesterday, if I'm honest. I continued to play about with that Lester&Ralph theme, but I'm hitting the same roadblock as the last time, with the Sheep Goes Right theme, in that the characters run at the same constant speed so the entire point of the Combo system is completely ruined. I'm not sure what I can add to mix it up, and am desperately playing with all manner of elements to see if I can find that one little thing that suddenly makes sense. Hmmm.....

Developments

First, I'd like to apologise for one of the new themes. It seems that in my rush to get the game out, I neglected to realise how much blank space was left in one of the sprites. What appears to be unfair collision is in fact "empty space on the upper right of the sprite". I redrew this little fella at the very last minute (He was a bit more .. shall we say.. Mouse-like before!) (URL "https://AGameAWeek.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/SD3_045.png"><img src="https://AGameAW...

Developments

In the past couple of nights, I've begun to work on AL's new AL Bum, and have decided that it's going to be titled "Liquid" As per the past few AL Bums, each track will have a different ALphabetical title, from A-Z, but this time with the added benefit of all the tracks being vegetables. Why? Because I'm rubbish at coming up with names for songs, and this is a lazy way to do it! ( width="100%" height="450" scrolling="no" frameborder="...

Developments

Yesterday my new NAS turned up. I bought a Western Digital "My Cloud", and instantly disabled the My Cloud gubbins. An NAS is enough. I don't leave the house enough to warrant external access! So it all got setup, and then I did some quick file-access tests. The thing is roughly 3 or 4 times faster than my previous Buffalo Linkstation is, so it should make backing up of files a lot quicker, as well as those occasions when I copy a folder from the PC to the NAS, then to the Ma...

Developments

Having done the upload of the update to Apple, I intended for yesterday to be the start of a new set of themes and "the next update" type stuff. But I didn't. In fact, I didn't do a bloomin' thing! A milestone was reached, and my brain said "OK, let me rest now!" so I spent the majority of yesterday actually playing SpikeDislike3 instead of working on it. I also spent a lot of time watching the going-on's at Amazon, since they were having their "Not Black Friday, Honest!" ...

Developments

One theme's challenge has been set, and only one more's to go. I've been struggling with these last two themes for a good few days, and suddenly yesterday an idea popped into my head, and the idea is so blindingly obvious that it looks 100% like I planned it like that! And if anyone asks, I'll just say "Yes, I definitely planned it like that!!" (URL "https://AGameAWeek.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/SD3_042.png"><img src="https://AGameAWeek.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/...

(URL "https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-33502838">RIP : Satoru Iwata) As a kid, I was never a big Nintendo fan. I had a Gameboy and I LOVED Tetris, but much as is the case nowadays, I tend to code and create more than just play. I continue to buy Nintendo consoles and handhelds, even today, because theirs are the games that I get the most fun and enjoyment out of. Mr Iwata was first and foremost a developer, and I can only hope that Nintendo finds another suitably developer-minded helmsman to t...

Developments

So, I finally got around to rejigging that nasty looking options menu. It's been annoying me for a while, and it needed fixing, so... (URL "https://AGameAWeek.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/SD3_038.png"><img src="https://AGameAWeek.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/SD3_038.png" alt="SD3_038" width="640" height="480" class="alignnone size-full wp-image-4820" /> ...transforms into... (URL "https://AGameAWeek.com/wp-content/uploa...

Developments

As is the case throughout the majority of the past week, yesterday was spent mostly fiddling with my website. There are still a few minor errors cropping up on the error logs, but nothing worth hassling about. Little quirks like temporary variable usage, an old BASIC habit that refuses to go away.. If I want to disable a huge chunk of code, I tend to throw in something like "If (Aliens=Attack)" which does of course disable that section of code.. .. Yeah, I know, bad habit! Espec...

Well, @Jayenkai , I've always supported you in the past. And I warned you focusing on piracy would turn you into something untenable. Point one : I'm NOT focussed on the "Piracy" I'm focussed on the twat that took my game, and uploaded it to Amazon, then tried to make a profit from it. That, to me, is a million times worse than anyone who simply finds the game online and downloads it. That's not just taking something, that's taking something then trying to profit from someone else's hard work...

Developments

It's been about a week and a half since SpikeDislike3 appeared on Android and iOS. In the space of just over a week, it's managed to do "fairly" well on iOS, and has sold over 100 copies. True, that's not amazing, but at least it's something, and it's great to know that at least 100 people still enjoy good gaming! Meanwhile, on the Android side, the game has now sold 12 copies. Of those 12, at least one was a pirate, and that copy ended up being splashed over every damn piracy ...

Developments

Hurray! (URL "https://AGameAWeek.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/SD3_036.png"><img src="https://AGameAWeek.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/SD3_036-1024x597.png" alt="SD3_036" width="604" height="352" class="alignnone size-large wp-image-4799" /> An old favourite returns.. Yesterday, I managed to get three themes into the game. Three!! Well, technically one of those was that horrible nasty brightly coloured mess, but rejigged so ...

Developments

I really should be getting back to Boxsplosions, but watching SpikeDislike3's journey through the AppStore has been so much fun!! Yesterday, (URL "https://twitter.com/craiggrannell">@CraigGrannell) posted a glowing review over at (URL "https://www.pocketgamer.co.uk/r/iPad/SpikeDislike3/review.asp?c=66176">PocketGamer.co.uk) (URL "https://www.pocketgamer.co.uk/r/iPad/SpikeDislike3/review.asp?c=66176"><img src="https://AGameAWeek.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/SD3_Po...

One month, Three games!? Sure, why not!! It might not be "AGameAWeek" but getting 3 games onto iOS in a month is still a pretty decent achievement, especially when they're all nice and big. As you might know, my old MacMini (from 2010) was starting to rot away due to lack of use. This month, knowing that SpikeDislike3 was due to arrive, I attempted a quick test compile, and.. well.. it didn't go very well. So, out with the old, and in with a brand new MacMini. Further compiles were quick and pai...