Developments

Yesterday, I had a day off... I was a lazy bugger, and did absolutely nothing of interest, whatsoever. A lazy day, lying on the couch, playing Words With Friends and complaining on Twitter about how there's no Countdown on TV because of the horses. I'm getting old, and set in my ways, and if there's no Countdown on, I get grumpy! (For those who don't know about the fantastic gameshow, (URL "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Countdown_%28game_show%29">here's the Wiki page).) So...

Developments

Yesterday I took some time to create a Choon to go along with the dark lava theme, and although it wasn't exactly what I aimed for, it does fit the gameplay reasonably well. ( width="100%" height="450" scrolling="no" frameborder="no" src="https://w.soundcloud.com/player/?url=https%3A//api.soundcloud.com/tracks/205161863&auto_play=false&hide_related=false&show_comments=true&show_user=true&show_reposts=false&visual=true">

Developments

Well, it was somewhat inevitable that I'd keep the "Not Mario, Honest!" theme in the game. (URL "https://AGameAWeek.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/SD3_010.png"><img src="https://AGameAWeek.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/SD3_010-1024x597.png" alt="SD3_010" width="660" height="385" class="alignnone size-large wp-image-4605" /> After a number of tweaks and fixups, the theme doesn't look "too" Mario-esque. It's still got a Mario vib...

Developments

Not a whole lot of news from yesterday, but that was mostly due to me not being in a coding mood. Instead, I did at least manage to create the following ALChoon. ( width="100%" height="450" scrolling="no" frameborder="no" src="https://w.soundcloud.com/player/?url=https%3A//api.soundcloud.com/tracks/204825992&auto_play=false&hide_related=false&show_comments=true&show_user=true&show_reposts=false&visual=true">>...

Developments

Yesterday, I completely rejigged the "Bounce" of SpikeDislike. Originally, the bounce was a simple Sine-wave, and has in fact been this in EVERY version of SpikeDislike, but this time I'm hoping to add a couple of new elements which have required a minor tweak in the usual ball bouncing mechanic. This isn't something to be taken lightly, as I had to be absolutely sure that the end result still "felt" like Classic SpikeDislike. At the moment it's a teensy bit floaty compared with ...

Developments

Not a lot of progress, yesterday. A LOT of stuff happened, but nothing substantial enough that I can show it off! I started adding background layers to SpikeDislike3, but at the minute it's all nasty looking temporary art. I'm quite surprised, however, that it worked as well as it did in the Faux-3D mode. Mmm.. Parallax! It took a LOT of effort to get the new elements in place, and I'm hoping that the iPhings (at least) can cope with everything that's going on. Seriously, th...

Developments

I spent a lot of yesterday faffing about with the "Start" screen of SpikeDislike3. At first I intended to have a giant spike be in the center of the screen, and in fact that's what happened for quite a while, but .. I'm not sure why, but I decided to switch to circles instead. Reusing my generic stripy circle from my basic menu meant I didn't have to redraw anything, and the new "Start" screen looks rather neat. .. or at least, for something I've done, it does! I spent some t...

Developments

Continuing with the new edition of SpikeDislike, and I'm still adding basic elements into the engine. I've a whole lot of work to do on the game, including all the graphical styles and things like that, but for now I'm happy that it's totting up the combos in the way it should be. ( width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/YIwcx9Gcbfs" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen>> Scoring and Death are now both firmly inside...

Developments

Yesterday was spent fixing up little things in SpikeDislike3. I got Predetermined Layouts working, but still haven't bothered to implement any sort of collision detection! Still, you can now start a round, have it spawn the spikes in the same place, and then exit back to the menu. Having the spikes show up in the same place, is of course super important in SpikeDislike, as you learn the layouts of the level, and try not to die for ages and ages. I'll have to add a couple of ra...

Developments

Yesterday, I took the phrase "Sleepy Sunday" and worked the heck out it. My cat woke me up at 6:15am, and I managed to stay mostly awake until just after 9, when I realised I was too tired to code, and instead went for a nap.. .. A long nap!! I also had a second nap later in the day, too. Ooops! I suppose when you have little/nothing else to do, especially on a Sunday, that there's no harm in having a short nap. But when you have TWO naps, and they're not exactly short ones, y...

Bah, it's Thursday, already, and I've still not gotten a proper start on this next game. You know what, this whole "Gap Year" thing... .. It's not working out, is it? Instead of coding with a vague deadline, I'm spending every day doing nothing, relaxing, and generally being a lazy bum. I'm supposed to be working on SOMETHING, but instead I've watched an entire season of Castle over the past few days. And this is roughly how my days are going, lately. TV watching, resting, playing Words With Friends,...

Another big gap, as I try to figure out what's happening next. I figured you guys oughta be kept up to date with current goings on, in the world of AGameAWeek, so here's a rough bit of blogging so that you can vaguely assume you know what's going on! Current projects are.. 1. Kee Bo Ard Go Deep Another sequel in the Kee Bo Ard collection. I've so far built a fairly capable engine, but am struggling to decide exactly what I'd like to do with it. I've got the game up to a "You can complete a level" po...

The engine's working nicely, an art style has been defined, and things are getting put together. I've started building some proper levels, now, but already the game's feeling like it's still missing something. At the moment, I'm attempting to add wandering bad-guys into the levels, which should help make things a little less lacklustre, but trying to get them to wander nicely within the areas is proving to be much more complicated than I thought, especially when the levels are build up with nothing more t...

March 6th 2012 : Taken into hospital with High Blood Pressure and Vomiting March 8th 2012 : Brain Surgery for Tumour removal. Previous Health Updates (URL "https://AGameAWeek.com/2012/08/home-again-home-again-jiggity-jig/">Aug 2012), (URL "https://AGameAWeek.com/2014/02/health-update/">Feb 2014), (URL "https://AGameAWeek.com/2014/08/health-update-august-2014/">Aug 2014) 2012 wasn't a very fun year for me. I spent the better part of 5 months stuck in a hospital ward, and most of that time I...

( src="https://vine.co/v/OUiq2geYJlZ/embed/simple" width="480" height="480" frameborder="0">><script src="https://platform.vine.co/static/scripts/embed.js"></script> If you played through Alpha Collexion, that should look familiar. For my next game, I'm doing that again! "YBox Drops" or "YBox Falls" or something like that.. I'll be adding optional skins, making the rules a little clearer, and coming up with some new gameplay mechanics along th...

Time to hunt for your floppy disks!! <img src="https://AGameAWeek.com/complete/Futrino_20150129A_thumb.png"> <img src="https://AGameAWeek.com/complete/Futrino_20150129B_thumb.png">

(URL "https://AGameAWeek.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/01/Futrino_001.png"><img src="https://AGameAWeek.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/01/Futrino_001.png" alt="Futrino_001" width="640" height="480" class="alignnone size-full wp-image-4374" /> I finally seem to have settled on a name for this thing. I think it sounds vaguely like an 80s Shoot-em-up might sound, and nobody else appears to have used it. I've spent today working on the Enemy Types, trying lots...

Enemy one is a bog standard squiggly looking alien creature. ( width="560" height="315" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/R9i32sUR9tw" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen>> He moves around the room any-which-way, and turns whenever he hits a wall. He is very boring! Hopefully I can make a few more interesting creatures, later. For now, he simply does as you expect, and also saves his position when you exit/enter rooms, which is handy. More to come!!

Since I'm spacing out my dev-time, I should hopefully have more time to do Dev-Diary type posts, as the games progress. Hopefully, this will give you a little more insight into the sort of decision making that goes into AGameAWeek. I'll also try to take the time to add odd bits and pieces of craptastic-useless-trivia whenever I get the chance. As frequent players will have noticed, I've been using a strange secondary numbering system for a long while. (Check out the Windows-Downloads to see them!) Th...

It's time to fry some Butterflies! Use the electrical hubs to generate lightning, and Zzap those bugs to oblivion. <img src="https://AGameAWeek.com/complete/Zzap_Lines_20150113A_thumb.png"> <img src="https://AGameAWeek.com/complete/Zzap_Lines_20150113B_thumb.png">

OK, I still have lots of stuff to work out in my framework, but I've managed to get the important stuff into the engine, and everything else can be added and tweaked as we go. Although the "Online Scoreboards" aren't even barely started, I have at least made it work in such a way that, in future.. it "should" be pretty simple to head into my old code and bring the stuff to life. .. Hopefully! Anyway, that's all background stuff. What you're really here for is the games, and I'm happy to report that I'...

I say Failure, but it's been a sort of productive week. The thing is, every time I open my framework, I realise there's still LOADS of stuff that I haven't started, yet. At some point over this year, I'd like to start implementing online scoreboards, but that needs groundwork, and I haven't even begun. .. Well, I have, actually.. I started about a week ago, but there's a LOT of things you need to do, to get it working correctly, and that means a LOT of forethinking, and planning ahead. This week, I'v...