Developments

I got my Apple TV yesterday, and it's exactly what I expected it to be. In many ways, it's exactly the same as the previous model, and will no doubt be used for most of the same things. But now it has games. Except the games have to work with that niggly little tiny touchpad, and if you play (for example) Geometry Wars 3 for about an hour (eek! That went quick!!) then you'll end up with your thumb feeling a little numb, as if you've been rubbing it on some sandpaper for the last...

Developments

Feedback from PlayJam suggests that my newest controller code is still causing some kind of lagging ingame, when more than one player's connected at a time. An ultimatum, then. If I can't get it fixed by Monday, then that's it.. I can't fix it, and it's an issue to be dealt with later. I've spent about 2 weeks, straight, trying to solve this one single issue, and I realistically can't keep focussing on it, especially if I'm also trying to get an Advent Calendar AND NeonPlat's C...

Developments

Having poked and prodded at that damn controller code for about a month, I opted to rip the whole thing out and redo from start, yesterday. Took me about 4 hours of tweaking before the thing started to show decent progress. After a little more time, things were looking up, as for the first time ever, my Archos Gamepad merged into one single controller! I battled on, and now appear to have a fairly sturdy bit of controller code in my games. I'm about to test it on the OUYA, jus...

Developments

Feckin' Android!!! So, I thought I had my multiplayer code all working and good and stuff, but apparently a quick test by Team PlayJam has revealed unexpected slowdown and broken-ness. Yesterday I set out to figure out why, and got as far as "Hmm, this still isn't working right on my Archos Gamepad", at which point I once again became oddly wrapped up in trying to get that to work. And so it went for several hours. I KNOW I shouldn't keep getting wrapped up in that, but it's s...

Developments

Three hundred, what? Three Hundred (URL "https://AGameAWeek.com/Pixelart.php">Daily Platdude Pixelarts,) of course! Three hundred!?! When I started that, at the beginning of the year, I didn't expect to have managed to do 300 of the bloomin' things. And now here we are 300 later, and I'm wondering what'll happen next year. Will I continue to doodle daily, or will I stop on Dec 31st? I'm not sure. Drawing a daily doodle is certainly taking time out of my day, but it's n...

Developments

Yesterday was spent coding. Like, properly coding.. Like games and stuff!! It feels such a relief not having to faff about with controller code and other boring background gubbins, and instead spend some time actually making a game for a change. Beta Collection now has THREE games in it, as I managed to get two complete games up and running within the short space of yesterday. I then relaxed and enjoyed the Back To The Future documentary "Back In Time" which is currently availab...

Developments

With mere weeks to go until Dec 1st, I'd better get cracking with that Advent Collection, huh?! So, last night I finished off Game #1, and made a fairly decent start on Game #2. I'll finish that up this morning, and then get to work on a third. I'm currently having a nice burst of imagination, after having not really coding much all year. It also makes a change to be creating something new, instead of fixing up that great big pile of 42 OUYA titles!! I still need to finish of...

Hello, and welcome to yet another multiplayer controller test!! (Bloody Android.. Grrr!) (URL "https://socoder.net/Multiplayer_Controller_Test.apk">Multiplayer Controller Test (.apk)) If you have an Android device with more than one controller connected, then I need your help. Any Android device will do, from a mobile device with a ton of controllers connected, to a proper TV Micro Console or otherwise. On Monday I intend to start making full use of this, but as with all Android things, it's bes...

Developments

I Think... *think* that I've finally got all my Multiplayer Controller code working in a suitable manner, for OUYA, Forge, GameStick and Flare, all from the same code. Unfortunately, my Archos GameStick is STILL bugging out. For some bizarre reason, it seems to feed the digital controls as Port One and the analogue controls as Port Two, which would explain why I'm always having to redefine the controls on the bloody thing. But, so far so good, and everything seems to be flowing ...

Developments

Yesterday was spent neatening up Game #1 in the new Advent Collection. Alarmingly, this has taken a fair number of days, as I'm trying to decide how best to organise all the data. The actual "game" still isn't even finished, yet, and needs collisions and scores and.. well.. pretty much everything, really.. Hmm.. (URL "https://AGameAWeek.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/414_002.png"><img src="https://AGameAWeek.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/414_002-1024x597.png" alt="414_0...

Developments

"A Quick Test", I said to myself. "Should only take a few minutes", I thought. Two hours later, with no result whatsoever, I opted to call it a night, and instead focussed on Beta Collexion. What was it I wanted to test? Android, Hopefully compatible with None-OUYA devices, controller code. First, I needed to test on OUYA itself, so I grabbed the controller, hit the on button, and switched over to HDMI-2. And waited. .. and waited... .... and waited... Hmm.. Oddly, th...

(URL "https://AGameAWeek.com/Pixelart.php?img=294">

Daily Doodle : Plat To The Future

<img src="https://AGameAWeek.com/iconz_512/0294.png"> I couldn't fit all of today's Platdude Pixelart into the tiny 64x64 area, so the larger wallpaper view has a bit more! (URL "https://AGameAWeek.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/PlatToTheFuture.png"><img src="https://AGameAWeek.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/PlatToTheFuture-1024x576.png" alt="PlatToTheF...

Developments

I spent most of yesterday trying to get a lot of broken things to work, but nothing seemed to happen. Still no progress on the NextGen-PlayJam device, which is still crashing like a crazy driver. Still no progress on getting all of my audio to play on the LastGen-PlayJam device, which seems to ignore every 10th-or-so PlaySound command. Still no progress on getting the controls working on my Archos Gamepad, which is driving me up the wall. Android wasn't designed to be this fla...

Developments

The new FlarePlay (PlayJam's GameStick replacement) thing is apparently having issues, and crashing a LOT with my games. I'm hoping to fix them up during a second pass through the 42 games, and for now am simply uploading as-is until I can fix them all up. But at the moment it's looking like I'll need to have a GameStick version and a FlarePlay version of all my games, which is a bit of a pain in the arse, if I'm honest! The whole point of the fixups was that these would be "Andr...

Developments

Given that I've got so much on my plate, what with having to fix up the 42 OUYA games, and get NeonPlat's Cosmic Adventure done, you'd probably not expect me to start a new project right now. Ooops! Last night I took Alpha Collexion, stripped out all the games and graphics, and settled down to do it all again. Work on Beta Collexion has begun, and I'm halfway through Game #1. In reality, if I want to get everything ready for Dec 1st, I should be ready to start on Game #2, so...

Developments

RAWR! Last night I tried combining multiple controllers into one, which I mostly assumed would fail spectacularly, and indeed it did! The experiment was part of my efforts to get that bloomin' Archos Gamepad to work, but annoyingly trying to combine controllers 1 and 2 (Where controller 1 is the digital buttons, and controller 2 is for some reason the analogue sticks) only resulted in me being given lots of fake controller inputs, leading to the analogue sticks doing all manner ...

Developments

Tearing my hair out over the Android Controller stuff. I can *nearly* get it working, but it's still playing up on that Archos Gamepad. I've now managed to somehow get the Archos' controller to control THREE players simultaneously, which is entirely the wrong bloomin' way 'round!! Today I'll probably strip everything back to basics and redo-from-start. That usually helps.. ... Sometimes. No new music, no new game stuff, no nothing. I've been super-focussed on the control...

Developments

Another day fiddling with the base code for my NewYA Monkey-X target. Most of the issues that the FlarePlay is bringing up appear to be related to the fact that the devkit they're using is leaving multitasking games running in the background, thus it all eventually clogs up. The actual retail unit instead does what OUYA/GameStick normally does, and closes all apps before launching the next. As a result, *most* of the problems they were having seem to vanish when tested on a rea...

Developments

I've never had to properly debug an Android device, before, so yesterday's attempts were new ground for me. Usually when one of my games break, I can easily repeat the break, and figure out exactly why it's happening, but feedback from PlayJam over my games crashing on their latest device, have had me somewhat baffled. There doesn't seem to be a specific point where they're crashing, or rather, there's no reason for them to be crashing where they are, as other Android devices carr...

Developments

Getting close to the end of my first run through all the OUYA games. Only (Only?!) another 15 or so games to go, and we'll have a complete OUYA collection. So far there's been no major issues, but since I'm nearing the end of the list, there are a few kinks that need ironed out. For starters, I need to stress test my multiplayer code. JNKBombers, Neon Bike Challenge and NeonPlat Extreme all include varying degrees of Multiplayer interaction. Previously, if a certain controller ...

Developments

Wasn't in much of a coding mood, last night, so ended up doing a bit more music, instead. I also spent an hour and a half watching the Stargate SG1 two parter, Mobius, although I'm not entirely sure why! I was actually in the mood to watch Continuum, but Continuum wasn't on Netflix and I couldn't be bothered pulling out the laptop, and piddling around with those old-fashioned DVD things. .. I really oughta backup all my DVDs to my Network Drive, some day. Hmm... Which reminds...

Developments

Yesterday was spent re-recompiling a couple of the new OUYA batch. I stupidly keep forgetting to tweak certain things, even though I made myself a checklist. Things like "It still says (O) or (A) on the quit screen", through to oddities like forgetting to turn the music back on, and other quirky bits and pieces. Thankfully, the PlayJam review team are all over things like that, and will give each game a good going through, looking for such oddities. With a few guiding pokes an...

Developments

(URL "https://AGameAWeek.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/WP_20151009_12_56_27_Pro.jpg"><img src="https://AGameAWeek.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/WP_20151009_12_56_27_Pro-576x1024.jpg" alt="WP_20151009_12_56_27_Pro" width="576" height="1024" class="alignnone size-large wp-image-5093" /> We got a new front door, yesterday, and also had a couple of visitors to the house, too. Which, of course, means I didn't get any of my regularly...

Developments

How long have I been coding NeonPlat Adventures 2? Because last night I only just got around to adding moving platforms, and that was one of the first thing I wanted to add to the thing. Grrrr. All this OUYA-Recompile stuff is certainly taking it's toll on getting the newer things done. Other things I wanted to do this year include getting an online scoreboard system working, making a new version of The Gear That Works, and of course making a new Advent Collexion, as well as g...

Developments

Oh, ffs.. Now, apparently, PlayJam (GameStick) are preparing to release a new console, and would you believe it... .. .. Yeah, you probably would. I spent most of yesterday fiddling about with a test game, and compiling various test versions so that I can get them tested on the new hardware. The test .apks include things like "Loading the smaller assets incase it's a memory issue", and "ignoring all input incase it's my controller code that's broken", through to things li...

Developments

SpikeDislike3's been somewhat of a dead duck when it comes to sales. Just over 140 in the past 3 months is awful, even by my standards. It's odd seeing SD3 doing so badly when some of my other games (like Puzzobomb from 2011!) appear to be suddenly doing much much better. And so, inevitably, the game becomes free for a day. I'll probably leave it on free until later tonight, to give most people a chance at grabbing it. If you've an iPhing, go grab the game for free, then sp...

Developments

All of this New-OUYA recompiling and fixing has certainly taken it's toll on NeonPlat. The game should've easily been finished by now, but instead I'm still working on enemy placements and trying to come up with Hats, which is still fairly early days in the world of NeonPlat.. *sigh* Yesterday I finished off Karl's Tiny Adventure and got it uploaded to both GameStick and OUYA. The OUYA one will be the better edition, since it includes the music. Worryingly, NeonPlat's Cosmic Ad...