Developments

Yesterday, I finally got around to animating that cat and dog that I've been putting off for a good number of days. I knew what I had to draw, but .. Animating?! Eeek!! And so the poor cat and dog remained undrawn, until yesterday when I practically forced myself into doing it. And, I must admit, they turned out rather nice! Now I just have to decide on a nice background for them, draw some obstacles, and figure out the best scoring method. ( src="https://vine.co/v/erVZAOM5QU...

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...

Right in the midst of "AGameAWeek Meets iOS Month", with SpikeDislike3 (hopefully) incoming, and two other games already out, and ... well.. I'm having a teensy tiny problem with iTunesConnect. Usually, at the bottom of a game's info-page, is a little "Request Promo Codes" link, which you click on to get promo codes for that game, that you can then send out for promotional reasons. The link USED to be there.. In fact, I used it mid-February to grab a bunch of SpikeDislike2 codes. But, for some curio...

Developments

Yesterday's doings. Boxsploding I continued work on Boxsplosions, and got a nice new control scheme up and running for touchscreens. I might have to zoom out a little bit, though, as you can currently only see an area of about 8x8 tiles, whereas the whole arena is 128x128!! Today I'm going to be playing with the actual Splosions, and seeing if the gameplay matches the previous edition, or whether it all needs to be rethought and reimagined.. Hmm...

Developments

A busy day, yesterday, as I set about building more of those Mission/Level things for SpikeDislike3. I've now got marginally different Mission modes for 10 of the 13 themes, although "Super X!" seems to appear a fair number of times! With only 3 more sets of levels to create, I'm pretty much nearing the end of development, although there's a bunch more extra bits that I might end up throwing in. Anyway, I figured now's about as good a time as any, to give you an idea of my targ...

Developments

Yesterday I settled into "Music Mode", where I can generally whip out an AL CHOON for whatever purpose. Unfortunately, after a good two hours of twiddling dials and buttons in Korg Gadget (iPad only) I came out with absolutely nothing decent whatsoever. Ashamed that I'd wasted a good amount of time pretty much doing nothing, I instead decided to load up some old Choons, and see if they worked within the new SpikeDislike3 engine. Good news! SpikeDislike3 will have music!! On t...

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...

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...

<a href="https://AGameAWeek.com/GameList.php?ShowJust=347">Alpha Collexion</a> was AGameAWeek's 2014 Advent Calendar. You can <a href="https://AGameAWeek.com/GameList.php?ShowJust=347">Download it Here</a> for Windows, OUYA or playable in your browser using HTML5. All games are now unlocked, and will remain playable forever! woot!

(URL "https://AGameAWeek.com/GameList.php?ShowJust=347">Alpha Collexion) is AGameAWeek's 2014 Advent Calendar. You can (URL "https://AGameAWeek.com/GameList.php?ShowJust=347">Download it Here) for Windows, OUYA or playable in your browser using HTML5. (URL "https://AGameAWeek.com/AlphaCollexion/400_N.png"><img src="https://AGameAWeek.com/AlphaCollexion/400_N_thumb.png">

Numbing Numbers

Concept Reduce the Total to meet...

Each year, time dependent, I like to do something special over Xmas, and this year I've opted to start early. If I want a whole Xmas Collection ready on the OUYA (And possibly iOS Store) in time, I need to get onto it quickly enough to have it finished, uploaded, and passed through review, in time for Xmas. And, if it's an Advent Calendar, then it needs to be ready even earlier, for Dec 1st. Yikes!! I started the planning stages of this thing a couple of months ago, when I asked folk on both Socoder a...

You may have noticed a slight lack of gaming over the past couple of months. Usually I cut down on AGameAWeek during the closing months of a year, and instead focus on a larger project, but over the course of this year I've already tackled a number of larger projects. Blockman Worlds, JNK Bombers, Future Classics.. They've all been substantially larger than my standard weekly output. As such, I'm actually struggling to come up with a decent "end of year project" that would be worth tackling. Instead, I...

It's time to revisit the world of Munky and his many colourful blocks. Take control, and match three! <img src="https://AGameAWeek.com/complete/Munky_Blocks_(dx)_20140908A_thumb.png"> <img src="https://AGameAWeek.com/complete/Munky_Blocks_(dx)_20140908B_thumb.png">

This week, I decided that I really oughta get a decent puzzle game onto the OUYA. My first thought was to do a Tetris game, and recreate TetriPong, but as is usually the case, halfway through the planning stages, an ACTUAL Tetris game was launched, by The Tetris Company, onto the OUYA. D'oh! I'll probably save that for another time, then. But what of my need for Puzzles? What other old AGameAWeek game can I trudge out as a new Puzzle game? Oooh, I know!! ( width="560" height="315" src="//www.youtu...

Live on Twitch for a long long time, Team OUYA took to the airwaves and streamed a whole bunch of my games, all playing lovely on OUYA. You can (URL "https://www.twitch.tv/playouya/b/559842278">Watch the Recorded-Steam here). (URL "https://www.twitch.tv/playouya/b/559842278"><img src="https://AGameAWeek.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/08/PlayOUYA_AGAW.jpg" alt="PlayOUYA_AGAW" width="500" height="500" class="alignnone size-full wp-image-4054" /> They ge...

Sod it, why not.. SpikeDislike meets the Ludum Dare challenge of "Beneath the Surface", as you attempt to make your way past the hidden spikes! How far can you get!? <img src="https://AGameAWeek.com/complete/The_Spikes_Beneath_20140426A_thumb.png"> <img src="https://AGameAWeek.com/complete/The_Spikes_Beneath_20140426B_thumb.png"> An hour and a half, well spent. You can (URL "https://AGameAWeek.com/GameList.php?ShowJust=329">Download The Spikes Beneath here) for Windows and HTML5. ...

I love my iOS devices, and I love the iOS Ecosystem. I also love that iOS has (so far) been the only bloomin' way that I've managed to sell my games in a fruitful manner. (Android sales have been.. *shrugs* Pisspoor!!) In order to get a Monkey-x game onto iOS, I first need to transfer the code to the Mac (Drag 'n' Drop over the network) then recompile with a few choice tweaks along the way. The game then needs approximately 738 different icons, which all look the same, but are marginally different si...

Over on the Monkey forum, a discussion about level data set me off thinking about making this post. Whenever I put levels into my games, I tried to keep them as small as I possibly can. I've been doing it this way for years, and always figured it's nice to compress my data into something that's easily shareable. .. True, I rarely ever get around to actually making these things easily shareable, but for the most part I try to keep things as minimal as possible.

The internet is a place for trolls and complainers (like me!) who like to gripe at every opportunity. For the most part, we tend to ignore these types, which generally means that comments sections have become largely ignored. Here at AGameAWeek, the opposite has happened. There are apparently no trolls daring enough to even attempt to play my games! I seem to have scared most of them away. As a result, there are no trollers or complainers here, and since those are the types that make up the 99% of the ...

Late last night, NeonPlat Raw appeared on the OUYA Dashboard for the very first time. This is kind of a big deal, in that it's the first time one of my games has officially been released on an actual physical home-console. True, it's not a "PROPER" console, but .. Hey, it's a box with a controller that plugs into my telly. And it's got my games on it! So, Hell yeah, It's proper enough to me!! If you have an OUYA, you can grab (URL "https://www.ouya.tv/game/NeonPlat-Raw">NeonPlat Raw) for it. It's...

I finally wrangled my way through "the big update" over the course of two nights.. Day one was having to upgrade to Mountain Lion (I was in hospital when it came out, and hadn't bothered to upgrade since).. This was swiftly* followed by installing XCode5. The reason for all this, is that iOS7 devices need XCode5, and XCode5 needs Mountain Lion. It's Apple's special way of making sure all us developers constantly upgrade everything! * Given that my Mac is at the exact opposite side of the house as my...

September's over, and I've had a lot of fun bulking up BlastTrax, and playing GTAV! The plan was, come October, I'd get straight back to business. I'd upload BlastTrax's big update, and then start doing AGameAWeek again. The reality is slightly different, for two main reasons. One, as per usual, is "Bloody Apple, Grrr!!!" Because iOS 7 is now "out there" and is the main OS on all my iOS devices, it means I can no longer quickly compile things easily for iOS6 for test purposes, which means I need ...