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...

People keep asking about how I manage to code AGameAWeek, and one thing they all eventually pick up on is that I'm currently doing it all with Monkey. (URL "https://monkeycoder.co.nz">Monkey) is a fantastic language which allows for all manner of different targets, and does a great job doing what it does. It isn't perfect, and it's not for everyone, but it suits me down to the ground. As with any development tool, it all comes down to preference, and whether or not you agree with the methodology o...

<img src="https://socoder.net/AGAWGold_128.png" style="float:right;">AGameAWeek Gold takes a peek back through the masses of the Jayenkai Archive, to see if I've released anything of importance on this day in history. Today's game might not exactly have been released on this day in history, as it actually went through a series of three or four separate releases.. I'll have to trawl through the various forum posts to be sure.. But today's the day that I've marked, so I'm pretty sure it had some sor...

BlastTraxFAQs

What's with the track?

BlastTrax was originally devised as a classic Retro-styled GrandPrix-like racing game, with weapons. You would drive through the course, shoot the other drivers, and make your way through to the end. I started work on the game, made a nice retro-styled GrandPrix racetrack, added a few little cars, and then.. .. And that was when (URL "https://www.foppygames.nl/">@FoppyGames) decided to launch his Retro-styled GrandPrix racing game. D'oh! True, min...

Thankyou for waiting patiently, as 95% of the internet inexplicably got to play this yesterday, before I posted it to my own website!! *sigh* Ah well, lessons learned, must organise things a wee bit better in future. Doing worldwide launches at 10 in the morning, isn't all that easy! Anyhoo, this one's a corker, so it's well worth the wait!

Every Single Week

Not Good Advice

The following is not advice, and should not be taken as such. People often ask me how I manage to do AGameAWeek. Particularly, how I manage to cram everything into a single week, and then somehow manage to do exactly the same thing every other week, without going crazy. What follows might possibly help you understand a little more of what goes on in the world of AGameAWeek. Or it might just be a whole bunch of rambling waffling text. Not sure!! ...

Apologies that this post has taken me so long to publish. I actually wrote most of it about 3 months ago, when I first released SpikeDislike2, but it's been sat on my Mac on a Sticky Note, and I kinda forgot all about it! I remembered it, the other day, when I submitted SpikeDislike2-Lite to Apple. What follows is a checklist/guide for compiling your (URL "https://monkeycoder.co.nz">Monkey-coded) game onto iOS.

Another week, another sequel. This week, we're revisiting the puzzle-maze world of Kee, Bo and Ard (Occasionally spelled "Key, Bo and Ard" due to me forgetting the spelling of the green character's name!) I also need a couple of features tested, so there's quite a bit of rambling included below this post!

<img src="https://socoder.net/AGAWGold_128.png" style="float:right;"> AGameAWeek Gold takes a look at the games that I've previously released on this day in history. It's basically filler material! But that's ok, because it's usually a nice trip down memory lane.

A somewhat simple remake, this week, as I couldn't even be bothered to add anything new into the mix. To be honest, this is one of those "Desperately trying to keep up a rate of AGameAWeek" games! It's fun, though, and now works lovely on an Android device (assuming your Android device of choice plays nicely with it!)

Hardly the worlds most imaginative title for this week's game, and mostly a cop-out graphics wise, but I was trying out a gameplay style, so that's where most of the focus went. Was it a success? .. You decide!!

<img src="https://socoder.net/AGAWGold_128.png" style="float:right;">AGameAWeek Gold peeps through the Jayenkai Archive to see what games I've previously released on this day in history. Occasionally we'll pluck out some real gems. Today's a cracker! .. or rather, today's TWO crackers!!

In a change to our regularly scheduled April-Project, I've decided to stop pulling my hair out, and instead do something different. Grrr.. What we're left with, however, is a nice happy little game for up to four players, so that's nice.

Over the past few weeks, a terrible issue has appeared, and it's been quite noticeable. It's caused my Stringy Things project to get stuck, as well as creating multiple issues in lots of other places. The problem is as follows.. Not all devices are the same!!!

Coders Tool Ahead I don't know why I only just realised this, but I don't think I ever posted my Bitmap Font Creator, to go with the Monkey Framework! whoops! Anyway, here's that.

<a href="https://socoder.net/uploads/1/BitmapFontCreator.zip">Bitmap Font Creator</a>

It works nice and easily. You give it a bucketload of .ttf files in the "fonts" folder, then run it, and it outputs a bunch of monospaced bitmap font images in the output folder. Open the associated...

I haven't got any! .. that's a lie.. I have about 3 big plans in mind, and I'm not sure which to go with.

<img src="https://socoder.net/AGAWGold_128.png" style="float:right;">AGameAWeek Gold. An occasional trip down memory lane, to take a look at games that I've previously released on this day in history. Much like every other element of AGameAWeek, these can sometimes be great games that you'll play for hours, or bags of garbage that you throw away after ten seconds of looking at it at going "Umm.. no thanks!" Today's game from the past is an example of the latter.. With Zombies!!!!

<img src="https://socoder.net/AGAWGold_256.png" style="float:right;">As we continue through our adventures of old crappy games, we'll occasionally trip over the odd one or two that wasn't even part of AGameAWeek. In fact, today's game-from-the-archive outdates AGameAWeek by a good few years. Good grief, this game's actually nine years old! *tests the game* And it still works!

<img src="https://socoder.net/AGAWGold_128.png" style="float:right;"> Today, we take a trip to something eerily similar to something I recently did! Five years ago I had my first J2ME compatible mobile phone. A Samsung U600 is actually a remarkably nice phone. Five years later, the phone is still in a lovely condition, and is in regular use by my Mum, who now only accidentally hits the incredibly sensitive call button once every week or so! It's a great little phone, and it's nice and neat and...

<img src="https://socoder.net/AGAWGold_256.png" style="float:right;">Oooooh!!! When I went to add an AGameAWeek Gold function to my Archive's Admin page, I purposely decided not to add any sort of "Look Ahead" function. I knew it'd be as much fun for me, as it is for you, to find out what today's AGameAWeek Gold is! Just a week in, and I'm finding myself waking up in the morning just to click to my admin page, to see if we've got a good game today!! Today's is awesome! Today's was worth wak...

Last night I was asked how I got Monkey to do all the things that I managed to make it do. I tried to describe it as best as I could, but was already wrapped up in bed, trying to remember it all, whilst only holding an iPad! Not an easy job. I suggested to (URL "https://twitter.com/retrorusty">@RetroRusty) that he waits until the morning, when I can better write a nice big (BIG) waffling (WAFFLING!) blog-post about it all. .. This be that!

<img src="https://socoder.net/AGAWGold_256.png" style="float:right"> Aaah, March 2010. The month of MAR10! I decided to dedicate the entire month to Mario, and spent the whole month remaking classic AGameAWeek games, but with Mario costumes on all the characters! I remember it like it was yesterday. Except it wasn't yesterday. ... It was three entire smegging years ago!! ARGH!!!!

The Amiga was nearing the end of its life cycle and my local Game store was slowly getting rid of its Amiga stuff. It was sad to find all your favourite games crammed into that little corner of the store where only the geekiest kids would huddle. Then one day, I spotted a bright blue stripy box. "Blitz 2.0!??? Oooh! I'd been using AMOS ever since I got it free on an Amiga Format coverdisk, but this was finally a chance to buy a fully fledged programming language. I whipped it up. .. I say that. ...

Happy Blockman Day! It's been 4 years since the last Blockman Gets game was released, so it's about time we had another! Blockman Gets Hungry strips out the boulders, takes out the power-pellets, and instead uses fruit for various functions. There's four different fruit to eat. See if you can figure them all out!!

Download

You can <a href="https://AGameAWeek.com/GameList.php?ShowJust=285">Download Blockman Gets Hungry he...