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...

First thing's first, please be aware that I'm not compiling with sales in mind. With sales/IAPs, you'll need to do all manner of extra stuff like managing purchasable items and ensuring your code handles them correctly. This might break if you have IAPs!!! Untested!!! 1. Select OUYA target, and compile. 2. Head into build_folder/android_ouya/res/drawable-xhdpi Here you'll find the regular icon, and the OUYA Dashboard icon. Replace/doodle as necessary. 3. Compile again. 4. Head into build_fo...

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

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

The first of my games finally passed through PlayJam/GameStick review, yesterday. (Good to know that ONLY took 5 days, even though I was on "the fast track"!! Compare that to the fact that OUYA's reviewed all 5 of the games I've so far uploaded!) A very thorough review, where the only complaints were as follows. 1. If you pause the game, go into the menu, turn off the music, then turn it back on, it doesn't actually restart until you've quit the game. This has been a "feat...

Developments

Here's, approximately, the insane list of things that did/didn't happen, yesterday. 1. Compile first of about 40 games for the big OUYA Fixup. Went easy enough, and the new controls seem to work just fine. Woot! 2. Upload to OUYA. Didn't work. The whole Certificate thing stopped me, so instead I asked Team OUYA to DELETE ALL MY GAMES!! This gives me a fresh, clean slate to work with, and should help things run a little bit smoother. 3. Waiting for them to do that.. They...

Developments

Yesterday was spent doing four tasks. 1. Converting recent ALChoons to work with NeonPlat's ingame music engine. Not all of them were a success, mind! Some of the more frantic choons ended up being a bit of a mess, so have been scrapped. 2. Recreating some of the "Hat" powerups from NeonPlat Adventures 1. I've now turned all 6 of the turret enemies into "8 bullets" hats. I'm not sure how to display "bullets remaining", as at the moment, the character's looking a bit .. um.. ...

Developments

After finally getting my Forge/NewYA stuff working, I figured I should let TeamOUYA take a look at what I've got so far. The feedback was roughly "Needs an Exit button". Because the Forge doesn't have the big obvious "OUYA BUTTON" that the OUYA controller has, it's much harder to assume the player has a single button to exit the game. As such, I spent a fair amount of time, yesterday, adding a Quit button into my frameworks. I now need to replace old menus with new menus, incorp...

Developments

Yesterday's devtime was mostly spent tackling the Controller code for future (and past) OUYA games, so that it works nicely with the new Forge TV doohickey. After a lot of tweaking, poking and prodding, I finally got my framework to work with a whole variety of different Android targets, from a single compile. This *should* mean that any future OUYA.apk's will work happily on all devices, instead of requiring both an OUYA special edition and a stock Android version. The Store stu...

Developments

Last night I started to reimplement a host of the alternative bad guys. So far I'd only been using a single set of 7 for all my testing, but now it's time to ramp it all up a bit. I need a bunch of enemies, alongside a variety of stylesheets, before things start to look nice and varied, ingame. (URL "https://AGameAWeek.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/NPA2_015.png"><img src="https://AGameAWeek.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/NPA2_015-1024x597.png" alt="NPA2_015" width="604" ...

Developments

All the main pieces of the menu system are now in place. Or at the very least, you can now start the bloomin' game again!! ( width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/aIRvCm9JEl0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen>> Pick a World, pick a Zone, start the game, get through or die, complete levels to unlock more worlds, rinse, repeat! The basics are in. The generator's generating, the levels are selectable, and that's...

Super Mario Maker!

After waiting until 3:30 in the afternoon, the game finally showed up. Bah, humbug! If you'd like to play some of my oddities, I am (of course) Jayenkai in the Miiverse doohickey. I *think* it's that easy, anyway. Not sure!

Developments

...Waiting for the game to turn up gave me plenty of time to add a level ending to my levels, which takes the form of a lovely swirly line which teleports you off to the next level. ( width="560" height="315" src="https://www....

Developments

Yesterday I posted a test version of NeonPlat Adventure 2 over on the OUYA Forum, where people could download and test the game, to see how it is in it's current state. Of the two commenters so far, I don't think either of them actually have tried it out, yet, which is a shame because in the world of AGameAWeek, I'm going to be ploughing ahead, and any issues they come up with will probably be out of date by the time they tell me about them! (This is why AGameAWeek is usually done...

Developments

( width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/z95Cn1S9d78" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen>> Yesterday was spent tweaking various difficulty settings. There are 11 (0-10) available difficulties being coded into the level generator, and this video shows what happens at Level 3. Level 0 is easiest, with fewer easier to manage baddies, whilst level 10 is full of spikes and nasty Duck-Turrets. Today I'm going to be tweak...

Developments

The music engine is now in place, and I've converted a bunch of melodies from AL's recent "Liquid" AL Bum. Thrown into the engine, they're sounding melodically "OK~ish", but those instruments aren't working out, at all. ( width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/8opq1w_qZx4" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen>> Today I'll be experimenting with oodles of different instrument types to see what sort of sounds work best...

Developments

Aaah, Spikes! (URL "https://AGameAWeek.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/NPA2_010.png"><img src="https://AGameAWeek.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/NPA2_010.png" alt="NPA2_010" width="704" height="200" class="alignnone size-full wp-image-5006" /> A common feature in videogames since the early days, and one of the great standards of Dislike! Touch a spike, and you instantly respawn at your last checkpoint. .. Like, Instantly!! Toda...

Developments

I spent most of yesterday working with the pathfinding AI. The basic idea is that, once the basic level has been generated, an AI player runs through the level, trying to reach the other side. To ensure at least one of these players survives, a fleet of 32 AI players are sent over the level, and each tries to find the "best" way through. (URL "https://AGameAWeek.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/NPA2_009.png"><img src="https://AGameAWeek.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/NPA2_009...

Developments

Jumped back and forth through a couple of things, yesterday, but mostly spent more time working on the level builder. Things are starting to look a little more varied, and thankfully the addition of vertical scrolling has added a little bit more. I'm currently worried about making sure the levels are completable, as I haven't yet added an AI player run-through of the level, to ensure it's at least playable. I'll have to do that next, I suppose. In the meantime, I've been ensurin...

Musical

Each week or so, Korg send out a newsletter, and for the past couple of weeks I've been trying to ignore their little competition, but last night after receiving yet another email about it, I figured it was about time I gave it a shot. So, I put down NeonPlat for the night, and turned to my iPad to do some mixing. ( width="100%" height="450" scrolling="no" frameborder="no" src="https://w.soundcloud.com/player/?url=https%3A//api.soundcloud.com/tracks/220309050&auto_play=false&...

Developments

I've added chuckables, so I guess those need tested, too. But without enemy sprites bouncing about the place, there's not much point in having chuckables, so.. umm.. (URL "https://AGameAWeek.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/NPA2_005.png"><img src="https://AGameAWeek.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/NPA2_005.png" alt="NPA2_005" width="643" height="286" class="alignnone size-full wp-image-4969" /> I added Jack in! Jack is currently...

Developments

Tackling multicoloured craziness in HTML5 is NOT an easy task.. Desktop (and/or Android, OUYA, iOS, etc) version (URL "https://AGameAWeek.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/NPA2_004.png"><img src="https://AGameAWeek.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/NPA2_004-1024x542.png" alt="NPA2_004" width="604" height="320" class="alignnone size-large wp-image-4963" /> And by comparison, the HTML5 version (URL "https://AGameAWeek.com/wp-content/...