Developments

Complications occasionally crop up as you're developing a game. The current complication is one of those "Everything NOW!!" issues. See, I'd like to get my character's movement to work, and ensure my screen scrolling works as it oughta. I've got left and right movement in, as that's pretty easy, but jumping requires that the ground collision is working properly. That means I need to stop working on the character movement, and switch to working on the tilemap collision detection,...

Developments

Yesterday I tackled something different. For a while, I've been wondering if I should attempt to create a larger PixelArf site to accommodate everybody's entries. I started by creating a barebones webpage with a couple of scrolling sections and a little bit of AJAX to hold it all together. VERY barebones! And, if I'm honest, not that great looking. Scaled up pixelart looks NASTY in a browser. (Although it looks fine on my iPad!!) (URL "https://AGameAWeek.com/wp-content/uploa...

Hunting for Files

As I poke and prod around my new NAS drive, there are still gaps remaining. My Midi and Mod archive is entirely missing. I never did manage to get them from my old hard drives, and now I'm starting to wonder how on earth I'm going to manage to do it. For the most part, the Mod Archive can be re-grabbed from Aminet, where I originally got most of it. But there were various other sites that have been and gone in that time, which had wonderful tunes. My Mini archive was mostl...

Developments

If you've got a Pebble Time (The nice shiny new colour model) you can now get a colourful Platdude watchface, along with an updated colour edition of SpikeDislike Jr Both are available from the Pebble downloady doohickey. Photos : Beware : Hairy Arm!! (URL "https://AGameAWeek.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/Pebble_Plat.jpg"><img src="https://AGameAWeek.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/Pebble_Plat-1024x768.jpg" alt="Pebble_Plat" width="604" height="453" class="alignnone siz...

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...

Developments

One theme's challenge has been set, and only one more's to go. I've been struggling with these last two themes for a good few days, and suddenly yesterday an idea popped into my head, and the idea is so blindingly obvious that it looks 100% like I planned it like that! And if anyone asks, I'll just say "Yes, I definitely planned it like that!!" (URL "https://AGameAWeek.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/SD3_042.png"><img src="https://AGameAWeek.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/...

Developments

Still working on getting SoCoder back to full strength, but things are slightly easier now that GoDaddy have finally uploaded that damned backup that I asked for, about 3 days ago. *tsk* Now it's a case of shuffling file about, and making some nice strengthy tweaks to the site. *sigh* So, last night I opened up SpikeDislike's code properly for the first time in about a week. Over the past week I've been battling server outages, and the whole Android issue, so I haven't really...

Well, @Jayenkai , I've always supported you in the past. And I warned you focusing on piracy would turn you into something untenable. Point one : I'm NOT focussed on the "Piracy" I'm focussed on the twat that took my game, and uploaded it to Amazon, then tried to make a profit from it. That, to me, is a million times worse than anyone who simply finds the game online and downloads it. That's not just taking something, that's taking something then trying to profit from someone else's hard work...

Developments

One of the new themes sees me playing a bit more with Monkey's Skewing. The Transform and Matrix commands let you do some weird things with sprites. I never bothered to use them in the past because it's generally hard to pull off a good effect with them, that doesn't just look like you're pissing about with fancy effects! But during SpikeDislike3 I decided to experiment with it a little. You can see it used best in the Pseudo-3D theme. No 3D is used, and only simple skewing is...

Developments

I really should be getting back to Boxsplosions, but watching SpikeDislike3's journey through the AppStore has been so much fun!! Yesterday, (URL "https://twitter.com/craiggrannell">@CraigGrannell) posted a glowing review over at (URL "https://www.pocketgamer.co.uk/r/iPad/SpikeDislike3/review.asp?c=66176">PocketGamer.co.uk) (URL "https://www.pocketgamer.co.uk/r/iPad/SpikeDislike3/review.asp?c=66176"><img src="https://AGameAWeek.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/SD3_Po...

Developments

By now I should be mostly done with Boxsplosions, but unfortunately, and yet again, I've found myself wasting the day away doing not much more than SpikeDislike3 things! .. and a lot of that has been playing! Alarmingly, Rychan has been reaching amazing heights on the GameCenter scoreboards, easily slaughtering most of my best scores. Of course, I'm all too aware that people are much better at SpikeDislike than I am, but to see such HUGE scores shows just how compelling the gam...

One month, Three games!? Sure, why not!! It might not be "AGameAWeek" but getting 3 games onto iOS in a month is still a pretty decent achievement, especially when they're all nice and big. As you might know, my old MacMini (from 2010) was starting to rot away due to lack of use. This month, knowing that SpikeDislike3 was due to arrive, I attempted a quick test compile, and.. well.. it didn't go very well. So, out with the old, and in with a brand new MacMini. Further compiles were quick and pai...

Developments

Further rejections, this month, as a game gets rejected from yet another format. I'm not going to give them the publicity of a good rant, but suffice to say they rejected Invisible Munky 2 because, within the End Credits, I bothered to thank the people at OUYAForum.com, who helped me when I needed to test the game's physics. ( width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/Y-Oi5a8TTuU" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen>> ...

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

With SpikeDislike3 out the door ('ish), ChuckABall ready to relaunch (chuck?) and Invisible Munky already getting played by at least one person, it's time to think ahead to what project comes next. For a while, I've been wondering if I should attempt a newer edition of (URL "https://AGameAWeek.com/GameList.php?ShowJust=325">Boxsplodings). It's a fun little game, but was quite limited by the number of levels and how they were organised. (URL "https://AGameAWeek.com/complete/B...

Developments

For my NEXT iOS Release, I present All New ChuckABall. Completely reskinned with a fantastic new set of sounds and music. The game's taken a bit of a leap from horribly gnatty test game, to slightly less horribly gnatty test game. Huzzah!! ( width="420" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/e44cLNMqFTw" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen>> I think you'll all agree that the above looks infinitely better than this.. ( w...

Developments

Yesterday was spent tweaking a few odds and sods that I never really got around to doing previously. I, of course, added a few extra levels, and I added "OUYA Controller Button Icons" to the main menu, so it's marginally more obvious that you can use the shoulder buttons to open the Options menu and Scoreboard. (URL "https://AGameAWeek.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/HeavilySubtle.png"><img src="https://AGameAWeek.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/HeavilySubtle-1024x597.png" a...

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

RAWR!!! Wednesday went swimmingly well, with all the pieces falling into place, and everything being awesome and cool. It stands to reason, then, that my Thursday didn't go quite as well. I decided to try my hand at getting Invisible Munky 2 into the AppStore. It started with me having to upgrade my "Icon Resizer" tool, to account for the 150,000 new icon sizes that have appeared since iPhone 6 and Plus came out. I also just about managed to figure out the new "Launch Scree...

Developments

A quick video.. ( width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/SUFKcQothYI" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen>> About a week ago, I booted up the MacMini to test compile SpikeDislike3 onto my iPad. I was SHOCKED by how poor the functionality of the MacMini was. Slow, unresponsive, and certainly not what you'd call "Useful" in any way shape or form. I guess that's what happens when you buy a Mac Mini in 2010, and only e...

Twitter Rant

This morning, I'm battling with Twitter. A short while ago, Twitter introduced a new "Easy to use!" way to reply to things, which is less messy and leaves more space for your reply. Essentially, the "New Reply" strips away everybody's @names, leaving just a single link back to the previous post. In many ways, this is a nice thing, as when you're in the middle of a conversation with 5 or 6 people, it can typically leave about 3 characters for your reply to fit in!! But there are ...

Developments

Just when you think you're done with your menu system, you suddenly realise you've not got any options on the titlescreen! Whoops! (URL "https://AGameAWeek.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/SD3_024.png"><img src="https://AGameAWeek.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/SD3_024-1024x597.png" alt="SD3_024" width="604" height="352" class="alignnone size-large wp-image-4649" /> An hour or so later, and I'd half-wrangled old code with new, t...

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

Yesterday I found myself trying out a variety of themes, to figure out what does and doesn't work in the new engine. Here's a brief selection of those tested. (URL "https://AGameAWeek.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/SD3_GfxD.png"><img src="https://AGameAWeek.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/SD3_GfxD-1024x597.png" alt="SD3_GfxD" width="660" height="385" class="alignnone size-large wp-image-4591" /> Lava/Rock (URL "https://AGameAW...

Developments

Yesterday I decided to try out something a little unusual for me. I attempted THREE DEE!!! Not "proper" 3D, of course. I'm too lazy for that! Instead, I took the 2D game engine, added a Skew function to tilt everything at an angle, then plonked the standard graphics over the top. I wasn't expecting the result to be playable, but oddly enough, it's absolutely 100% normal. In fact, since the engine sticks to the original 2D principles, the game's entirely playable like this, and...