On Friday morning, (URL "https://twitter.com/MadGarden">@MadGarden) suddenly popped up on Google Chat and started chatting about some sort of game he imagined might be interesting. Something about "a neat control scheme for a platformer/combat thing" being a bit like Tron, with the discs being both a weapon and a shield. Not entirely sure what he was on about, but it started one of those oddball pots of insanity bubbling, and soon enough a random game idea had emerged from my mind.. It's quite a way...

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.

<img src="https://socoder.net/AGAWGold_128.png" style="float:right;"> AGameAWeek Gold peeks back at games I've released on this day in history. Sometimes they're great, Occasionally they're terrible, but usually they're odd. There are some games that you can pick up, tweak a little thing, and end up with a much different sort of game. Pacman->Blockman is a great example of this sort of mechanic-tweaking. Other times, however, there's not really a whole lot you can do to a game. There's no ro...

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!!!

<img src="https://socoder.net/AGAWGold_256.png" style="float:left;"> AGameAWeek Gold looks back on the history of my huge Jayenkai Archive. Each day, we trawl through the archive to find games which have been previously released on this day in history. Some days, there are no games. Other days there are oddball crazy quickly cobbled together gameplay experiments. And then, some days, there are real gold games. The games that stay with you, and can be just as enjoyable many years later.

Wednesday night, SpikeDislike2 got its first update in the AppStore. Thursday night, some twat had already plopped it onto a pirate site.

Sad face. I'm supposed to be adding a new word game, every week, but this week's <a href="https://AGameAWeek.com/2013/04/the-past-few-days/">IGN Sillyness</a> resulted in me spending literally hours replying to a whole bunch of emails, and trying to keep tabs on everything as it all went a wee bit crazy. To be fair, I could've just spent ten minutes replying to those, but I do like to waffle in my email replies!! As a result, I didn't actually get around to much coding, ...

General rule in life : Don't Poke the Bear. Other similar expressions include tidbits such as "That's just the way it is", and references to Burning Bridges.. Over the past few days, I've heard pretty much every single one of these, and a whole host more. About a week ago, IGN posted a trailer for SpikeDislike2. A few little things annoyed me about it, like the advert, and the watermark, but I initially let them pass. After all, IGN Exposure, right!? Woot! Then I noticed another littl...

<img src="https://socoder.net/AGAWGold_128.png" style="float:right;">AGameAWeek Gold takes a daily peek through the archive, to see if I've previously released a game on this day in history. Some days there's greatness. Other times there's oddities. ..and some times there's nothing at all! .. Today's an oddity.

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...

Evil pirates are everywhere. You know what really irks me, though? The way the pirates slap their name onto your game. They don't dig into the innards and fiddle with things that would intrude on the player's experience, but they do slap their name on the download filename. Eg, I could make a game called Mr Hippo's Happy Adventure, and the pirate download would end up as "[MrKipper] - Mr Hippo's Happy Adventure.ipa", thus giving MrKipper the fanfare, and taking it away from me. Grrr!! It's hard enou...

<img src="https://socoder.net/AGAWGold_128.png" style="float:right;">AGameAWeek Gold looks back on this day in history, and plucks out any and all games that I've previously released on this day. It's a fun, adventurous, and seemingly random trip through the Jayenkai Archives. Join us, as we test really old games to see if they still run on our modern systems!

<img src="https://socoder.net/AGAWGold_128.png" style="float:right;">Occasionally, our flick through the Jayenkai Archives fails to pick up any games that I might've released on this day in history. As rapid as my game development is, I'm just not THAT quick! But other times, it'll pick up more than one! Today's one of those days..

This week sees the addition of the "Racks" game into the mix. The object is simply to see what words you can make from your rack. Choose from the same number of time/word options as with Strings, then see if you can beat your highscore. A simple game, with simple mechanics.

<img src="https://socoder.net/AGAWGold_128.png" style="float:right">Sometimes, our occasional glance back at previous games, released on this day in history, reveals some absolutely abysmal game ideas. Other times, however, it brings about a classic game which makes me wonder why I've not remade it any sooner.

For the next few days, until April 16th 2013, Sheep Goes Left will be half-price, over at the <a href="https://bit.ly/SheepGoesLeft">iOS AppStore</a>. To celebrate this random decision, here's...

A Brief'ish History of Sheep Goes Left

After SpikeDislike was released, one of the AppStore reviewers complained that there's no way to save your progress, and that the infinitely continuing level was an issue because there are no checkpoints, and no ending. .. Well, yeah...

A few days ago I set up an official AGameAWeek branded page on Facebook, along with a Twitter account. I wasn't sure how "busy" I could keep the two elements, but so far they seem to have their fair share of posts. If you'd like to follow the all-new adventures of AGameAWeek, you can (URL "https://www.facebook.com/Agameaweek">Like AGameAWeek on Facebook), and (URL "https://twitter.com/AGameAWeek">Follow AGameAWeek on Twitter). For the most part, I'll simply be posting links to things that I post ...

<img src="https://socoder.net/AGAWGold_128.png" style="float:right;">AGameAWeek Gold delves into the history of the Jayenkai Archive, and plucks out any and all games that I've previously released on this date in history. And since the Jayenkai Archive goes way back to 2002, they're not just from AGameAWeek. Some of these games go right back to days before AGameAWeek was even a plausible consideration!

<img src="https://socoder.net/AGAWGold_128.png" style="float:right;">AGameAWeek Gold looks back at releases that happened on this day in history. Journey with us through the mists of time, to find out just how good, or bad, AGameAWeek has actually been through the years! We also occasionally find odd little glitches in the archive!!

Last night I spotted something odd. On the ign.com/wireless frontpage is a little Top Ten list of "Top iPhone Games Out Now" And for some very strange reason, number 5 is currently Spike Dislike 2.

Get used to seeing this, as you're going to see a lot of it. The other day I asked for opinions on what April might bring. Three people chipped up. One was over at Curly's World of Freeware, where Tormuse suggested I should go with the Word Games. Second, @moshboy suggested I should go with an unplanned stream of oddities. Oooh, a Tie!! Third was the deciding vote. And worryingly it didn't even come from the internet. Instead, My Mum suggested I should carry on doing Stringy Things....

Am I the butt of IGNs April Fools gag? Stick some random oddball ugly-ass game into their top ten list to freak everyone out? ... Because that's only what they've gone and done! (URL "https://socoder.net/uploads/1/image-01-04-13-13-26-29.jpg"><img src="https://socoder.net/uploads/1/image-01-04-13-13-26-29_thumb.jpg">

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;">Sometimes I'll have an idea early on in the week. I'll take my time, and build up a wonderful game, spending the full week making it nice and presentable. Other times, it'll be a rush job, and I'll instead make the entire game over the space of a weekend. .. or less!

This month's crudely designed desktop images comes courtesy of Karl's Tiny Adventure, from last week! Luvly stuff!! (URL "https://AGameAWeek.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/Desktop_2013_Apr.png"><img src="https://AGameAWeek.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/Desktop_2013_Apr-1024x1024.png" alt="" title="Desktop_2013_Apr" width="590" height="590" class="alignnone size-large wp-image-2746" /> Click for MASSSSIIVE!!!)

<img src="https://socoder.net/AGAWGold_128.png" style="float:right;">AGameAWeek Gold looks back through the huge archive each day, to see if I've previously released anything on this day. There's not always a game to play, but occasionally we'll stumble upon long forgotten gems. Today's is especially nice!

Many many many many many people have asked me how on earth I manage to cram game making into the space of a single week. Ironically, most of those people seem to have forgotten that they, themselves, have previously taken part in Ludum Dare "Make a game in only 48 hours" style competitions. Hmm..! Anyway, today's rambling waffling blog is about the steps I take to ensure I can achieve AGameAWeek.