Jayenkai's World Cup Challenge : A plan to do something, rather than sit watching football for 90 minutes each and every day..
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I'm off to watch the season finale of Stargate Universe!
Meanwhile, here's my first 45 minutes.
Not sure what I'm going to do in my other 45 minutes, but the first half turned out ok!
.. although it took up all of my 45 minutes!!!
And it really wasn't meant to take that long!!

"That'll be a quick job", thought me.
.. was it balls!!


View on YouTube

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Productivity in Two Halves
Part One
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10:00
Decide to keep my "Tunnel of Flinging Screenshots", and rather than just have that as the "200 Games!" trailer, I'll mix it with the AGameAWeek logo on top, so I can reuse it at the end of game videos, rather than my usual "And here's the logo" thing.

10:01
Load 1500 screens into VirtualDub, and create 120fps, 12.5 second clip. (it used to be 25 seconds when it was 60fps!!)

.. waiting.. They're big 1920x1080 pics..


10:03
Load EditStudio, shove video into there, add logo, re-render.

10:05
Tweak render, since it's completely freaking out at the thought of having to do things in widescreen.

10:08
Retweak render, since it's still messed up from the aspect switch.

10:15
Bloody zoom!
Retweak, re-render!!

.. rendering 1920x1080 videos takes ages! Gonna have to redo it again, in a jiffy, 'cos EditStudio still doesn't like rendering to xvid!

...

..It'd be nice to have this at the front-end of games, but I'm not sacrificing 42Mb just to do it!!!

and trying to figure out HOW to play the video, nice and quickly!

nearly done..

10:20
Rerendering in VirtualDub with compression.
...tum-tee-tum..

10:27
Test video with something quick..
Grab a WarioWare clip from the other day, shove that at the start, pop the new endy thing at the end, re-render.

Bah, aspect ratio again..

10:30
Back in VirtualDub, render a second version that's 1440x1080

10:35
Render EditStudio test..
Takes AGES, even for a quick 15 second test, mostly because it's reading an xVid compressed file..
Might've been a bad idea doing that, but I didn't want 2 great big 6Gb video clips constantly sat on my HD!

10:45!!!
Recompress using VirtualDub

10:50
Upload to the toob!

Jayenkai's World Cup Challenge : A plan to do something, rather than sit watching football for 90 minutes each and every day..
---

Well, that didn't go to plan, but it's not entirely awful, either.
In fact, it's turned out so nicely that I've even added it to the Archive.
AGameAWeek just took a turn for the weird!

Today's quickly made game was made in about 4 hours, and is a nice Scrabble inspired wordgame.


Simple rules..
You have a rack with tiles, and you place them wherever you'd like upon the grid.

You also have a Score Target.
If you fail to hit that target, you don't get any points for your word.
Sometimes the target will be "Get More than ...", and sometimes it'll be "Get Less than ..."


If you're completely stuck, you might want to hit the Swap Tiles button.. But that'll use points, so use sparingly.

If you get rid of all the tiles, you get 100 bonus points!!!
Or if not, keep whatever you have, and get out!!!

Downloadable from The Jay Archive for Win/Mac/Linux (or will be Lin/Mac in a jiffy, I'm switching over to compile them, now!!)


Here's how it happened

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12:20
Paintshop Pro
Draw Tile rack, grab texture from Google, add layers, add shadow, job done.
(15 mins?!)

12:35
Draw Plain Tile

12:40
Draw 26 letters, and 26 values

13:00 (yikes!)
Draw background grid things.

13:05
Half Time, Relax, Make a Brew!!!

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HalfTime
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13:20
Start coding, add tiles and values
Note, my BlitzMax Framework handily contains a ready made WordList, so I can be super lazy and not have to deal with that.
A simple CheckWord(This) will tell me if a word exists. *phew*

13:25
Create TileBag, and couple of function to deal with it.

13:30
Add simple grid layout, and empty tilerack.

13:40
Place random letters into rack, draw rack.

13:45
Simple tile movement

13:55
Movement fixing, lots of "latching", things moving nicely.

14:00 (5 mins left!?!)
Form word, check word..

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Bah.. Extra Time
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14:10
Word Scoring mechanism.

14:20
Game Progression

14:30
Score adding, best scores, best words

14:40
HiLo thing added

14:50
Particles for Win/Lose

15:00
Adding "Swap Tiles" button, game mostly ready

15:10
Adding big X, game nearly done..

15:30
Used the time of about 2 matches, by now! Never mind!
Tweaking here and there to make the game nice.

15:40
Will probably do, at this point, but since I'm way over schedule, I might as well shove some Audio into it, to finish it off..
Fruityloops and Cooledit are used to tweak some sounds into existence.

15:55
Sound added, game playable, testing...

16:00
That'll do..
Nearly 4 whole hours, close enough

16:05
Screenshots, bundle to zip, switch on Mac, prepare to upload to archive (because, it actually turned out quite nice!)

It's that time of year again, where everyone goes absolutely nutso over some stupid game of football.
In the coming weeks, 95% of the world's population will be watching up to 64 games of stupid football. That's over 96 hours worth!
...I'd rather be doing something much more productive.

So, I've decided to setup Jay's World Cup Challenge.


Every day, over the world cup, (that's today June 11th, all the way up to July 11th), I'll be taking 90 minutes out of my day, and trying to do something productive.
Maybe I'll write a game, maybe draw a stupid picture, make a piece of music, create a video for youtube, who knows.
I'm not sure yet!

But each and every day, I'll be settling down for two 45 minute sessions (with a coffee break inbetween!!), and spending the time doing one particular thing for that day.
Then, each day, I'll post the results here.

If you're also desperate to ignore the Football, why not join in! You can post your accomplishments in the comments, and I'll try to come up with some sort of nice calender, or something, to show off everyone's greatness.

So, who's with me?!

Not sure...

Today should be iPhinging day, but instead I'm faffing around with NeonPlat some more, and adding some nice fun little elements.



Smashing!.. is nicer than it was, I've added a green ball, and there are wings.
There's been other advancements, too, but nothing I want to give away just yet.

As such, probably not getting a chance to do another game this week.
Bugger..

No matter, this'll be good.

I'd planned to make a NeonPlat post, this morning..
But then, I've also planned to do WarioWare on Wednesdays..
.. and then there's the Music thing, which I've also decided to do on Wednesdays.

...
Derp!


So, looks like we're going to start having a Megapost every Wednesday, from here on.
Aftermath, Music and More!
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Simply put, Awesome!!!

Hop around, grab the balls, throw them at the bad guys, and paint all the white floor tiles in the colour of your pants!


View on YouTube

There are four difficulty modes on the titlescreen, and you can play Co-Op style with up to four players simultaneously!!! (although, you all have to be using the one system. Still haven't learned to do any Network stuff, yet!!)


Interesting Note : When I was playing around with the JayArchive script originally, and putting little test games into it, I had a few extra references in there. I later deleted them, but the Game ID's got bumped up as a result.
So, although this isn't REALLY the 200th game in the archive, it is in fact Game #200 as far as the archive's ID is concerned!
Kickass!!

You can Download NeonPlat 2 from the Jayenkai Archive where it's available for Windows, Linux and Intelbased Mac's.

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AGAW Scoring : 41 weeks, 41 games, still there, but .. I'm planning to make a slightly enhanced version of this for next week. That'd drop the ratio under it's target! Nooooo!!!!!!!

Um..
Yeah..
That's almost everything!!


Todo : Menu and powerups..

I'm halfway through NeonPlat 2, and would you believe it, I have a dream about Invisible Munky 2!
FFS, how annoying is that!?
Now I've another gameplay idea banging away in my head, and it actually seems nice and playable, too!
Bah...

I'll have to set it aside, and focus on the task at hand.

For the sake of comparison..

NeonPlat used to be this.

NeoNeonPlat is (currently!) this..

Blimey!

This Tuesday : NeonPlat 2 / NeoNeonPlat / Whatever it's called!
Next Tuesday : Could very well be Invisible Munky 2 (although, I've stopped counting the number of times I've said that. They very rarely work out!)

I'm still not sure what I'm calling this release, but NeoNeonPlat has been stuck in my head for a couple of days. Seems to fit. Other suggestions are welcome.

Meanwhile, multiplayer (one system) is working great, and I'm starting to formulate how the scoring will all work out.
There are three different baddies, the white platforms are back, and I'm starting to build up a nice progressing difficulty system.

It's coming along nicely!!!

I'd planned to do my regular iPhing development learning thing today, but.
Meh, bad head, can't think, not in the mood..

Never mind..

Instead, I'm playing about with NeonPlat2.


Blimey, where did that come from!?!

I've been doodling sprites for the past couple of days, and today, just like the last time that I did NeonPlat, everything kinda slotted into place in a nice wonderful way.
If you're very good at playing Where's Wally/Waldo, you'll probably have noticed that there's two NeonPlat's in that picture.

Both are equal.

Both can be played!

Wootsocks!

I could even add more.
But, first, I need to decide how best to cope with two/more characters.

Do I create an all-new character?
Do I stick with Platdude but recolour him?
I dunno.

Thoughts?!

And... if you're in an artistic mood, design me a new character!
They might be playable, they might be bad guys, they might even be big-ass boss characters!
Who knows!!

You have 48x48 pixels to play with, so that I can add the blur afterwards, and try to stick to single-pixel-wide lines, so it all blends in.

Ta muchly!! (And, get it done quick!!!)

"What ever happened to midis that we used to have in games,
and all the little tunes we used to hear whilst we were playing Doom.
Whenever we played we would forget about the quality,
because we were too busy shooting Demons in the face with ammo..."

: Download

.. Then I couldn't think of any more lyrics.
Never mind, the tune was created, and sat on my hard drive for about a year or two.

Obviously titled FM because it sounds like a classic FM midi file!

Later on, I decided to use it on my JNKx15 video, but it needed upped a wee bit.

: Download

A short tweak in tempo, some added layers of instrumentation, and the melody eventually fit nicely.
Luvly stuff..

Ringtone A : Download
Ringtone B : Download
SMS Beep A : Download
SMS Beep B : Download
More music archive stuff next Wednesday.
If you want anything specific, lemmie know!

A proper week, this week. Waiting for a 6 hour render gave me plenty of time to play about, and I think I came up with some niceties, this week.

Game : Waiting : COME ON, ALREADY!
Amiga themed, like Boing!

Game : Lemmings : Just Dig
Again, thinking Amiga! Plenty of bugs in this one, though, so be careful!



Music : Twisted Pigs : Up, Over, Under, Forever
This was one of those Auto-Title things, so no need to worry about my mental state

Comic : Random : Duck meets Dino in an epic SciFi tale
although... You could probably worry about my mental state after this one!

Bee Mai Fwend : 3782-1929-5444

Having pretty much messed up this week's game, I figured it'd be a better idea to go for the Tried and Tested, this week.
So, without having to think too hard, it's time for NeonPlat 2!

First job is the art. All nice and hi-res, while still being small enogh to fit as much onscreen as I can.

Level Progression should be dealt with, and a couple more characters, too, so suggestions for those are welcome.

I'll keep you updated, as the game builds!

An update as the game builds..

woot!

This week's game didn't quite turn out as well as expected.
We'll call this week a fail, I think!

Still, you could probably play it once, if you could be bothered, and then delete it in a slight rage that you played something that wasn't all that good!


Amiga's Boing Ball bounces around the platform level, and collects Amiga Ticks.
Every so often, time loops around, and you'll find yourself similarly be bouncing around, alongside yourself.
Collect 75% of the ticks to complete the level, and don't accidentally touch yourself, 'cos that'll kill you.
That's pretty much it!

I was kinda hoping it might magically become fun (see Blockman Gets, Microbes, Centipong, RetroRaider, etc!) but nothing really happened, and the game continued to be a bit dull.
A shame.


It's full of AmigaLuv, though!!

You can grab it over at The Jayenkai Archive for Windows, Linux and Mac. But not Amiga

I'll try better next week!

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AGAW Scoring : 40 weeks, 40 games, far too busy, lots to do!

Not sure what game this is, but I made the Amiga Boing Ball, slapped it into a bricky map, and let it bounce about a bit.


*shrugs*

I'll keep bashing the keys, and see what comes out the other side!

Hurray for random game making!!

When I was a kid, I used to love playing quiz games. Blockbusters, Wheel of Fortune, Jeopardy, loads of great 8/16-bit quiz games.
They all had one thing in common..
They let you actually TRY to answer them.

Nowadays, it seems that every damn quiz, even Wheel of Fortune and Jeopardy, has become a stupid sodding Multiple Choice quiz, where you don't have to think, and type.. Instead resorting to a "Buzz - Pick one" style of gameplay that really ruins the whole game for me..
Bloody things.

So, Might as well give this a go.

If anyone out there knows of a humongous archive of Q'n'A's I might be able to use, let me know!

Maybe in a few weeks time? *shrugs*

Note : Inexperienced user ahead!!

iPhing "View Based" Jumpstart

A series of tutorials that will allow old-style coders to quickly grasp the bits and pieces they need, to develop games for iPod/iPhone/iPad (iPhings)

Part One : Tilemap
Part Two : Touching
I've written this in near-realtime, so where I look like I'm freaking out about the language, I am actually freaking out about the language.
Feel free to nitpick all the many faults that probably appear within this week's little adventure!! Together, we can make my phings better!
Read More