I have a game!
It's written in Munky Monkey!
But... Am I ready to buy the language yet?

hmmm..

I'm going to give this an extra week.

Next week's game (if I can do it in time) will be done using the GLBasic demo.
I'll spend a week, get the framework half-done, throw in a cheap-ass game, and post the result.

Then I'll decide.
maybe..

Will it be Monkey, or will it be GLBasic?
Find out, Soon!

Tomorrow : A cheap-ass frogger clone!

A few hours with Monkey today.

A game idea was planned (finally!) and attempted, but I realised I had rotation issues.
Tried and tried to get the rotate and scaling working together with numerous results.
One time the sprites were rotating away from their midpoints, another they were scaling all over the place, and on and on it went..
After a while everything seemed sorted.
Then I clicked to a different resolution, and it all went to hell again.

BAH!!!!

No matter, try again tomorrow.

Meanwhile, this is Chrome.


This is Firefox...


And this is IE...


Is all this worth it?!
Find out on Tuesday, when I may or may not release a game in my older BlitzMax framework!!!

Sometimes, things that happen at the other side of the world, still make you change your habits.

AGameAWeek returns next week.

I just thought of a really good game..
but... .. Not entirely sure how doable it'd be.
.. hmm.. another time perhaps..

Anyhoo, Monkey.
So far so good.
A .. "nice".. looking frontend, with a quick top-10 list, and a swooshy menu.

It'll get fixed up as time goes by, but for now I'm going to push on and try to build a quick test game.
Since Monkey can cope with Web/Desktop/Mobile systems, I need to consider different input methods.
I'm currently thinking that focussing on the Web version might be better.
Imagine it's a Flash game, code with a mouse pointer in mind, then strap on extras later.
So, Keyboard for the desktop edition, and multi-touch/accelerometer for mobile get added only once the game initially works..

Whether that'll work out, I'm not sure.
The idea of making AGameAWeek with only a mouse pointer is a little unnerving.
I do like my tappitytap frantic games.

Perhaps, instead, I might do each game as it comes, and only try porting it if it works well enough.
I'm not entirely sure, at this point, to be honest.

In fact, I'm still not 100% on the whole Monkey thing, yet.
It's raising. I'm probably up to about the 90's, now, but there are still niggling little things.

I can, from what I can see, only save one line of text.
foook!
For the current framework, that line of text is 30 highscores and 10 settings, all seperated by |'s,
It happily works for now, but for level editing, that'll be a bitch!

Seems that Mark might be forcing me to upgrade my server.
...
FFSMark, I'm not made of money!!

Take one part Asteroids, and mix in... um..
..
hmm...


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Another day pondering about the should/shouldn't monkey issue.
Another day wondering if I shouldn't just be writing a game..

I should be focusing on the important bits, but instead, my minds contemplating what could be.

We're in March.
Last March, I was using my brand new framework, creating lovely big character sprites, and making fancy colourful Mario styled games.

This week, monochrome Asteroids.

Hmmmm...

So, perhaps the color thing isn't actually that big of a deal, then? Maybe I'm worrying about something that I shouldn't.

I can code without recolouring sprites. I've got enough stupid little random get-out clauses to make games which look oddly similar!
I can manage that, can't I?

...

And then we move on to April.
I said that April would be JNKPlat month.
I wonder if that would be done in this new Monkey language?
What exactly will I be using, in a month's time?

I'm not entirely sure.

And I'm still not sure on what control method would work on an iPhing.

Oh dear... This is quite a decision.
Damn you, Mark!!!!!!!!

(and where's that Atari Jaguar support, already!?!)

Oh, Mark.. What have you done!
I was happily coding away at AGameAWeek, and now I'm stuck in this odd Will I/Won't I scenario, unsure as to what to do next..

I spent a few hours playing with Monkey again, Yesterday, and am still unsure which is the better path.
Monkey has no recolouring for sprites. That's a pretty big deal, and is a bit of a biggy when your onscreen text is sprites. No sprite colors means one text color.
Even my Tandy TRS 80 could do more than one text color!!
But right now, the Monkey way is either one color, or one font-spritesheet for every color!
Bloody 'ell...

So I'm not sure if it's happening...
I'd like it to.
But... *sigh*

Meanwhile I spent a few hours messing around with a "framework".
This one isn't anywhere near as big as my 2010 one, but it's coming along nicely for something that's being done in a language I'm only just getting to grips with!

As I learn, more will happen. For now, I'm hoping things will continue smoothly.
But I worry.
A life in only one color?!
My lovely flames, swooshes and swirly things will never be random again....

This week saw the launch of "Monkey", the next-generation of BlitzBasic.


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I've written that as "Mr Spike" about 30-odd times, this week. *sigh* Really have to start a new iPhing game, some time!

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View on YouTube

Downloads!!
MP3
Extended MP3
and the origins are here for the mod and here for the clip.

I've gone nearly a whole week without posting anything.
That's not like me at all!

This week was my birthday, and although that day was nice and quiet, the rest of the week's been utter chaos, with 110 different things to be done..
No matter..
I just about got this week's AGameAWeek done, and although it's a bit of a short one, it's still nice and fun in a "Randomly darting around the screen" kind of way.


Like I said, not the greatest looking game, ever! But it works!

Tuesday : Mr Swing!!

Captain Wants Freedom

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I don't usually do Friday updates, but today, day two of working on this game, I got things looking quite nice.
Figured I might as well post about it.

No gameplay (collision detection/death/scores/etc) yet, but I got a nice simple looking engine going, as far as scrolling, base enemy and shooting's concerned.

The current enemy are Base enemy. They sit on the scrolling landscape, and shoot at you.


Next up, Waves!

Oh, and it's a horizontal shooter, 'cos doing widescreen Vertical shooters is really odd looking.

Forget Cassette 50, that's gone, bubye now!
4 rubbish semi-planned games is far too much garbage for one coder to take.
Let's instead return to our semi-rubbish unplanned games. They worked better!
Sometimes.

I asked on Twitter what I should do, the other day, and the first response was a vertical shooter.
Okeydokey!
Bits and pieces are coming together, art wise, and I'll start coding the thing over the weekend.
Hurray for unplanned chaos!

Although it'll be Horizontal....
I should point that out..
Mostly due to the fact that it's a bitch trying to do Vertical shooters when you have to account for a nice framework that allows for Widescreen stuff. d'oh!

Anyhoo, we're unplanned again, so if you have suggestions for next week, or any other week, start plopping them in the comments.
Bubye Cassette 50.
I tried, but in the end you were more shit than even I could handle!!

This week I remade Fantasy Center.
It didn't turn out well, I lost heart, and I have now, in fact, lost faith in the whole Cassette 50 project.
All these games really are a big bag of crap!
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You know what they say. If one PC break down, they all decide to do it simultaneously.
That's exactly what happened this week.

A PC at work literally fried last week. Power supply and motherboard were both dead dead, and the guy at work ended up having to buy a new laptop.
Having spent most of the week reinstalling and organising files, I got through to friday hoping to do my AGameAWeek.
Then found my PC was screwed, too, due to something dodgy.
Was it the new drivers I'd put in the day before?
Was it the Steam install of Half Life from the day before?
Or was it the Windows Update that'd installed about 10 minutes before the system bluescreened for the first time, of about 30-odd times?
...
Yup, think we found the culprit!

Suffice to say, I spent the weekend doing exactly the same damn thing I'd been doing all smegging week, and I'm really not in the right frame of mind to be writing a game, this week.
So, game loss.
Sorry all!

----
AGAW Score : 17 weeks, 11 Downloadables (inc 1 advent containing 25 games), 3 PlayMyCode, and an iPhing game =
plenty!

Friday morning, bright and early, ready to tackle this week's game.

Bluescreen!!

A restart later, the password entry pops up on Windows, and I'm ready to tackle this week's game.

Bluescreen!!!

Restart. Bluescreen!!!
Safe Mode. Bluescreen!!!!
Ubuntu. No bluescreen, but no access to windows partition. dang. forgot about that bit.

hmm..

This week's game is cancelled, due to me having to do a complete feckin' format, and everything that follows soon after, like removing all of HP's junk from startup, copying all my backup stuff back to the system, installing all my super-handy-codey tools, waiting for 3 hours for my huge MP3 archive to copy across, and a whole bunch of other stuff, too.
Oh, and I'll need to reinstall Ubuntu again, too. FFS

Tuesday : No game

Back at school I used to randomly write thoughts into my jotter. Not school-based stuff, of course. I was an idea-filled coder, back then!
Lately, the ideas are few and far between, as anyone who's been following AGameAWeek lately has noticed.

My "Waffle" was general thoughts about gui layouts, game thoughts, and then anything else that randomly appeared along the way.

I'm starting to think that it might be a good idea to restart that old habit.Read More

Note : PlayMyCode is no longer available

A slight change this week.
I was planning to do AGameAWeek as usual, but was somewhat thrown off course by a request to make games, instead!


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This week there shall be no AGameAWeek.

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