I might make this a monthly feature, or then again I might forget all about it!
Who can tell!!
If it's popular, someone will remind me!

Here's Platdude in a precarious position, for January!
Click for HUGE!!

You can Download Lazy Man's 3DS Theme Generator here, but you'll need a couple more utilities on your system to make full use of it.

Editing Themes

To edit 3DS Homebrew Themes, you'll need a decent editor. I use the editor "Usagi"
You can download that here
For reference, the version I use is v1.0.12.1 - I'm not sure if there are other (better or worse) editors available, as I found this one and was comfortable using it.

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Today marks the initial Japanese release of Petit Computer for Switch (PetC4) and .. well, I'm a coding addict, so you know I HAVE to at least get SpikeDislike up and running.

There's a few stumbling blocks.. well, one, really, and that is that I don't know any Japanese whatsoever.

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If you've been following AGameAWeek for the past few years, you'll have noticed the occasional blip, where I've mentioned having a repeating neck cramp, with accompanying migraines. These have gotten steadily worse, up until early March 2012, when I was curled over the toilet bowl, throwing up a worryingly black goo of sorts.
Enough was enough!

An ambulance was called, and after my blood pressure failed to register (too high!?) I was whizzed off to Bolton general where they continued to test my blood pressure, over and over again. Luckily they also decided to do a CT scan, because that's where they finally found the tumour, nestled in between my brain and my spine.
eek!
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Geeze, these are old!!



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In the Amazon package to my left..
A brand new Keyboard and Mouse.



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I've added "Laps" to Mancala in the ShoeBox, but ... crikey, is it hard to keep track of!

AL is utterly baffled by this new style of play, so don't expect him to be a great challenge. If I can find a good method of play, I'll work that into AL's brain, but for the minute, he's a bit dumb in this mode.

.. To be fair, so am I, and the Laps mode ends up being a game of Pot Luck!

You can Play Mancala in the Shoebox, in the "One on One" section. The Laps setting is in the Rules.

Two years ago, I was riding high.
I was preparing to launch the biggest and (IMHO) best EVER version of SpikeDislike.

SpikeDislike3 was due to be, without a doubt, one of my most important releases EVER.
I'd put months of work into it, and if anyone knows me, they know that that's a HUGE amount of effort from me.

It was ready, it passed Apple Review, it launched, and then I released the Android one.

All was good!
All was golden!!
\o/hurray for mobile gaming\o/

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Each week, after a game's release, people submit their thoughts on whether they liked or disliked the results.

If you'd like to join in with the feedback, leave a comment on the game, email me, or just Tweet at me!

This week's game is Monsters Ate My Cheesecake!

RSKGames

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There are hundreds of great sites that I should probably link to, and much like linking to my hundreds of games, I've always found it a bit of a mess once I start trying to cram it all into a small sidebar on the right of the site.

As such, I've finally opted to create one great big link-page, full of everything I could think of within the short hour or so that it took to add it!
If you're missing from this page, let me know!!

Programming Languages BlitzBasic I've used pretty much every flavour of BlitzBasic since the Amiga, and I'm still using it today. BlitzBasic, Blitz2D, Blitz3D, BlitzPlus and more recently, BlitzMax have all held a special place in my Archive. About 90% or more of my games are written using a Blitz language. Monkey-X Monkey-X is a Cross-Compiler language, with modern day mobile-device targets available, as well as the main exe's and even HTML5 and Flash. Monkey is my current language of choice. And it's even created by the Blitz team, too.. (Boy, am I a fanboy, or what!?) PlayMyCode Created by brothers Joe and Seb Lenton, PlayMyCode is a fully featured programming language that exists inside your browser. Create an account (free) and you can code your own little games directly inside the website, and then play the games inside your browser. You can also share your games with others, who can also peek inside your code, and even Fork your projects to create their own offsprings. It's a wonderful little website, and I've made oodles of games using the thing. Cocos2D A few of my iOS games were created using Cocos2D. I found it to be a nice comfortable library, it worked pretty well, and it did exactly what I needed it to. It's a good language, especially since it's free. The only reason I stopped using it was because Monkey-X came along, and saved me the hassle of having to port everything to different languages all the time!

Rapid Developers OneGameAMonth Website creator @McFunkypants decided to take the concept of AGameAWeek, and transform it into something more stable, and achievable. He created a website where developers could post their monthly projects, and would gain scores for doing it. It's easy enough to get started. Just log in with your twitter account, and post a link to your first project. Then a month later, add the next.. And then another! CaffeineKid CaffeineKid jumped on board with the whole OneGameAMonth idea, and has successfully managed to create a whole bunch of great little Android and OUYA games over the course of 2013. Unfortunately, he's not updated his blog since April, so I've just linked to his #1GAM page, instead! Make365 Alexander Shen has taken things in entirely the opposite direction, and decided to try to create something new EVERY SINGLE DAY!!! From simple craftworks, to larger projects, Alex is really taking on an epic project, and it'll be fun to watch him attempt to create new things through the entire year! NMcCoy For a while, NMcCoy was trying the whole "AGameAWeek" thing, too, but then one of his games got ripped off, BIG TIME, and .. then.. it all ground to a halt. He continues to make games, and has recently switched from a basic blog-style website, to a totally forum-based site, where he posts frequent screenshots and other things.

Twittersphere A random selection of folk on Twitter, in no particular order. Spinal_Cord : Fiddles with old-tech to make new things. LorenBednar : Makes lovely spritesheets CaffeineKid : Makes plenty of games! GigerPunk : Makes videos of his old C64 collection.. Also, has many chickens! RetroRemakes : Rob makes games with very flashy graphics! Nyarluu : Creates lovely retro-styled games, full of colour. MadGarden : Created GlitchMachine on iOS! Also made lots of other more popular stuff, but GlitchMachine FTW!!! Ste Pickford : Created Plok, and Sticky Balls, and Magnetic Billiards, and loads of other stuff! McFunkypants : Created OneGameAMonth. chinnyhill10 : His avatar is an Amstrad. o/yeayo/ Jamie84303 : Writes for SentralGamer.com. Craig Grannell : An Apple Fanatic, and frequently published magazine writer. Another World : Enjoys playing retro/handheld games. Sobtanian : *BLOCKED*

Forums SoCoder The spiritual successor to BlitzCoder and CodersWorkshop has been up and running since 2006. It doesn't look awesome, it uses oldskool html techniques, and it relies on an old crapped out, creaky server which is in desperate need of an update. ... But it still works, and it's got a fully fledged oldskool community of coders standing by to help with any obscure coding queries. Fact : SoCoder was hand-carved by my very own hands, using Programmer's Notepad and not much else!! If you ever need to discuss something in a forum style layout, that's the best place to reach me. RetroRemakes The community hub for all things retro. The site used to be entirely about making remakes of classic games, but over the years has sprawled into a general all-purpose retro meeting area. If you want the heads up on anything blocky and pixelated, this is probably the best place to find it. Curly's World of Freeware A lovely community of Freeware-Hunters, who scour the internet in the hopes of finding the best free games that are out there. More Other random sites you might spot me on, are.. GBATemp A site dedicated to hacking, homebrew, and other such stuff. TouchArcade If you've got an iOS device, this is the forum for you! TIGSource A forum for Indies, which mostly got trashed when the whole Kickstarter thing turned up.

Developments

Ugh.. Right when I'm in the middle of a good coding spell, down I go with Flu'ish gubbins again.
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Developments

Pixel-based collision detection is all but impossible with Monkey-X, due to the simple issues of rotation and scaling, along with more complicated screen resolution and orientation complications, and then the complete lack of 100% accuracy when it comes to drawing to buffers. (Although that last one is mostly down to Android, which likes to dither any and all images when the screen doesn't quite have full colour available.)
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Developments

Hey, look at that!
2 iOS Releases in 2 weeks!
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A smallish, but needed improvement to ALs Mancala abilities.
Players of v0.9858 should find that ALs a little bit smarter, targeting your possible captures, as well as aiming for his Mancala pot a little better.
It's not "much" of a change, but he is a bit harder.

I've not yet added Laps into the mix!
Maybe tomorrow?

Crikey, RSKGames has already sent his Player Thoughts..
Guess I'd better hurry up and get those last few tweaks in place..

@RSKGames

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Mancala is now in the Shoebox!

You can Play Mancala in the "One On One" section of the Shoebox.

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During level generation, I usually set walls/floors to "1", and then pad things out around those 1's.

Yesterday, I struggled to figure out why enemy placements were so very few and far between, until I realised that I was randomising the floor tiles between 1 and 6.
The enemies were only appearing atop the rare 1 floor tiles.
*tsk* silly me.

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The seeds (gems in this case) of Mancala are now managing to complete a full circle!

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