As with all years, this year's had it's ups and downs.
After last year's Gap-Year, it felt good to get back into the thick of things, and I started the year off with some rather odd ideas.
As the year went on, the ideas fizzled out, and we got back into regular "Dodge the X, Collect the Y" territory, which is a bit of a shame.
And then there was the EPIC disaster that is Gamma Collexion.

-=-=-

The Good

As I flick through the list of game I've done this year, one thing strikes me.
I've done a LOT of great games, this year!

Fun oddities, like No Plumbing Required, where the player has to leap from side to side, to stay upright, and Fan of Bugs where you need to avoid monsters and fans.


MASSIVE games, like Geartography, where people submitted hundreds of little dotty pictures that were turned into GearWorks style levels, and PlatCross which reused hundreds of Daily Platdude Pixelarts as Picross levels.
>

And then there's Space Station A6-100, which is like proper Alien Breed, but with Alien Deathmatch mixed in, together, into one crazy oddity.


My favourites, if I had to rank them, would be..
5. Widdal's Wander
4. Spikes Have Rage
3. 8-Bit Boulders
2. Army of Flags
1. Space Station A6-100

An Excellent Collexion!

-=-=-

The Bad

Of course, not everything can be great, and this year's had it's fair share of stinkers.
Most notably was the tragedy of Gamma Collexion. This year's Advent Calendar of Games was supposed to be all about the multiplayer, but due to a bizarre number of failures, the entire thing is pretty much entirely single player.
Which is a shame, because it would've been great.


And then there's Penguin Parade.
I'd intended this game to be a great big Lemming'ish game, playable on your controller.
It more or less worked, but unfortunately I decided that it'd be a great idea to link all the levels together.
This meant that even testing a single powerup meant going back to the start and replaying every single level all over again.
Having to do that within the space of 2 weeks, I still only just managed to make a handful of levels.
It was a terrible decision, and hopefully one that I've learned from.


Other bad games included Dice and Spikes and Springy Grid, both of which didn't quite turn out as I was hoping.
But at least they're vaguely playable, even if they are a little too random.


-=-=-

The Conclusion

2016 Game List

Downloadables : 34
Games : 59

They might not have been weekly, but I still managed it.

I've learned a few new techniques over this year, and put a number of game ideas into action that I normally wouldn't tackle within a week. I guess I'm getting much faster at all this!
There are still stinkers along the way, but I'm starting to improve enough that those are (hopefully) becoming less common.

As I prepare for 2017, I'm currently rebuilding my entire framework, and will hopefully be ready in the coming days, to get started on another year's worth of AGameAWeek.
Whether they'll turn out as well as this year's gatherings have, I'm not sure.
But be sure you stick around to find out!

It's time to kick off this whole thing, all over again!

AGameAWeek - Not every week, but trying!!

You can find all 2016's games on my Archive.