Developments

Yesterday was spent coding. Like, properly coding.. Like games and stuff!!
It feels such a relief not having to faff about with controller code and other boring background gubbins, and instead spend some time actually making a game for a change.
Beta Collection now has THREE games in it, as I managed to get two complete games up and running within the short space of yesterday.
I then relaxed and enjoyed the Back To The Future documentary "Back In Time" which i...

Developments

"A Quick Test", I said to myself.
"Should only take a few minutes", I thought.
Two hours later, with no result whatsoever, I opted to call it a night, and instead focussed on Beta Collexion.

Developments

The new FlarePlay (PlayJam's GameStick replacement) thing is apparently having issues, and crashing a LOT with my games.
I'm hoping to fix them up during a second pass through the 42 games, and for now am simply uploading as-is until I can fix them all up. But at the moment it's looking like I'll need to have a GameStick version and a FlarePlay version of all my games, which is a bit of a pain in the arse, if I'm honest!
The whole point of the fixups was that these ...

Developments

Given that I've got so much on my plate, what with having to fix up the 42 OUYA games, and get NeonPlat's Cosmic Adventure done, you'd probably not expect me to start a new project right now.
Ooops!
Last night I took Alpha Collexion, stripped out all the games and graphics, and settled down to do it all again.

Hello all.
If you're a regular reader, prepare to be marginally disappointed.
Today's release is NOT for you
Today I'm releasing a private beta edition of SpikeDislike2 (currently for Windows or Android) to people who would like to blog about it, and help publicise it's existence.
<a href="https://AGameAWeek.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/02/deargodno2.png"><img src="https://AGameAWeek.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/02/dear...

Before starting development on NeonPlat Adventures, I took great care to test all the alternatives.
I'd read online about OSX Lion breaking Blitz, and people needing to fuck about with lots of settings and things.
The scary part was that developing on Lion would probably break compatibility with Snow Leopard.
As such, I made a few test engines, and got people with Lion to test my games, to be 100% sure that, if I stuck with Snow Leopard, my games would be 100% compatible with BOTH sets...

When I was building the beta versions of NeonPlat Adventures, it always included a little readme file.
The final release didn't have one, but I figured that was ok, because it was so simple it didn't really need one.
The original readme was only really there to explain that beta peeps shouldn't mention the Calendar, and then I kinda rambled on a bit!
Anyhoo, if you find yourself in desperate need of a readme file, this is it!

I wasn't aiming to do the Final Beta until about Wed/Thursday this week.
Today, the Final Beta went out.
A few days early, but there was nothing more I could come up with.
The game is done.

And I've still got a todo-list as long as my leg!!!
If I want a few people to beta-test the final-ish edition, that's gotta be done by about Wednesday, I think.
So, I have about 5 days or so to get everything done, now.
After that, hope for the best, and get everything bundled for the coming Sunday.

Before I headed off to work, I made a new little video.
Or, rather, I tried to make a "little" video, yet it inexplicably ended up at over 300Mb!!!
WHAAA!?!?
So, with an approximate 450 Minutes remaining on the clock, I left for work, and the upload continued.

And I'll be doing nothing again, today.
.. well..
.. I say nothing..
What I mean is, I don't have a great big 12 item checklist to do, and I won't be struggling to type by the end of the day!!

Today, I became a complete and total recluse!
It was the only way it was all going to get crammed into the day.
Let's go through last night's list, shall we?

I've done a LOT of work since yesterday.
All 50 hats are in, 50 chrs are in, and I've stripped out a whole bunch of annoying quirky bugs.
There's one really annoying "Got stuck again" issue that I need to weed out, but I can't figure out the best way to do it, so I'll point it out in the beta tomorrow, for those who are getting it.
SPOILER ALERT

Gah!
Extra hats today!
I now need about 3 hats, and annoyingly I think I might need an extra bunch of baddies, which also means more hats!
D'oh!

Tonight, I started implementing a few of the hat suggestions, from a couple of days ago.
This really is a mad dash, at this point, as I desperately try to get hats and badges all bundled into the game's code, ready for the Friday beta.
There's still going to be masses of things missing from Fridays beta, like a Game Over screen, and an Adventure Complete! thing.. stuff like that.
But for the most part, yet again, this will be a nice release candidate.
..It won't be releas...

Today's been total utter chaos.
I wrote a bunch of little Badges (Awards?!) the other day, so I've spent today trying to wrangle the code together so that they actually work.
See inside for some oddly missing information.

This is the plan.
Week 1
This Friday I'm launching Beta2, so I have until Friday to add an alarming number of things.
I thought I was on track, but then realised I needed...

Phase One was the simple test engine I release WAY WAY back in the very early stages of this humongous project.. .. last month!
Phase One was a basic engine, with simple platforming mechanics.
Taking the rules of NeonPlat and adding a scrolling background, I wanted to judge if it'd be enjoyed.
True, one piece of feedback was a little downbeat, but on the whole it's been well appreciated.
You can't please everyone, but the original's not broken, so hopefully that makes...

Tap inside to see Jiro25 playing the NeonPlat Adventures Beta!

Last night I sat down to jot a few readme notes for the Beta Testers.
By the time I was done, I'd inexplicably written 1500 words of gubbins!
Whoops!

I'm in preparation mode, now, and am trying to fix the outer shell of NeonPlat Adventures, so that the game looks a little less rough around the edges, for all the people who'll be playing the lovely beta edition on Friday.
Today I worked on the menu a little, fiddled with that "about" section that I never bother to fill in, and added nice level open/close sweepy things that make things look a little less slapped together.
They're still just slabs of coloured rectangles, but they swo...

Over the past year or so, I've done a few month-long iOS projects, but NeonPlat Adventures is the first time in a long time that I've tackled a nice big Windows/Mac/Linux project.
Today, 11th October 2011, marks the one-month anniversary since I officially started this project.

At the moment, I'm sending occasional beta editions of NeonPlat Adventures to two people.
One is AuthenticKaizen (/PixelProspector).
He got instant beta-status, because he started the whole NeonPlat thing.
This is all his fault!!

The plan
1. Do 3 quick pieces of music.
2. Finish off the 50-level version of Sheep DS.
3. Check it.

Happy sheepy updates for everyone!!! (Except the PC edition... not really sure what I'm doing with that one!)
<img src="https://socoder.net/uploads/1/SheepFake_256.png">