August 26th 2009
That's the last time I did a Mailbag post!
Blinkin' eck!
Over the past 6/7 months, I've occasionally dipped into the mailbag and plucked out little snippets, but I figured it was about time I did a proper one.

I don't usually repost this here, but. What the hey!<br>
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(URL "https://groups.google.com/group/socoder-newsletter">Sign up, it's fun, and weekly, and written!!)<br>
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*Very ranty, and quite wordy!*

1. If anyone with an iSomething has the TurfWars app, I'm in there as ROVER546
2. Adverts. I shoved these on about a week ago, and they're not being clicked, but at least they don't seem to be ticking folk off! Google ads are nice and neat, and behave themselves.
If you do find one that does misbehave, let me know! Seriously, let me know!!! Screenshots tell all..
I don't trust 'em, but as long as they're not annoying folk, that's good enough.
3. Curr...

The titlescreen of future games requires many things.
1. Title of Game
2. Credits
3. Highscores

Blimey!!
Step 1. (3/4 hours)
After about 3 or 4 hours spent prodding Ubuntu to actually get it to install properly, I finally managed to get it up and running by downloading a different Ubuntu, and installing it onto a thumbstick instead..
Step 2. (10 seconds)

For something that just looks like this..
<a href="https://socoder.net/uploads/1/bmaxtesting_game.png"><img src="https://socoder.net/uploads/1/bmaxtesting_game_thumb.png"></a>
.. I have actually but a heck of a lot of work into the framework, so far!
Take a peek inside to find out some nice nuggets of info, and take a look at the future of AGameAWeek!!

Contact

Email : Jayenkai@Gmail.com
YouTube : Jayenkai
Patreon : Jayenkai
Facebook : Jayenkai

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Russian?
If you're russian and you're actually realistically posting something, stick a little bit of english in there, so I can tell! There's over 100 bits of spam in russian, in my akismet filter, and I can't tell what's real and what isn't.. so.. It's all gonna go, 'cos I can't be bothered google-translating each and every bit of spam!!

Tracking Back to Spam
Spambots are getting rather complex, and even worse are those horrible nasty little web...

The ball from Pong, the gameplay from Tetris. The name seemed blindingly obvious to me.
But over the course of the past few days, I've received an inordinate number of complaints about the name.
It should be Breakout, it should be Asteroid, what!?

It's that unexpected time, where I randomly choose to rummage through the bundles of silly game ideas, and pluck out the best/worst!
Let's throw out the spam, and get started.
..
FFS, there's a lot of spam!

Hello all, Welcome to year two!
This year, I'll be keeping track of the weeks, and games, and things like that, so we can tally up as we go along.
Week 1, Game 1, 1:1 ratio! Good stuff!
This week's game isn't a game. It's more of a toy.

Microbes is (URL "https://AGameAWeek.com/?p=203">here) : Capital letters don't work in the URL, but RetroGamer uses them anyway..

WebUser Magazine have a rather interesting idea. Each issue, they make a list of all the links included in that issue, and post it onto their forum.
Lazy folk who can't be arsed to type can then go to that post on the forum and use that as they flick through the magazine.
I honestly think it's a fantastic...

The AGameAWeek 2008-2009 Retrospective

(URL "https://www.agameaweek.com/2009/08/agameaweek-2008-2009-part-one/">Part One), (URL "https://www.agameaweek.com/2009/08/agameaweek-2008-2009-part-two/">Part Two), (URL "https://www.agameaweek.com/2009/08/agameaweek-2008-2009-part-three/">Part Three), (URL "https://www.agameaweek.com/2009/08/agameaweek-2008-2009-part-four/">Part Four), (URL "https://www.agameaweek.com/2009/08/agameaweek-2008-2009-part-five/">Part Five)

The Home Str...

The AGameAWeek 2008-2009 Retrospective

(URL "https://www.agameaweek.com/2009/08/agameaweek-2008-2009-part-one/">Part One), (URL "https://www.agameaweek.com/2009/08/agameaweek-2008-2009-part-two/">Part Two), (URL "https://www.agameaweek.com/2009/08/agameaweek-2008-2009-part-three/">Part Three), (URL "https://www.agameaweek.com/2009/08/agameaweek-2008-2009-part-four/">Part Four), (URL "https://www.agameaweek.com/2009/08/agameaweek-2008-2009-part-five/">Part Five)

Alien...

I'm not really sure if this is good, to be honest, but here it is anyway..
Counters Strike

BlitzBasic Sourcecode included.

Sorry!!
With all the time spent playing around with Java and MidletPascal, this week, along with the time spent on H~S~R, we seem to have hit a bit of a low point.
Still, no matter, here's a "fun" game!
Dusty.

1st attempted Java App.
It's a nice quicky program.
Pick a time, click start, when time's up it plays a tune.
..

Yeah, I figured I'd forgotten a few things, and as Sokoban gets built up, slowly but surely, all the forgotten things are poking their heads out, waiting to be sorted.
Click inside for coder-heavy stuff.. or just grab Sokoban from earlier today and play that for a while!!

My mum likes crosswords!!!
And, heck. I like crosswords, too!
Except, the trouble is, there's not really a decent crossword game on the DS.
Don't get me wrong, there's a fair few games, and The Times (released this week) in particular, has a cracking selection of clues/answers, and some really nice layouts.

This week's Wednesday Workshop <a href="https://socoder.net/index.php?topic=1414">#186</a> was to create a nice Asteroids game.
As I started creating it, I was planning a nice Horizontal Shooter-esque game, with powerups and all kinds of crazyness.
But I ran out of steam midway.
A shame..

*sigh*
I must apologise..
I assumed I was right.

Never assume you're right!

A sigh of relief, as the game is finally in an upload worthy state.
I'm sure there's plenty of bugs, mounds of forgotten features, and odd little untweaked things that aren't quite right, but what's here is plenty enough to be counted as Release 1.
<a href="https://agameaweek.com/?Game=37">
Download Alien Deathmatch 2</a> 3Mb!!!

The main menu of AD2 is still pretty much a blank screen! Albeit a red blank screen, with a couple of white rectangles sliding into place..
So is the addiction of the game at this point, that it's quite easy to click the mouse, and accidentally play for 20-minutes.. whoops!
I have managed to tweak a few ingame things, though. And the Menu -> Game -> Menu transitions are more or less working, except for one small thing.
I'm not sure how to fade in a level, at this point.

I spent most of this week rebuilding a few of my older games with the new Highscore stuff, so there's a couple of nice new-ish games to play.

First off, we've the 3rd version of Horizontal Shooter.. <a href="https://agameaweek.com/?Game=49">Get it here</a>. It's pretty much the same as ever, but with Mr Scouter from the original, thrown back in for good luck.
The new highscore method should help ward off nasty hackers from the scoreboard system.. Or at least for a...