<img src="https://socoder.net/AGAWGold_128.png" style="float:left;">AGameAWeek Gold looks back at years gone by, plucking out games that I've previously released on this day in history.
Sometimes they're good.
Sometimes they're terrible.
.. and othertimes, there's more than one!!

<img src="https://socoder.net/AGAWGold_256.png" style="float:left;">
AGameAWeek Gold looks back on the history of my huge Jayenkai Archive.
Each day, we trawl through the archive to find games which have been previously released on this day in history.
Some days, there are no games.

For the next few days, until April 16th 2013, Sheep Goes Left will be half-price, over at the <a href="https://bit.ly/SheepGoesLeft">iOS AppStore</a>.
To celebrate this random decision, here's...

A Brief'ish History of Sheep Goes Left

After SpikeDislike was released, one of the AppStore reviewers complained that there's no way to save your progress, and that the infinitely continuing level was an issue because there are no checkpoints, and no ending.
...

Many many many many many people have asked me how on earth I manage to cram game making into the space of a single week.
Ironically, most of those people seem to have forgotten that they, themselves, have previously taken part in Ludum Dare "Make a game in only 48 hours" style competitions.
Hmm..!
Anyway, today's rambling waffling blog is about the steps I take to ensure I can achieve AGameAWeek.

A good old fashioned old-skool platforming game, harking back to the good old days of Manic Miner and that sort of thing.
This week is VERY Manic Miner esque.
Collect the items to open the door, dodge the baddies, jump around, die a lot, get to the exit, sorted!!
<a href="https://AGameAWeek.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/ssa1.png"><img src="https://AGameAWeek.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/ssa1-300x225.png" alt="" title="ssa" width="300" height="225" class="alignnone size-medium w...

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...

I've been asked to chip in on this whole Kickstarter issue. If you follow me on Twitter (@Jayenkai) you'll have noticed my dislike of people spamming my twitter feed with constant requests for cash. It's annoying when you get into the busy periods, have your own cash issues to worry about, but still get bombarded by tens of hundreds of requests a day for things that don't yet exist.
As a cash strapped indie dev, I'm in exactly the same situation as most of these guys, with the si...

<a href="https://AGameAWeek.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/02/One-Turtle-Dove-Screenshot_13-Feb-2012_121739.png"><img src="https://AGameAWeek.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/02/One-Turtle-Dove-Screenshot_13-Feb-2012_121739-300x187.png" alt="" title="One Turtle Dove (Screenshot_13 Feb 2012_121739)" width="300" height="187" class="alignright size-medium wp-image-2322" /></a>
It's Valentines Day, and what better way to celebrate than to play a game with a slightly askew title!
This i...

<a href="https://AGameAWeek.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/AGameAWeek2012_large.png"><img src="https://AGameAWeek.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/AGameAWeek2012_large-300x300.png" alt="" title="AGameAWeek2012_large" width="300" height="300" class="alignright size-medium wp-image-2214" /></a>
I still haven't finished NeonPlat Adventures iOS yet, so I'm jumping between a whole lot of work at the moment. As a result, the first few AGameAWeek games aren't going to be the most...

Thankyou Santa!!

My issue with Super Mario 3D Land isn't the fact that it's in 3D.
My issue is with the fact that the gameplay's in 3D.

A lot of elements are currently coming together, and things are getting a little more chaotic than I'd like them to be around Xmas time.
If the past 2 years of Xmas themed chaos (12 games of Xmas, Advent Collection) have taught me one thing, it's not to EVER plan anything around Xmas!
Presents, family visits and the general filling of my face with Xmas cake, will usually get in the way of the coding time, and as such I decided not to push myself into anything moronic this year.
I apologise...

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!

On Tuesday, things had started to go annoyingly slowly..
That part where the number of bug fixes grossly outweighs the number of fun happy additions you can be enjoying adding to your game.
But I did a lot of fixes on Tuesday!

One of the hardest things about adding baddies to this game is, surprisingly for me, not actually drawing things!
With NeonPlat I've created a weird skewed world, where nothing looks exactly as it should.
This gives me a little artistic license with my artwork. .. or rather, I can be shit, and nobody'll notice!
If something looks a little too odd, I simply make it look odder in the animation, and it somehow cobbles together nicely.

You could say I crapped out, and gave up.
I aimed for 52. I aimed for a 2nd whole year's worth of games, within a startlingly short amount of time.
..
But I probably would've managed it..

Too tired..
Instead, I've been working on Sheep Goes Left DS, which is proving 17,000,000,000% more popular than it's iOS rival.
Quite why, I don't know, but the fact that it's being mentioned quite a bit is a good sign.

(Apologies, it's a bit "half-asleep/randomly ranty/jumping through topics/freeflow" today!!)
As an iDev guy, I get 50 codes per Update for all my games. I can hand these out to reviewers or folk I know.
Handy.
So, off they go, sent out, willy nilly, to all the reviewers/people I can find, and see where it takes me.

I woke up bright and early, planning to get a whole load done on my DaisyChains game, today.
I started the day by installing iOS5 v3. This was a bad idea.
It took me about 2 hours to get everything installed, reinstall XCode, get the new iOS5v3 iPod and Xcode working together, and then wait for all the apps to pop back onto the iPod.
*grr*

Lately I've done a half-a-dozen games where the main player must go left.
I've decided to take a break from that, and made a super-imaginative new plan.
In today's game, the player goes right!

Got the Google Plus thing today and spent about an hour or so playing about with it's features.
Twitter Lists seems the closest thing to it, in that you follow people, separate them into different groups, then flick through the groups to read/interact.
Unlike Twitter Lists, though, here the grouping works both ways.. Now I could happily clump a bunch of iOS reviewers into a single group and quickly fire off a PR'ish spam bucket to all of 'em at once, without pissing off all my regular "we want c...

Today I'm focussing my blog on iOS trials and tribulations. The basic steps of designing a game when working with iOS.
These are pretty simple things, and should be apparent, but .. having played a fair number of iOS games.. they're not always done!
Note, this isn't really about my actual development, as such, more the train of thought that generates the end result.
In a future bloggy thing, I might focus more on the what/where, than the how/why that this does. Let me know if ...

Because sometimes you notice Platdude on the bottom of your generic tiles spritesheet and go "hmm.. what could I do quickly with Platdude"...

AGameAWeek teaches us one thing.
Some games you win, some games you lose.
When you lose, there's not a lot you can do.
Pick yourself up, dust yourself off, and move on.

Seem to be having a bit of a down-session, lately.
I'm pretty sure it's down to the fact that Sheep Goes Left is going mostly ignored.
I'm going to try and give it a bit of a shove in a day or two, once the Lite edition shows up, but judging by the fact that it's getting next to no interest, I think we're already at the "aw well, next!" point.
Damn, that's depressing!

Bonus iOS Game!
<a href="https://bit.ly/SheepGoesLeft">For iPhone, iPod Touch and iPad</a> (£1.19/$1.99/equiv.)

Got an iPhone/iPod Touch/iPad?