With all the Mac stuff, I've not had a chance to do a new game.
NOOoooooo!!!!!!
I suppose I could rush something in the next 24 hours, but I'm much rather be playing with those extra trimming, and getting things a little nicer.

First off, Gravity Bombs. Not touched it yet, but it definitely needs at least one tweak. .. the Mac's "Superior" (bah) Magic Mouse has a lot going for it, but it also has an inability to right click whilst holding down the left mouse button. Which is prett...

Gettin' a wee bit messy, this week, isn't it.. hmm.. Lots going on, and commenting all over the place.
Might need to do something about that..
Anyhoo...
WarioWare DIY

I've spent ages working on the whole Music Engine thing, and so far it's not sounded 100% great.
Today's work got it up to about 75%, or thereabouts.
As Background music, it does it's job. As anything more, it's a little lacking. So I think I'll just say "That'll do!" and carry on.
JNKPlat 2010 + random'ish music, coming soon!
I'd post a new High-Def screenshot, but you can't really screenshot music, and I've not really done any new graph...

First up, this week's game will be Blockman in a Mario Costume. Greenie looked great in his costume, but he's a lost cause, and I'm moving on.
Blockman will return to his original Flicky style gameplay, with the Mario Costume acting as a power up to give him an amazing new ability! Combo scores aplenty!
After that, we're done with Mar10, so I can start playing with fresh, original, and fantastically new ideas..
Speaking of which, Tetripong is apparently needed on the DS, so that'll probab...

Awww
This week I've been ill, and between website tweaks, and lying in bed half-dead, I've not really had time to get anything done.
This morning, I managed to wake up, and was bright and alert.
I figured it was probably a good chance to get something done, so I grabbed the half-assed sprites, popped them into an engine, and got them running in a right facing direction.
Adding random pipes, and the ability to jump over them, I'd made a 1980's...

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.

As most of you know, I'm a bit crap at designing levels. I tend to leave that kind of thing to random generators, or other people!
Today I'm designing a level, and it's taking AGES!
It's already 10 o'clock, I've been at it for about 2 hours, and I've managed to make about 1/8th of a level.
That's 1/4 of it done, for those counting!

Moving from DS to iPod Touch has been a decent improvement, but.. boy, do I miss having buttons!!
There's also a fair few other little bits and pieces that aren't quite right.
WordJong, for starters, is only about 1/10th of the game it was on the DS, And, what's up with the audio, it's like something keeps messing with the sounds on the thing.
I dunno..

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

Part one of today's awesomeness is a huge update to last week's game.
I was going to do a seperate game, but I've had no time, what with working on the music stuff all week.
Dangit.
And, wouldn't you know, I even forgot to make any music for this, too!

Today's updates.
1. A change of instruments
2. An accompaniment
3. More channel-specific so as to stop instrument overlap.

A full day's work, and this is the result.

It should be noted that this is very early stages, and that I really oughta try and find some nice instruments, but this is the first proper test of my new Framework Music Engine.
That is, I shove in a few bits of melody, chord, bass and drums, and the framework fiddles about, and plays with the tune, creating a constantly evolving background tune that'll continue to sound nice and playful throughout the entire game.

A nice slow paced game is due for tomorrow, or at least it's currently slow! It might not be by tomorrow, but right now it is!!
A nice almost rpg-but-not, done on a small map, with lots of random elements to try and keep things moving.
The game relies on the Badges to expand the character, thus giving me an excuse to spend a week working on the badge part of the framework. All is well in Framework-land!
Oh, except the controls aren't done!

Engine's now ready for any and all future word-based games that I might randomly decide to build. The wordlist adds 970Kb to a game's exe when added, and when asked it spends about 100milliseconds hunting through the complete list for a word.
Luvly.
So, with that out of the way I'm heading back to Centipong.
You'd think, about 4 weeks into the whole Framework thing, that things would be more or less finished.

legoman4032 asked in the Youtube comments if I had mp3's.
Who am I to argue..
(URL "https://AGameAWeek.com/music/ingame/Pain.mp3">Pain.MP3) The version from the YouTube video!
(URL "https://AGameAWeek.com/music/ingame/Pain%20Extended.mp3">Extended), via the basic use of a repeaty bit in the middle, but in an instrumental stylee!

By now you've probably routed around inside the JayArchive.
It's a nice thing to flick through, but sometimes folk can't be bothered to download 150+ seperate little downloads.
So, rather than leave it up to random picking, here's 11 nice big zip files, with EVERYTHING for Windows. (up until today)
Each big zip file is numbered with it's associated JayRank.

This week has taken many twists and turns.
I started off making a nice game with a snowman, then that turned into a game with Greenie, then the new PC turned up and I spend a day or two playing with that but the whole network's down, and now I'm waiting on a new Router being delivered! blimey!
Meanwhile it's a chore getting from one system to the other, and that means I'm relying on a slightly-dodgy-not-quite-Win7-compatible edition Paintshop Pro 7 and a slightly-dodgy-not-quite...

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Socoder Newsletter
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Blimey, that got complex!
<a href="https://socoder.net/uploads/1/blockmansGreatBigMenu.png"><img src="https://socoder.net/uploads/1/blockmansGreatBigMenu_thumb.png"></a>
Starting with "World 1-1, 2-1, 3-1, 4-1, 5-1" I built a set of sideways Arcade menu start points.
Then I added the old "J/K" gameplay options in the style of World 10-1 and World 25-1.. Although from 6-1 and after, the theme isn't predetermined, and it's just picking random themes each time!

Like I suggested yesterday, those one-way arrows could lead to some serious deadends, so rather than allowing the game to plonk them down willy-nilly, I've brought back Path Mode's AI.
Path Mode will work the way it used to, a trail of dots leading to an eventual deadend..
But we'll also be using it to find paths for the arrows.
Find a path, pick 4 or 5 points at random, add the arrows.

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Socoder Newsletter
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RPG
Here's what's done.
1. Characters
2. Main character

I'd better get this game done, this week! It's getting a wee bit unruley. I need to pull in the ideas a bit and just get the game finalised.
Today I've been playing with the map again.
(URL "https://socoder.net/uploads/1/superQuestMap.png"><img src="https://socoder.net/uploads/1/superQuestMap_thumb.png">

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!

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)

Back to work...

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)

AGame...