Over on my last JSE Scripting Engine post, Alan suggested the following...

I managed to make a new Foldapuz puzzle, yesterday.

Forcing AGameAWeek doesn't work..

Spent last night, lying awake, trying to come up with a good game for this week's SmileBASIC project.

I enjoyed my day off, yesterday. Got a few none-gamedev things worked out, and even started playing with paper again.
Wondering whether to bring back my old Paper Arcade crafts, expand the DVD Case images to fit properly and include a back, and maybe even some oldskool cardboard boxes and cassette inlays.
.. Yep, even when not coding, my mind is fizzling away, trying to keep itself busy and not worry about all the doom and gloom outside.

A decade is over, and what have I done?
373 games, created a new blogging script for here, rewritten the Socoder forum, started a few new sites and more!
Oh, and a brain tumour!
It's been a wild and crazy decade, and over the next few days I'll be looking back at the best (and worst) games from the decade.

It's been a long long time since I did a bog standard Snake clone, and yesterday's code session reminded me of just how utterly simplistic a snake clone can be.
Today I'll be making the tail follow the player, as it currently doesn't clear out as it goes, making things much harder for the player. Once that works, I'll be adding more tail-pieces as the player eats more, and then coming up with a soundtrack that matches the presentation of the game.

Developments

Trying to get a crate-puzzle level generator to work.. backwards.. was never a good idea!

( width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/T5n-WnV6jak" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen>>
Also available (URL "https://soundcloud.com/alodare/fanatically-clustered">on SoundCloud)

An interesting take on the usual Block-Falling gameplay.
Can you create colourful clusters?!

Developments

I finally gave the Tetris-alike a title, yesterday.
It now has a slightly (very slight!) different art style, some sounds, and a name!

( width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/p-FM_IXNv_M" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen>>
Also available on (URL "https://soundcloud.com/alodare/deconstructed-turnover">SoundCloud)

(URL "https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-33502838">RIP : Satoru Iwata)
As a kid, I was never a big Nintendo fan. I had a Gameboy and I LOVED Tetris, but much as is the case nowadays, I tend to code and create more than just play.
I continue to buy Nintendo consoles and handhelds, even today, because theirs are the games that I get the most fun and enjoyment out of.
Mr Iwata was first and foremost a developer, and I can only hope that Nintendo finds another suitably developer-minded he...

Developments

Here's how today should've been going.
"Woohoo! Yeay! SpikeDislike3! YIPPEEEEE!!!"
Here's how today's going..

A couple of months ago, I mentioned this game in passing..
(URL "https://AGameAWeek.com/2009/08/y2w2-tetripong/">TetriPong)
And immediately started looking into remaking it.
It was just after I'd released ChuckABall, was midway through BounceABall, and considered this as a possible extra "ABall" game to fit alongside them.

This week, I decided that I really oughta get a decent puzzle game onto the OUYA.
My first thought was to do a Tetris game, and recreate TetriPong, but as is usually the case, halfway through the planning stages, an ACTUAL Tetris game was launched, by The Tetris Company, onto the OUYA.
D'oh!
I'll probably save that for another time, then.

<img src="https://socoder.net/AGAWGold_128.png" style="float:left;">It's been a while since I did an AGameAWeek Gold.
There's not been a lot of stand-out stuff popping up on the old time-machine. Sure there's been a whole pile of games, but nothing that's really been noteworthy, so for the most part I've kind of been ignoring this section of the site.
Today, however, a lovely little game popped up, and I spent a good hour playing the thing! Whoops!!

So, here we go again.
We're up to Year 5, and hopefully we'll get a full year out of it, this year (nnngh).
With Monkey, we get a chance to go back over our previous games, and remake them for a new audience, with iOS, Android and Browser based versions. I expect this will prove to be an exciting year.
Given that we can play at showing off, what games do you think would work best, and adapt well to the new touchy/mouse based gameplay options?
Or, what games could prove to be an obsc...

54 games. Last year I only managed about 30-odd, so I think that's pretty good going.
Sure, it might not have truely actually been A Game "Per" Week, but I did at least keep the ratio up.
If I hadn't taken the time out to build the framework, I probably would've actually achieved the target a little better
The stats show I was pretty much on top of things up until that point, but then things got slower and slower until my buffer zone was all dried up.
Anyhoo, this is a n...

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.

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!