For the past week, I asked people on Twitter and Socoder if they'd like to join in with a silly new game by drawing costumes onto a sprite of Idigidragon. The results came fairly slowly, but a number of decent attempts were made. .. Then Rockford over at Socoder sent a HUGE batch of stuff, and I had to spend a good hour or so cutting them up into little parts! D'oh! Anyway, this is the result.

The great big 1.5 update of SpikeDislike2 is now available from the Android or iOS App Stores. This version brings the HUGE end mode, Choose Your Own Dislike, which features all those lovely options that the original game had, along with a couple of new ones. SpikeDislike2 v1.5 is available for (URL "https://itunes.apple.com/app/id604867277">iOS) and (URL "https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.AGameAWeek.SpikeDislike2_A1">Android). If you've already got it on your device, visit the ...

Every Single Week

Not Good Advice

The following is not advice, and should not be taken as such. People often ask me how I manage to do AGameAWeek. Particularly, how I manage to cram everything into a single week, and then somehow manage to do exactly the same thing every other week, without going crazy. What follows might possibly help you understand a little more of what goes on in the world of AGameAWeek. Or it might just be a whole bunch of rambling waffling text. Not sure!! ...

Apologies that this post has taken me so long to publish. I actually wrote most of it about 3 months ago, when I first released SpikeDislike2, but it's been sat on my Mac on a Sticky Note, and I kinda forgot all about it! I remembered it, the other day, when I submitted SpikeDislike2-Lite to Apple. What follows is a checklist/guide for compiling your (URL "https://monkeycoder.co.nz">Monkey-coded) game onto iOS.

SpikeDislike2 has just had a nice big update on the iOS AppStore, and I'm now thinking about what to add next, so I figured I'd make a nice rambling blog about it. That's what this is!! You can buy (URL "https://itunes.apple.com/app/id604867277">SpikeDislike2 in the AppStore)! It's nice and cheap, and full of lovely juicy stuff!

<img src="https://socoder.net/AGAWGold_128.png" style="float:right;"> Every day, AGameAWeek Gold takes a peek through the inexplicably large collection of releases, and digs out any old games that I've previously released on this day in history. Occasionally there aren't any. I'm not fast enough to have that many! But other times, there's more than one! How odd!

<img src="https://socoder.net/AGAWGold_128.png" style="float:right;">AGameAWeek Gold peeps through the Jayenkai Archive to see what games I've previously released on this day in history. Occasionally we'll pluck out some real gems. Today's a cracker! .. or rather, today's TWO crackers!!

In a change to our regularly scheduled April-Project, I've decided to stop pulling my hair out, and instead do something different. Grrr.. What we're left with, however, is a nice happy little game for up to four players, so that's nice.

Over the past few weeks, a terrible issue has appeared, and it's been quite noticeable. It's caused my Stringy Things project to get stuck, as well as creating multiple issues in lots of other places. The problem is as follows.. Not all devices are the same!!!

<img src="https://socoder.net/AGAWGold_128.png" style="float:right;">Occasionally, our flick through the Jayenkai Archives fails to pick up any games that I might've released on this day in history. As rapid as my game development is, I'm just not THAT quick! But other times, it'll pick up more than one! Today's one of those days..

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.

<img src="https://socoder.net/AGAWGold_128.png" style="float:right;"> Sometimes, stripping things back to their simplest mechanics makes for a strangely more interesting game. Other times, however, it just makes an otherwise vaguely interesting game a little more dull. This is a great example of the latter.

Before anyone complains, no, this is not a game! This week's release is a "Utility!" ooooh! Don't worry, I won't be making a habit out of this. To be honest, I was kinda expecting to be able to half-ass a game, this week, but I've spent so much time on this, that I just didn't get around to it. No matter, this is a silly little plaything, and if you're even slightly musically capable you'll probably get a kick out of it.

Last night I had a random idea, and drew up a silly board game. Since then, the idea has annoyingly festered, and so this morning, I'm doing a complete relaunch of yesterday's silly idea, complete with all new advanced rules!

SpikeDislike2 will be released on March 5th, 2013

Head inside for more details.

A random oddball thought, resulted in this. Drawn entirely using SpriteSomething on an iPad. .. Yes, I actually sat here and draw all those numbers! ... Bored? You bet!! <img src="https://socoder.net/uploads/1/Spike2.png"> The rules are simple. You start in square one, and make your way as far through the board as you can. If you hit a Spike, it's game over! If you make it to the goal, you're a Pro at random chance!! A single orange player counter has lovingly been provided.. If you'd li...

I've updated the uploaded Jayenkai Monkey Framework to the latest version that I'm using. woot!

The Download

Downloads have been removed due to.. A) Lack of people using it. B) Lack of ME even using it. C) It's quite old, now, and getting older every day!

The Old Version

<a href="https://AGameAWeek.com/2013/01/monkey-skeleton-13_01_28/">All of this stuff is still included</a>

The New Additions

It's been a whirlwind of a month, and I've...

You're probably wondering, by now, with all this wonderful "Monkey" stuff that I've been banging on about for the past month, where the heck my iOS offerings are. Well, while it's true that Monkey does indeed make the coding a heck of a lot easier, there's still another matter to attend to. The dreaded "iTunes Connect" area! ARGH!!!! You've probably read enough of my rants to know that iDev isn't easy. There are licenses to deal with. "Provision" codes, Certificates, all manner of stupid fiddly thing...

OK, folk are getting intrigued as to how all of this is working, and how nice the Monkey language is to work with, so in the spirit of not being a complete and total git, here's the complete everything that there is so far..

The Download

Framework Downloads have been removed due to lack of updates! I've also left the html5 build intact, so you can give it a little run if you don't have Monkey installed. (I think!) Should be as simple as going into the .build folder, then the ht...

Already!? Who saw this coming?! I sure as hell didn't!! <a href="https://AGameAWeek.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/01/shootybangbang.png"><img src="https://AGameAWeek.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/01/shootybangbang-300x228.png" alt="" title="shootybangbang" width="300" height="228" class="alignnone size-medium wp-image-2486" /></a> You can Play the HTML5 Edition here, and note a bunch of scrambled debug messages as they pop up underneath the game! Update : I deleted all these earl...

<a href="https://AGameAWeek.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/01/done_before.png"><img src="https://AGameAWeek.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/01/done_before.png" alt="" title="done_before" width="396" height="308" class="alignnone size-full wp-image-2473" /></a> You might recognise that little icon. Redrawn in super-high-definition (128x128 pixels!) for iPad Retina display, or other high-def displays. I'm currently halfway through adding in the Pause menu, with appropriate Quit, Audio, and o...

Welcome aboard, Tam Toucan, you're apparently the only one interested in the job of testing my crazy shit, so you're now chief tester! I've no idea when the first test engine will be ready to get to you, but I can't imagine it'll be too long a wait.. Maybe a week or so..? Keep your eyes on AGameAWeek for progress reports! Meanwhile, I did a teensy bit of audio testing, yesterday, and can happily report that Monkey can pitch it's audio, unlike a certain other language which I'...

You didn't get to see a lot of the BlitzMax template, last year, but if you'd like to try your hand at rapid game-dev, you might like to have a peek at it's contents. If you're a BlitzMax owner, this might be useful to you... maybe.. but you'll have to wrap your head around my coding style, first! <a href="https://socoder.net/uploads/1/Template-2012.zip">Template - 2012 - Download Here</a> Soon, hopefully, there'll be a Template - Monkey - 2013, but that's ann...

Aaaah! I finally got home on Thursday night, and BOY what a relief that was! Home, My own bed, Relaxed, Relieved! Luvly. Except when I sat at my PC, at which point, my difference in eyesight became a bit of a nightmare, as I realised I could no longer see my computer screen! Noooooo!!!!! A few days later, a feint, a trip to a docs, and MORE pills being dished out, I'm now oddly able to use the downstairs PC to a certain degree of visibility. It's still a bit blurry, and I really do need...

<a href="https://bit.ly/iOS_NeonPlat">NeonPlat iOS is now available in the AppStore</a>. o/yeayo/ There are a few changes, most notably that you no longer get to paint the tiles. The tile painting was one of the complaints when things were in giant HD graphics, so I kinda figured things might be even worse when downgraded to such a teensy tiny screen! Hmmm.. <a href="https://AGameAWeek.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/02/NeonPlat.png"><img sr...

Last month, I got to the end of the month, and opted to leave out the last week. I was FAR too busy doing Unijuggler iOS, it grew out of control, and AGameAWeek took the fall. This month, we've reached the last week of the month, and a similar kind of thing has happened. I've spent the past four days working on a "Not Cluedo, Honest" game, and although it's gone well, it's also not! The game looks ok, but it doesn't really play well at all. The game tries to be playable, but the boardgame nature brin...

(URL "https://AGameAWeek.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/02/FarTooLong.png"><img src="https://AGameAWeek.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/02/FarTooLong-287x300.png" alt="" title="FarTooLong" width="287" height="300" class="alignright size-medium wp-image-2337" />I was in two minds whether to do this game now, or leave it for a couple of weeks to come up a few ideas, but I had nothing else to do, so I started it anyway! Whether the board will end up looking like th...