Developments

Yesterday was spent tweaking a few odds and sods that I never really got around to doing previously. I, of course, added a few extra levels, and I added "OUYA Controller Button Icons" to the main menu, so it's marginally more obvious that you can use the shoulder buttons to open the Options menu and Scoreboard. (URL "https://AGameAWeek.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/HeavilySubtle.png"><img src="https://AGameAWeek.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/HeavilySubtle-1024x597.png" a...

Developments

Yesterday I started a new theme. A road, some sand, some water, stars, moon and some boats. (URL "https://AGameAWeek.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/SD3_012.png"><img src="https://AGameAWeek.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/SD3_012-1024x597.png" alt="SD3_012" width="660" height="385" class="alignnone size-large wp-image-4615" /> In terms of effort, it wasn't exactly a difficult theme to create, but along the way I stumbled over a l...

Developments

Yesterday, I had a day off... I was a lazy bugger, and did absolutely nothing of interest, whatsoever. A lazy day, lying on the couch, playing Words With Friends and complaining on Twitter about how there's no Countdown on TV because of the horses. I'm getting old, and set in my ways, and if there's no Countdown on, I get grumpy! (For those who don't know about the fantastic gameshow, (URL "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Countdown_%28game_show%29">here's the Wiki page).) So...

Developments

Not a whole lot of news from yesterday, but that was mostly due to me not being in a coding mood. Instead, I did at least manage to create the following ALChoon. ( width="100%" height="450" scrolling="no" frameborder="no" src="https://w.soundcloud.com/player/?url=https%3A//api.soundcloud.com/tracks/204825992&auto_play=false&hide_related=false&show_comments=true&show_user=true&show_reposts=false&visual=true">>...

Developments

Yesterday was spent fixing up little things in SpikeDislike3. I got Predetermined Layouts working, but still haven't bothered to implement any sort of collision detection! Still, you can now start a round, have it spawn the spikes in the same place, and then exit back to the menu. Having the spikes show up in the same place, is of course super important in SpikeDislike, as you learn the layouts of the level, and try not to die for ages and ages. I'll have to add a couple of ra...

Bah, it's Thursday, already, and I've still not gotten a proper start on this next game. You know what, this whole "Gap Year" thing... .. It's not working out, is it? Instead of coding with a vague deadline, I'm spending every day doing nothing, relaxing, and generally being a lazy bum. I'm supposed to be working on SOMETHING, but instead I've watched an entire season of Castle over the past few days. And this is roughly how my days are going, lately. TV watching, resting, playing Words With Friends,...

It's time to fry some Butterflies! Use the electrical hubs to generate lightning, and Zzap those bugs to oblivion. <img src="https://AGameAWeek.com/complete/Zzap_Lines_20150113A_thumb.png"> <img src="https://AGameAWeek.com/complete/Zzap_Lines_20150113B_thumb.png">

RAWR!! I'm really prepared for this year's Advent calendar. I've taken all the screenshots, I've written little comments for each game, I'm prepared!! I'm Ready!! I'm Sorted!!! It's been nearly an entire week since I released the thing, and still the first unlock is a couple of days away. It's INSANE having to wait for my own games to unlock! I don't think I've ever had to do this, before. Usually, once a game's done, I'll stick it online and be happy, and in many ways that's what's happened her...

Ok, so, I need a new archive. It's been a good number of years since I originally created the Jayenkai Archive, and although the software's lasted through a fair number of rethemes, and a fair number of enhancements over the years, it all still pretty much has the exact same issues that it did on day one.

You may have noticed a slight lack of gaming over the past couple of months. Usually I cut down on AGameAWeek during the closing months of a year, and instead focus on a larger project, but over the course of this year I've already tackled a number of larger projects. Blockman Worlds, JNK Bombers, Future Classics.. They've all been substantially larger than my standard weekly output. As such, I'm actually struggling to come up with a decent "end of year project" that would be worth tackling. Instead, I...

I've just added my first Amiga game to my Jayenkai Archive. I've had access to the disk's files for a long time, but never got around to getting the compiler stuff up and running. Today, I finally buggered about with WinUAE and my collection of Amos disks, and got Amos Pro Compiler up and running. (URL "https://AGameAWeek.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/05/I_Got_A_Update.png"><img src="https://AGameAWeek.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/05/I_Got_A_Update.png" alt="I_Got_A_Update" width="655" height="419" ...

(URL "https://socoder.net/uploads/1/JNKBombers_007.png"><img src="https://socoder.net/uploads/1/JNKBombers_007_thumb.png"> I've got 15 little characters in there, so far, and I'm sure I'll find some more along the way. Next step is to get some gameplay running, and try to stop the annoying generic "diagonal-pass" bug solved.. stupid bug. Game expected by the end of the month, as it's far too big to be finished any sooner!

If you, like me, get sick to death of resizing images to 75,000,000 different sizes, just so that iOS can show a tiny icon on your game, you'll probably love to have some kind of little tool to do it all for you. When I first started my development in Monkey, I created a little tool to make a bunch of icons. Over the course of the past year, the tool has expanded to cope with all kinds of other challenges. You can (URL "https://socoder.net/uploads/1/IconBuilder.zip">Download Icon Builder here). R...

Last night, I closed my laptop the lazy-man's way, by simply shutting the lid. I should know better. It never quite manages to "Resume Windows" without buggering something up along the way. This morning, it didn't boot at all, and I've spent most of the day doing the big format/reinstall stuff. At the time of typing this, I'm battling with Android and Java SDKs, desperately trying to get that stuff up and running again. Monkey's managing HTML5 and Windows targets, but OUYA and Android are currently o...

It feels like AGES since I last posted a Sheep Goes Right test. In fact, it's been just over a month. October 14th was the last version, and today I'm posting a second test release. This time, I'm releasing an APK for OUYA. For testing purposes, this should also work on Android devices, but it's untested, and I'm not exactly sure how Monkey copes with things like that! ..it'll have a great big overscan border, for starters!!! Anyway, if you've an OUYA, I'd appreciate a quick test, and some feedback....

OK, I'll admit it, I'm enjoying the OUYA. You can keep up with (URL "https://www.ouyalytics.com/developer/Jayenkai/">all my OUYA games here). There's currently 5 of them, and there's oodles more to come! (URL "https://AGameAWeek.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/11/icona.png"><img src="https://AGameAWeek.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/11/icona-150x150.png" alt="" title="icona" width="150" height="150" class="alignnone size-thumbnail wp-image-3272" /> (URL "...

The internet is a place for trolls and complainers (like me!) who like to gripe at every opportunity. For the most part, we tend to ignore these types, which generally means that comments sections have become largely ignored. Here at AGameAWeek, the opposite has happened. There are apparently no trolls daring enough to even attempt to play my games! I seem to have scared most of them away. As a result, there are no trollers or complainers here, and since those are the types that make up the 99% of the ...

Late last night, NeonPlat Raw appeared on the OUYA Dashboard for the very first time. This is kind of a big deal, in that it's the first time one of my games has officially been released on an actual physical home-console. True, it's not a "PROPER" console, but .. Hey, it's a box with a controller that plugs into my telly. And it's got my games on it! So, Hell yeah, It's proper enough to me!! If you have an OUYA, you can grab (URL "https://www.ouya.tv/game/NeonPlat-Raw">NeonPlat Raw) for it. It's...

Bah, humbug.. So, as I test out the many OUYA bits and pieces, I'm stumbling upon the many do's and don't's. Apparently, one of the don't's is "Don't attempt to read data from images". .. Karl's OUYA Test shows exactly why we shouldn't do that. This test is as broken as it is on some other Android devices. If you've an OUYA, you can give this game a whirl. It's tricky, and somewhat impossible on most of the levels, due to the complex/brokenness of the levels being stored as images. Which is a sh...

People keep asking about how I manage to code AGameAWeek, and one thing they all eventually pick up on is that I'm currently doing it all with Monkey. (URL "https://monkeycoder.co.nz">Monkey) is a fantastic language which allows for all manner of different targets, and does a great job doing what it does. It isn't perfect, and it's not for everyone, but it suits me down to the ground. As with any development tool, it all comes down to preference, and whether or not you agree with the methodology o...

I'm taking a slight break from my usual AGameAWeek schedule. Over the course of September, I'll be spending extra time building up a super awesome edition of BlastTrax, whilst also taking the time to enjoy GTAV properly! Hurray for games! Meanwhile, I'm digging through my archive of old forgotten gems, and plucking out anything that isn't yet part of my Archive for reasons of terribleness, or general forgetfulness!

To mark five whole years since (URL "https://AGameAWeek.com/2013/09/agameaweek-gold-jnkplat-ds-08/">the release of the greatest JNKPlat game, EVER), I've decided to do a JNKPlat themed desktop this month. Nice and simple! (URL "https://AGameAWeek.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/09/out.png"><img src="https://AGameAWeek.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/09/out-1024x1024.png" alt="" title="out" width="590" height="590" class="alignnone size-large wp-image-3142" /> Click for MASSIVE!) (Only 2048x2048,...

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.

Let me talk you through what's happened since yesterday. First off, I signed up as a Google Play developer. I logged in, I joined up, I paid my Dev Fee, and all was going well. I started adding a "SpikeDislike2-Lite" app to the GooglePlay store. I filled in the details, and got everything nicely added using just my iPad. I then slept...

The Amiga was nearing the end of its life cycle and my local Game store was slowly getting rid of its Amiga stuff. It was sad to find all your favourite games crammed into that little corner of the store where only the geekiest kids would huddle. Then one day, I spotted a bright blue stripy box. "Blitz 2.0!??? Oooh! I'd been using AMOS ever since I got it free on an Amiga Format coverdisk, but this was finally a chance to buy a fully fledged programming language. I whipped it up. .. I say that. ...

There's still plenty to add. Music, for one. And Badges. And Pickups. If you spot anything else missing, odd, bug-like, or otherwise quirky, let me know. <a href="https://agameaweek.com/?Game=282">C3ntipong - Test Edition</a> The final-ish version will be available on Tuesday.