Developments

I spent a lot of yesterday faffing about with the "Start" screen of SpikeDislike3. At first I intended to have a giant spike be in the center of the screen, and in fact that's what happened for quite a while, but .. I'm not sure why, but I decided to switch to circles instead. Reusing my generic stripy circle from my basic menu meant I didn't have to redraw anything, and the new "Start" screen looks rather neat. .. or at least, for something I've done, it does! I spent some t...

Developments

Yesterday I settled into "Music Mode", where I can generally whip out an AL CHOON for whatever purpose. Unfortunately, after a good two hours of twiddling dials and buttons in Korg Gadget (iPad only) I came out with absolutely nothing decent whatsoever. Ashamed that I'd wasted a good amount of time pretty much doing nothing, I instead decided to load up some old Choons, and see if they worked within the new SpikeDislike3 engine. Good news! SpikeDislike3 will have music!! On t...

Developments

Continuing with the new edition of SpikeDislike, and I'm still adding basic elements into the engine. I've a whole lot of work to do on the game, including all the graphical styles and things like that, but for now I'm happy that it's totting up the combos in the way it should be. ( width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/YIwcx9Gcbfs" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen>> Scoring and Death are now both firmly inside...

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...

Developments

Yesterday, someone new registered on my home village's website (LittleLever.info) They, of course, instantly forgot their password, so used the "I forgot my password" button to find it out. At this point I should probably explain why I've mentioned this..! About a year ago, the original owner of LittleLever.info gave up paying for a site that never had any visitors. He stopped payments, and the site fell into disrepair before eventually getting pulled down completely. At this...

Developments

So, after yesterday's realisation that the StarFlips game wasn't going anywhere, I opted to head back to "Larger Project" and see if I could get any more done on it. Whether I continue with Larger Project, or instead switch to a smaller intermediate project, will be dependent on how much happens between now and.. Um.. Unspecified date! (URL "https://AGameAWeek.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/04/SD3_003.png"><img src="https://AGameAWeek.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/04/SD3_003-...

Developments

My laptop's been running slow, sluggish, juddery and .. generally BAD, since some time yesterday, and as much as I hunt the system, I'm struggling to find the reason why. I think it might have something to do with Windows noticing the Mac on the network, and freaking out, thinking it's going to be replaced! .. Acting all slow and useless isn't going to get you extra loving, Windows! Learn how to show off your skills, and act like a proper computer!! Even as I type today's blo...

Developments

Yesterday, I took the phrase "Sleepy Sunday" and worked the heck out it. My cat woke me up at 6:15am, and I managed to stay mostly awake until just after 9, when I realised I was too tired to code, and instead went for a nap.. .. A long nap!! I also had a second nap later in the day, too. Ooops! I suppose when you have little/nothing else to do, especially on a Sunday, that there's no harm in having a short nap. But when you have TWO naps, and they're not exactly short ones, y...

Developments

Not a lot of coding got done, yesterday. I continued to fiddle with the new sprites, and got enemies spawning in the level, but then I started thinking about iOS again. For the past year I've been focussing on OUYA. I've been making all my games controller happy, and as a result, have been neglecting touchscreen controls. I'm not sure why, probably all the AppleWatch stuff that's currently flooding my Twitter feed, but I'm finding myself somewhat nostalgic for the times that I s...

Developments

Not an awful lot of stuff got done, yesterday, as I was having a bit of an off-day! Ho hum.. They're frequent, so expect a fair number of Daily Blogs to be of the "Couldn't do anything!" variety. Still, I did bother to grab the iPad, load up Sprite Something, and doodle some sprites for the new game. I drew a ship, a number of weapons, and some enemies, before heading over to Windows and getting them all integrated into the game. It didn't take very long at all, but it does inde...

Welcome to the new daily blog section of AGameAWeek.com. I could do with reorganising the layout of the site, if I'm honest!

Yesterday

Yesterday I did a few odd little bits and pieces. I got "bombs" to work in the new engine, and managed to get a feel for the game. So far, so good. I think! (URL "https://AGameAWeek.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/04/410_001.png"><img src="https://AGameAWeek.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/04/410_001-300x225.png" alt="410_001" width="300" height="225" class="...

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...

Live on Twitch for a long long time, Team OUYA took to the airwaves and streamed a whole bunch of my games, all playing lovely on OUYA. You can (URL "https://www.twitch.tv/playouya/b/559842278">Watch the Recorded-Steam here). (URL "https://www.twitch.tv/playouya/b/559842278"><img src="https://AGameAWeek.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/08/PlayOUYA_AGAW.jpg" alt="PlayOUYA_AGAW" width="500" height="500" class="alignnone size-full wp-image-4054" /> They ge...

A quest through the stars, as you beam your crew down to the planet, wander through the perilous path, and blast off in a rocket! <img src="https://AGameAWeek.com/complete/Space_Rocket_Adventurers_20140819A_thumb.png"> <img src="https://AGameAWeek.com/complete/Space_Rocket_Adventurers_20140819B_thumb.png">

Journey with Platdude, as he leaps from planet to planet, in this epic universal quest to get some nice shiny gems. <img src="https://AGameAWeek.com/complete/Platdude_in_Space_20140426A_thumb.png"> <img src="https://AGameAWeek.com/complete/Platdude_in_Space_20140426B_thumb.png">

Forums are a bit of a dying artform, lately. Between Facebook and Twitter, the idea of having to signup to a specific site for a conversation, when you could equally have that conversation over Twitter is all a bit daft and unnecessary. What can I say, I'm a grumpy old geezer, who prefers things oldskool!! That's not to say I don't "get" Twitter. I use it a lot.. .. A LOT!! And it's great for quick responses, too. Ask a question, anything you want, and generally get an answer within about a minut...

As much as I count myself as "a bit of a Trekkie", I've never considered myself a full-on Trekkie. Sure, I enjoy watching it, and I do manage to follow 95% of the twisting turning sprawling plotlines, and enjoy the mythology of the show. I even recently subscribed to the Star Trek Starships model collection, which, every single fortnight, brings a lovely little starship to my door. (Well, ok, technically they get delivered in pairs, monthly!! I'm really enjoying these little ships, and my shelf is alrea...

An unexpected arrival, as my major 2-week-long project somehow manages to cram itself into the space of just a week. Not entirely sure how that happened, if I'm honest.. <img src="https://AGameAWeek.com/complete/Blockman_Worlds_20140415A_thumb.png"> <img src="https://AGameAWeek.com/complete/Blockman_Worlds_20140415B_thumb.png">

Coming up on Tuesday, "My Little Rescue Helicopter!", a nice retro game with a helicopter, and some evil enemy aircraft! (URL "https://AGameAWeek.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/02/ssc.jpg"><img src="https://AGameAWeek.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/02/ssc-1024x576.jpg" alt="ssc" width="590" height="331" class="alignnone size-large wp-image-3516" /> A lovely little shoot-em-up/rescue game with good old-fashioned old-skool graphics. Then, next week, relax wit...

A brand new site has just been launched. Interview an Indie does exactly what it says on the tin. Blog creator (URL "https://Twitter.com/g_unitt">George Unitt) sends email questionnaires to indies, and posts the replies Simple and effective! First up, ME! O/yeayo/!!! You can (URL "https://interviewanindie.wordpress.com/2014/01/20/an-interview-with-jayenkai/">Read it Here).

Or, as the titlescreen would have you call it, "Greenie's Little Adventure" Feel free to use either of the two titles! Welcome back! AGameAWeek starts anew, this week, with a nice little remake of a game I made a good 7 or 8 years ago. My original "The Quest" game took a board-game-style approach, but never really got very far due to the limits and oddities of trying to play a board game on a computer. It felt strange to have to roll dice all the time, and the battles were never that great. I'm not ...

As week one rapidly approaches, and I'm posting less and less, it's probably apparent that I'm knee deep in the middle of a mega-coding frenzy. Or, if that's not apparent, let it be known.. I'm knee deep in the middle of a mega-coding frenzy!! Over the past week or so, I've overhauled quite a few features of my framework, including getting things prepared for OUYA, with controller additions and things like that. I've learned quite a few little bits and pieces about controllers over the last few months,...

Welcome to the Top 13 AGameAWeek Games of 2013 No other Top-10 lists appear to want to give any of my games any recognition at all, which kinda sucks since I've made a whole bunch of REALLY great games, this year! I don't even get a token "Made a shitload of games, this year" mention! Sucks!! So, sod them all, I'll make my own Top-10 list. And it'll be all my games, and I'll even add a few more just to make it a bit more 2013 relevant. That'll show 'em!! Mwa-ha-haaa!!!

Over on the Monkey forum, a discussion about level data set me off thinking about making this post. Whenever I put levels into my games, I tried to keep them as small as I possibly can. I've been doing it this way for years, and always figured it's nice to compress my data into something that's easily shareable. .. True, I rarely ever get around to actually making these things easily shareable, but for the most part I try to keep things as minimal as possible.