This time last year, I reattempted the game Microbes, but it didn't really work out as well as I'd hoped for. This year, I opted to give it another go, and have mixed in oodles of lovely glowyness! Seems to have done the trick! <img src="https://AGameAWeek.com/complete/Disc_Blaster_20140311A_thumb.png"> <img src="https://AGameAWeek.com/complete/Disc_Blaster_20140311B_thumb.png">

In the first of a (hopefully) full year of monthly Platdude related releases, Platdude gets to wander through a giant forest, battling enemy creatures, and avoiding deadly spikes! <img src="https://AGameAWeek.com/complete/Platdude_in_The_Endless_Forest_20140127B_thumb.png"> <img src="https://AGameAWeek.com/complete/Platdude_in_The_Endless_Forest_20140127A_thumb.png">

Awww.. Nuts. Today was supposed to be the great big release day, but annoyingly, one or two annoying issues have annoyingly cropped up. <img src="https://AGameAWeek.com/complete/NeonPlat_Extreme_20131126B.png"> First and foremost.. and quite bizarrely.. My Monkey games no longer appear to be working with Gamepads!! At first I thought I'd retweaked NeonPlat until my code no longer worked, but upon searching through my archive, it appears that they're all equally as broken. Either it's my Laptop...

This month is all about NeonPlat Extreme, as I slowly bulk up a minimalistic game with tons of brand new features! Woot! To celebrate, here's a lovely great big wallpaper! (URL "https://AGameAWeek.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/11/Wallpaper_Neovember.png"><img src="https://AGameAWeek.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/11/Wallpaper_Neovember-1024x1024.png" alt="" title="Wallpaper_Neovember" width="590" height="590" class="alignnone size-large wp-image-3252" /> Click for massively oversized version (32...

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 ...

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...

<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!!

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.

I don't give up, very often, but on this occasion, it's unfortunately going to happen to my big Month-Long project. I seem to have narrowed the problem down to the following issue. ... Wasn't hard enough! It seems that, nowadays, I can only tackle a project if it's got enough of a challenge attached. Either a game has to be coded in a stupidly small amount of time, or the game needs to have lots of new things required, to keep my interest held. <img src="https://socoder.net/uploads/1/RRDS_M...

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 ...

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:left;">AGameAWeek Gold looks back through the many many many games of the past, and digs out old games that I've previously released on this day in history. Today's is a bit of an odd co-incidence. In stores, today, is (URL "https://www.gamestm.co.uk">GamesTM) Issue 135, and in the Retro section is a lovingly crafted Demakes article, all about taking modern games and porting them to older systems. (They include a single screenshot of...

<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!!

On Friday morning, (URL "https://twitter.com/MadGarden">@MadGarden) suddenly popped up on Google Chat and started chatting about some sort of game he imagined might be interesting. Something about "a neat control scheme for a platformer/combat thing" being a bit like Tron, with the discs being both a weapon and a shield. Not entirely sure what he was on about, but it started one of those oddball pots of insanity bubbling, and soon enough a random game idea had emerged from my mind.. It's quite a way...

<img src="https://socoder.net/AGAWGold_256.png" style="float:left;"> AGameAWeek Gold looks back on the history of my huge Jayenkai Archive. Each day, we trawl through the archive to find games which have been previously released on this day in history. Some days, there are no games. Other days there are oddball crazy quickly cobbled together gameplay experiments. And then, some days, there are real gold games. The games that stay with you, and can be just as enjoyable many years later.

Wednesday night, SpikeDislike2 got its first update in the AppStore. Thursday night, some twat had already plopped it onto a pirate site.

<img src="https://socoder.net/AGAWGold_128.png" style="float:right;">AGameAWeek Gold looks back on this day in history, and plucks out any and all games that I've previously released on this day. It's a fun, adventurous, and seemingly random trip through the Jayenkai Archives. Join us, as we test really old games to see if they still run on our modern systems!

<img src="https://socoder.net/AGAWGold_128.png" style="float:right;">AGameAWeek Gold looks back at releases that happened on this day in history. Journey with us through the mists of time, to find out just how good, or bad, AGameAWeek has actually been through the years! We also occasionally find odd little glitches in the archive!!

<img src="https://socoder.net/AGAWGold_128.png" style="float:right;">AGameAWeek Gold. An occasional trip down memory lane, to take a look at games that I've previously released on this day in history. Much like every other element of AGameAWeek, these can sometimes be great games that you'll play for hours, or bags of garbage that you throw away after ten seconds of looking at it at going "Umm.. no thanks!" Today's game from the past is an example of the latter.. With Zombies!!!!

<img src="https://socoder.net/AGAWGold_256.png" style="float:right;">Before I'd decided on the "Blockman Gets" mechanic, I tried many a different thing with him. First, there was the Platform engine, where he had to run around and gather up the tiny blocklets. That worked nicely! After that I tried a "Pengo" approach, but he didn't seem happy pushing things around, so that never actually got uploaded anywhere. After that, I decided to go old-skool, and made a bog standard Pacman clone, but with a ...

Last night I was asked how I got Monkey to do all the things that I managed to make it do. I tried to describe it as best as I could, but was already wrapped up in bed, trying to remember it all, whilst only holding an iPad! Not an easy job. I suggested to (URL "https://twitter.com/retrorusty">@RetroRusty) that he waits until the morning, when I can better write a nice big (BIG) waffling (WAFFLING!) blog-post about it all. .. This be that!

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. ...

<img src="https://socoder.net/AGAWGold_128.png" style="float:left"> Sometimes, I like to test different aspects of game development. Will a certain game work better with larger wonderfully presented HD artwork, for example? Since I'm no artist, as we're all well aware by now, I went the opposite way, and tried to figure out what Asteroids might look like in HD, if it used even smaller sprites!! <a href="https://AGameAWeek.com/GameList.php?ShowJust=228">

2011 - TinyAss

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Next week's AGameAWeek is already in the works. Yet another remake, this time of a game that doesn't quite appear to run as well as it used to. <a href="https://AGameAWeek.com/GameList.php?ShowJust=56">The Heist</a> was coded in August 2008, and does still run on modern PCs. The thing is, though, it runs at about 30fps on most of my current systems. I'm not really sure why this is, and have tried a couple of things to get it up to speed, but nothing seems to be doing the trick. ...

Hello all. If you're a regular reader, prepare to be marginally disappointed. Today's release is NOT for you Today I'm releasing a private beta edition of SpikeDislike2 (currently for Windows or Android) to people who would like to blog about it, and help publicise it's existence. <a href="https://AGameAWeek.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/02/deargodno2.png"><img src="https://AGameAWeek.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/02/deargodno2.png" alt=""...

Aaah, the familiar sound of squelching!! <a href="https://AGameAWeek.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/02/centia.png"><img src="https://AGameAWeek.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/02/centia-300x300.png" alt="" title="centia" width="300" height="300" class="alignnone size-medium wp-image-2545" /></a> The gameplay is easy on this one. Throw the ball at the oncoming Centipedes to smash them to pieces. You can then additionally bounce the flailing pods about, to do extra damage, and cause general o...