As I was falling asleep, last night, I had a great idea for a new game. I didn't jot it down, and now I can't remember what it was, except it had something to do with a stickman running around a black and white maze. ... bugger..

Korodny Just finished the game, so I'm here to say *Thank you* for some real good entertainment. A couple of things I noticed: Loved the game concept, and the visual design is spot on for that kind of game. Unfortunately, sound doesn't work on Ubuntu 11.10. It's a shame that the progress isn't properly recorded: The game should automatically offer me to play at the 'highest' levelset and the highest starting point I reached in my last session. Having to write ...

I should take solace in a couple of facts. 1. My iOS Apps have been selling oddly, this week. Usually I sell about 1 copy of SpikeDislike, every day, but this week I seem to be getting oddities like Puzzobomb and StringyThings suddenly springing back to life. .. sure it's still a max of 3 a day, total, but... it helps! and it's odd! 2. My daily analytics stats have doubled. Of course, I should probably also point out that for the past two months, my lack of AGameAWeek has caused the stats to halv...

<a href="https://gfbrobot.com/2011/11/16/interview-with-neonplat-adventures-jayenkai/">Interview with NeonPlat Adventure's Jayenkai</a> A nice big interview, randomly waffling on and on, in that strange unplanned way that I do! Thanks to darthvid who sent all those questions over the other morning. A nice surprise to wake up to! Kinda makes me want to do more of the same.. <a href="https://www.formspring.me/Jayenkai">Jayenkai on Formspring!</a> Ask away.. I'll ...

When I coded my BlitzMax edition of NeonPlat Adventures (Still online, still free, still available, still awesome, still getting the odd blog post on sites!) I threw things in, wherever they seemed appropriate. I coded randomly, as I usually do. I didn't worry about memory issues. I didn't even give a munky about how many sprites were hurtling all over the screen. (My 2-year-old framework takes care of that.. Hit F12 for your system's stats.) As I attempt my conversion to iOS, I DO have...

Hurray! Everyone can play NeonPlat Adventures. Look at it go!!! Weee!!!

<a href="https://bit.ly/NeonPlat_Adventures">NeonPlat Adventures : Available now for Windows, Linux and MacOSX</a> Inside, a list of all the features I had or hadn't planned, and why they are/aren't in there!

Oooh, I got to click the "Release" tag today! Not done that for a while! The game is out, right now, and is available at.. 1. <a href="https://AGameAWeek.com/GameList.php?ShowJust=268">The Jayenkai Archive</a> 2. <a href="https://bit.ly/NeonPlat_Adventures">The Minisite</a> and hopefully a few more places by the end of today.. .. unless it tanks, or goes mostly unnoticed, which given my track record, wouldn't be all that surprising. <img src="https://AGameAWeek.co...

Tomorrow's the day you all get to play! Had a last minute email, last night, from Shadow1w2, filled with some really nice ideas that would be great to implement. Thing is, we've hit the point of no return. I'm off to work all day, and tomorrow's the release. So. dangit.. no time to fiddle. (I now remember why AGameAWeek is usually a Tuesday release!!) <a href="https://AGameAWeek.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/11/NeonPlat-Adventures-Screenshot_12-Nov-2011_130918.png"><img sr...

Couldn't be arsed doing all the building and hosting, and especially couldn't be arsed doing the whole "design a half-decent looking site" thing, so I gave up trying and used Google Sites instead! <a href="https://bit.ly/NeonPlat_Adventures">NeonPlat Adventures : The Minisite</a> Job done! Game : Sunday!

I should've spent today doing more iDev. I didn't. Already I'm looking at the iDev stuff, and going "uuugh..." Try again tomorrow.

When I launched the original demo of NeonPlat Adventures, way way way way way back in September, I made a complete backup of the game, code and everything. I thought it might be fun to look at it, and the progress it's made, by release date. To be honest, I'd mostly forgotten I did that.

For a while, today, you started the game with 8 lives instead of just 5. Then a few people on Twitter suggested I should put it back. If you can't complete it, don't blame me

Before I headed off to work, I made a new little video. Or, rather, I tried to make a "little" video, yet it inexplicably ended up at over 300Mb!!! WHAAA!?!? So, with an approximate 450 Minutes remaining on the clock, I left for work, and the upload continued. I'm now back from work, and 2 people have already commented on the video! Awesome, folk are watching my silly vids (and not ALL of the subscribers have turned out to be spambots!!)

<a href="https://AGameAWeek.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/10/NeonPlat-Adventures-Screenshot_31-Oct-2011_105149.png"><img src="https://AGameAWeek.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/10/NeonPlat-Adventures-Screenshot_31-Oct-2011_105149-300x187.png" alt="" title="NeonPlat Adventures (Screenshot_31 Oct 2011_105149)" width="300" height="187" class="alignnone size-medium wp-image-2011" /></a>

Tonight, I started implementing a few of the hat suggestions, from a couple of days ago. This really is a mad dash, at this point, as I desperately try to get hats and badges all bundled into the game's code, ready for the Friday beta. There's still going to be masses of things missing from Fridays beta, like a Game Over screen, and an Adventure Complete! thing.. stuff like that. But for the most part, yet again, this will be a nice release candidate. ..It won't be released, of course, bec...

Every character, when caught in a bubble and collected, can be "worn" like a "hat". (They don't look like hats, but that's what I started calling them, and that's what I'll continue to call them!) Each hat will give the NeonPlat a special skill, allowing him to do all manner of wonderous things. The run through so far includes ball throwing, ice throwing, flower throwing, drop through the floors, hop in the air, shield, and many more. Today, I added "Multiplier x2" and "Multiplier x5" ...

Saturday's my "At work for a while" day, so I usually get a lot less codey time done, but I still managed quite a few bits and pieces in the morning. A couple of new baddies, and a teensy bit of AI are in there, as is something which may or may not be confusing, depending on whether you remember the 7 year old oddity or not. Suffice to say, the bananas do definitely appear to be coming from below the arrow. .. not sure what that's all about.. ---

Feedback

Got a little feedback, yest...

5 more, today! woot! That's 42 little animated characters I've popped into the game, now! (43 if you count NeonPlat!) 50? Looking entirely possible at this point! And I've done 8 backgrounds, now, too, so we'll probably want another 2 of those. I'll be honest.. Background #8 was kinda lazily cobbled together, but it works! I'll leave you with a nice desktop for today. This one's from Background #2, which I like to call "Square Pixels", but which doesn't real...

Until about 2pm today, NeonPlat's logo looked like this. <a href="https://AGameAWeek.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/10/OldLogo.png"><img src="https://AGameAWeek.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/10/OldLogo.png" alt="" title="OldLogo" width="561" height="213" class="alignnone size-full wp-image-1966" /></a> Now it looks like this..

Phase One was the simple test engine I release WAY WAY back in the very early stages of this humongous project.. .. last month! Phase One was a basic engine, with simple platforming mechanics. Taking the rules of NeonPlat and adding a scrolling background, I wanted to judge if it'd be enjoyed. True, one piece of feedback was a little downbeat, but on the whole it's been well appreciated. You can't please everyone, but the original's not broken, so hopefully that makes up for it. Pha...

Tap inside to see Jiro25 playing the NeonPlat Adventures Beta!

Last night I sat down to jot a few readme notes for the Beta Testers. By the time I was done, I'd inexplicably written 1500 words of gubbins! Whoops!

I'm in preparation mode, now, and am trying to fix the outer shell of NeonPlat Adventures, so that the game looks a little less rough around the edges, for all the people who'll be playing the lovely beta edition on Friday. Today I worked on the menu a little, fiddled with that "about" section that I never bother to fill in, and added nice level open/close sweepy things that make things look a little less slapped together. They're still just slabs of coloured rectangles, but they swoop left/...

One of the hardest things about adding baddies to this game is, surprisingly for me, not actually drawing things! With NeonPlat I've created a weird skewed world, where nothing looks exactly as it should. This gives me a little artistic license with my artwork. .. or rather, I can be shit, and nobody'll notice! If something looks a little too odd, I simply make it look odder in the animation, and it somehow cobbles together nicely. Want an example? The Bats don't flap, they kinda invert-...

Over the past year or so, I've done a few month-long iOS projects, but NeonPlat Adventures is the first time in a long time that I've tackled a nice big Windows/Mac/Linux project. Today, 11th October 2011, marks the one-month anniversary since I officially started this project.

At the moment, I'm sending occasional beta editions of NeonPlat Adventures to two people. One is AuthenticKaizen (/PixelProspector). He got instant beta-status, because he started the whole NeonPlat thing. This is all his fault!! I've been sending him little hidden youtube clips, occasional "New Stuff!" screenshots, and discussing possibilities with him. The other is Spinal (/Spinal Cord) who recently redid SpikeDislike as Nintendo DS Homebrew. Spinal and I tend to think and code the same. ...