Developments

My Socoder site has been mostly inaccessible for about 18 or so hours, now. I'm trying to sort it out, but there seems to be something wrong with the file system on the server. It's acting very strangely. I've asked GoDaddy to do a server-restore, but if things are still.. .. weird.. I'll have to ask for a complete overhaul of my server. Very strange behaviour. Due to all of that madness, I've had little/no time to code anything. I spent what little time I had, yesterday, ...

Developments

It's been about a week and a half since SpikeDislike3 appeared on Android and iOS. In the space of just over a week, it's managed to do "fairly" well on iOS, and has sold over 100 copies. True, that's not amazing, but at least it's something, and it's great to know that at least 100 people still enjoy good gaming! Meanwhile, on the Android side, the game has now sold 12 copies. Of those 12, at least one was a pirate, and that copy ended up being splashed over every damn piracy ...

Developments

For all that I've done over the years, I rarely get noticed. I'm ok with that, but other people see "Made LOADS of games, never got noticed" as some kind of terrible failure. Instead, I see it as just a fun little hobby, and I continue to do what I do because I still get enjoyment from it, after all these many many (many!) years. Recently, somebody stumbled onto my site. I'm not sure how, whether it be via my GameJolt archive, or something to do with SpikeDislike3, or whatever...

Developments

Hurray! (URL "https://AGameAWeek.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/SD3_036.png"><img src="https://AGameAWeek.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/SD3_036-1024x597.png" alt="SD3_036" width="604" height="352" class="alignnone size-large wp-image-4799" /> An old favourite returns.. Yesterday, I managed to get three themes into the game. Three!! Well, technically one of those was that horrible nasty brightly coloured mess, but rejigged so ...

Developments

As I continued, for a ludicrous amount of time, to fiddle with theme #16 yesterday, I found myself finally getting around to tackling a second new theme. Over on the TouchArcade forum, (URL "https://forums.toucharcade.com/showpost.php?p=3583882&postcount=17">Coolpepper43) suggested doing a Psychedelic theme, and so I attempted to do that. To say that the theme ended up as a tragic mess of nastiness would be a bit of an understatement. I mean, don't get me wrong, I'm all fo...

Developments

One of the new themes sees me playing a bit more with Monkey's Skewing. The Transform and Matrix commands let you do some weird things with sprites. I never bothered to use them in the past because it's generally hard to pull off a good effect with them, that doesn't just look like you're pissing about with fancy effects! But during SpikeDislike3 I decided to experiment with it a little. You can see it used best in the Pseudo-3D theme. No 3D is used, and only simple skewing is...

Developments

I really should be getting back to Boxsplosions, but watching SpikeDislike3's journey through the AppStore has been so much fun!! Yesterday, (URL "https://twitter.com/craiggrannell">@CraigGrannell) posted a glowing review over at (URL "https://www.pocketgamer.co.uk/r/iPad/SpikeDislike3/review.asp?c=66176">PocketGamer.co.uk) (URL "https://www.pocketgamer.co.uk/r/iPad/SpikeDislike3/review.asp?c=66176"><img src="https://AGameAWeek.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/SD3_Po...

Developments

By now I should be mostly done with Boxsplosions, but unfortunately, and yet again, I've found myself wasting the day away doing not much more than SpikeDislike3 things! .. and a lot of that has been playing! Alarmingly, Rychan has been reaching amazing heights on the GameCenter scoreboards, easily slaughtering most of my best scores. Of course, I'm all too aware that people are much better at SpikeDislike than I am, but to see such HUGE scores shows just how compelling the gam...

Developments

I honestly never considered the time it takes to restart a level in SpikeDislike3 to be all that much. If nothing else, it gives you a second to stop, breath, and prepare for the next attempt. But bloody hell, the number of people asking for a "Quick Restart", is MENTAL!!! Yesterday I spent a good number of hours rejigging the way the saves work, and a lot of other things necessary for the new "Quick Restart" to work properly. (Previously the saves only saved when the menu rel...

Developments

After a good 28'ish hours, the game appears to be picking up pace. Hopefully the pace will stay up for some time, and not peter out in the way that most of my games tend to do! First day's sales (keep in mind that Day One was only about 4 hours) was 9 whole sales.. oooh! Day two's not shown up in my stats, yet, as it's too early in the day for that sort of thing. Apple's timezones and schedules are all over the frickin' place!! One day starts at one point, and ends at a complet...

Developments

Oh, boy, did I sleep, yesterday!! Saturday night was FAR too hot, and I couldn't settle at all. I spent most of the night lying in bed, listening to music and not achieving anything at all. Sleep wise, I got around about 2 hours total, leading to a very very sleepy Sunday! Suffice to say, Sunday I got NOTHING done.. Nothing at all, except for sleeping. Lots and lots and lots and lots of sleeping!! Dev-wise, I'm a bit closer to getting a good feel in Boxsplosions, but it's sti...

Developments

I'm still fiddling about with the level generator for the new Boxsplosions game. Currently it's coming up with either of two level styles. Either the arena a HUGE and has one or two targets to hit, thus leading to a huge chasm where not much happens, or it's generating a teensy tiny level that's completely flooded with millions of little bloody targets, which completely kills any sort of gameplay mechanic. It's going to be hard to get it to balance that out, without ending up wit...

Developments

Further rejections, this month, as a game gets rejected from yet another format. I'm not going to give them the publicity of a good rant, but suffice to say they rejected Invisible Munky 2 because, within the End Credits, I bothered to thank the people at OUYAForum.com, who helped me when I needed to test the game's physics. ( width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/Y-Oi5a8TTuU" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen>> ...

Developments

Hurray! Another week, another iOS release. This week, ChuckABall shows up in the AppStore, and people go CRAZY for it!! .. ... Probably not, but they should, because it's an awesome game. Lovely and simple, and great for that 10 second wait that you just can't stand waiting through. Jump in, play a level (or ten), jump out. It does exactly what you need from a game of it's type. ( width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/iDJjJXOBGxs" frameborder="0" al...

Developments

Yesterday's doings. Boxsploding I continued work on Boxsplosions, and got a nice new control scheme up and running for touchscreens. I might have to zoom out a little bit, though, as you can currently only see an area of about 8x8 tiles, whereas the whole arena is 128x128!! Today I'm going to be playing with the actual Splosions, and seeing if the gameplay matches the previous edition, or whether it all needs to be rethought and reimagined.. Hmm...