Developments

Yesterday was mostly musical, as I tweaked a couple of ALChoons to fit the new themes, rerendered them, and then compressed them into the game. With all five new themes now having choons, I suppose I should really get those new challenges worked into the engine, eh!? Oddly, rather than thinking about gameplay styles, I've found myself doodling another new theme, and am already planning the next one in my head, too. Hmm.. That's no good! Must concentrate, and get the important ...

Developments

So, I finally got around to rejigging that nasty looking options menu. It's been annoying me for a while, and it needed fixing, so... (URL "https://AGameAWeek.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/SD3_038.png"><img src="https://AGameAWeek.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/SD3_038.png" alt="SD3_038" width="640" height="480" class="alignnone size-full wp-image-4820" /> ...transforms into... (URL "https://AGameAWeek.com/wp-content/uploa...

Developments

As is the case throughout the majority of the past week, yesterday was spent mostly fiddling with my website. There are still a few minor errors cropping up on the error logs, but nothing worth hassling about. Little quirks like temporary variable usage, an old BASIC habit that refuses to go away.. If I want to disable a huge chunk of code, I tend to throw in something like "If (Aliens=Attack)" which does of course disable that section of code.. .. Yeah, I know, bad habit! Espec...

Developments

OK, so GoDaddy restored the backup, and I've spent the past 24 hours doing backups and fixes and all manner of server-based garbage. I'll be watching the stats over the next few days, keeping tabs on the databases, and ensuring nothing like that happens again. Grrr. You can read the (URL "https://socoder.net/index.php?topic=4833&viewpost=47700#47700">Waffley post here, if you're interested..) I'm still tweaking, but I'm ready to get back to Spike Dislike, except my mind's t...

Developments

(URL "https://socoder.net">Socoder.net) It's been about 36 hours since I asked GoDaddy to upload a server backup, and STILL they haven't done it. Grrr. I've been told it can take up to 72 hours, which, given I only asked for a backup from the day before, shouldn't have been that hard of a task. In fact, if this fails, and I end up needing "the day before", by the time the upload has happened, I'll have missed the window to make use of it, because the 7-day rotation will h...

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...