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've decided to make a start on this year's xmas game. I'm going to attempt to create a little plaything within a few hours, whenever I have a few hours to spare. I'll wrap it up into a little advent calendar package, and post it on Dec 1st. Plenty of time to get that done, and hopefully I won't bugger it up, or ignore it, along the way!

So that's pretty much what I'll be doing, and I'd be quite content with that, except that I've gone and done something fairly silly...
I've now got THREE accounts over at OneGameAMonth, and each one needs a game posted each month, which means.. Basically.. I HAVE to make at least three games each month.
D'oh!!!
I'm going to have to make a quick little Platdude game, and cobble something else together, to keep those slots filled.

-=-=-

... Meanwhile.. As if all of that wasn't enough, I've got plenty of other things to keep me busy as a bee.
Here are some of the other projects that need doing.

1. Sheep Goes Right. It's still not done yet, and whenever I open it up, I realise how much needs doing to make it all work. There's a lot of stuff to do in that game!!

2. JNKPlat. A nice proper full-on edition of the game, with all the bells and whistles you've come to expect from a proper JNKPlat release. Tons of levels, loads of block types, and a level editor.. ... Which works with a game controller.. ... And does uploading... ... Hmmmm...

3. The Jayenkai Archive 2.0, with a much nicer look to it, proper searching and filtering, an overhaul of the current messy tags, a possible blog integration, and somehow managing to tie in a fully featured music archive as well. That's going to be a fairly large job..... Erk!!

4. Monkey Framework Year 3, with an overhauled frontend. I'm going to need a text entry method for entering the player's name, as well as somewhere to display Highscore tables with those names. I also need to formulate an easily reusable way to do "oodles of levels!!" rather than relying on a lazyman's "big scrolling menu", or worse, the number system from Greenie's MiniQuest!

5. Online Leaderboards. This is the trickiest part, by far, as it requires a whole host of things to be in place beforehand.
I need a failing way to connect to the server (failing gently so that if you're offline, it can cope)
I need the "enter your name" screen in the framework, and a way to enter your name if you're using a controller, or a touchscreen, without relying on a giant onscreen keyboard.
I need a password system that's workable on all possible devices, from controllers (with buttons which may not be laid out as expected) to touchscreens and keyboards. One password to fit them all...!
I also need a registration system that works ingame, but doesn't end up with a 10 page questionnaire, asking for your email address, and more.
... And then I need to write the server side to cope with it, and somehow manage to handle all the games I'm about to make, which use it.. Multiple scoreboards for each game, oodles of players for each board...
Whilst still being able to update it with additional features in the future.. .. But still coping with older games that I'm not willing to update, so it has to be able to fall back without crapping itself.

GAH!!!

.. Yeah, this one's going to be tricky!!


All in all, I have a heck of a lot of work to do, and only about 3 months in which to do it all, so the new framework is ready for 2015.