I wasn't aiming to do the Final Beta until about Wed/Thursday this week. Today, the Final Beta went out. A few days early, but there was nothing more I could come up with. The game is done. There's been a few tweaks, today, to sort out a couple of beta-player's issues, and I've been fiddling with some of those slightly annoying things that I never got around to fixing. .. but yeah, it's done.

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

And I've still got a todo-list as long as my leg!!! If I want a few people to beta-test the final-ish edition, that's gotta be done by about Wednesday, I think. So, I have about 5 days or so to get everything done, now. After that, hope for the best, and get everything bundled for the coming Sunday. .. eeek!

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!!)

I'm sitting here trying to come up with a multitude of silly Badges/Accomplishments/Awards, and inexplicably getting nowhere. Not sure why. I DID have a list. I think it might've vanished during my iOS upgrade sessions. Silly thing. Today's task will be to add as many of those as is humanly possible, as well as finally sorting out the Level Builder once and for all.. (maybe!) *shrugs* Late night tweaking resulted in a couple of nice new features, and I also got around to semi-sta...

<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>

I think I'm full of the evil man-flu.. .. or rather, I hope that's what it is! Spent last night in a strange awakened stupor, and then spent a good 5 hours completely zonked out. eek! I got a few bits and pieces done last night, though, so that's ok

And I'll be doing nothing again, today. .. well.. .. I say nothing.. What I mean is, I don't have a great big 12 item checklist to do, and I won't be struggling to type by the end of the day!!

MMMMmmmmm........!!! (If you're bored, why not look back at previous blog posts, read between the lines, and see if you can spot how much that damn calendar's been ticking me off!!!)

Today, I became a complete and total recluse! It was the only way it was all going to get crammed into the day. Let's go through last night's list, shall we?

I've done a LOT of work since yesterday. All 50 hats are in, 50 chrs are in, and I've stripped out a whole bunch of annoying quirky bugs. There's one really annoying "Got stuck again" issue that I need to weed out, but I can't figure out the best way to do it, so I'll point it out in the beta tomorrow, for those who are getting it. SPOILER ALERT Inside is ALL the characters. Don't click it if you'd rather not know!

Gah! Extra hats today! I now need about 3 hats, and annoyingly I think I might need an extra bunch of baddies, which also means more hats! D'oh! Still, those can wait until after the Friday Beta. The things that can't wait, are those annoying things that build and build, until you realise you don't really have a whole lot of time.

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...

Today's been total utter chaos. I wrote a bunch of little Badges (Awards?!) the other day, so I've spent today trying to wrangle the code together so that they actually work. See inside for some oddly missing information.

First up, be aware that these aren't working yet, so the bit where one of the achievements would appear to be mostly impossible without the others, is actually down to the fact that they're 6 items apart, and nothing to do with anything that's been earned yet!!! .. having said that, here's the first screenshot of the Achievement table that I've been working on, today.

This is the plan. Week 1 This Friday I'm launching Beta2, so I have until Friday to add an alarming number of things. I thought I was on track, but then realised I needed... 1. All the hats! 2. All the badges. 3. A couple of bits of music. 4. Scoring methods This Beta will hopefully be, for the most part, the fully complete game. Any extras after this point should be neatness-tweaks, and nothing major, but.. well.. things always get in the way!!

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.. ---

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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..

On Tuesday, things had started to go annoyingly slowly.. That part where the number of bug fixes grossly outweighs the number of fun happy additions you can be enjoying adding to your game. But I did a lot of fixes on Tuesday!

1. Drew new baddies. 2. Tweaked level generator. 3. Made Ducky-Turret's weapon a bit more visible. 4. I also took another 6 items off my todo list, but I can no longer remember what they were, since I've removed them from my list! d'oh! umm.. *shrugs* Still, I got quite a bit work done, and things are all nicey nicey. I haven't yet drawn anymore backgrounds, though... Need to do more of those. This isn't a very lengthy blog, today! Tomorrow, I'll make a list of what...

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-...