If you, like me, get sick to death of resizing images to 75,000,000 different sizes, just so that iOS can show a tiny icon on your game, you'll probably love to have some kind of little tool to do it all for you. When I first started my development in Monkey, I created a little tool to make a bunch of icons. Over the course of the past year, the tool has expanded to cope with all kinds of other challenges. You can (URL "https://socoder.net/uploads/1/IconBuilder.zip">Download Icon Builder here). R...

Every year for the past few years, I've made one of my games free for the day, to celebrate my birthday. This year, it's been decided that SpikeDislike2 will be the game of choice. (URL "https://socoder.net/uploads/1/image-22-02-14-04-58-06.jpg"><img src="https://socoder.net/uploads/1/image-22-02-14-04-58-06_thumb.jpg"> Help celebrate the wonders of my birthday by (URL "https://itunes.apple.com/app/id604867277">grabbing a copy of SpikeDislike2, for...

It's a quirky game, and it can get a wee bit chaotic, but I've been enjoying playing it on my iPad and figured other folk might enjoy it, too, so I decided to submit it to Apple, and it's now available on the AppStore. <img src="https://AGameAWeek.com/complete/Space_Popcorn_20140211A_thumb.png"> <img src="https://AGameAWeek.com/complete/Space_Popcorn_20140211B_thumb.png"> You can BUY Space Popcorn here on the AppStore, where it currently costs just 69 poundy-pennies, or 99 dollar-cents, or w...

How fast can you destroy the final warrior!? Warning : This game is EASY!!

Since I appear to be making a sort of transition to OUYA, lately, I figured it'd be useful to know whether the general AGameAWeek crowd currently owns one of the things. <script type="text/javascript" charset="utf-8" src="https://static.polldaddy.com/p/7803619.js"></script> <noscript>(URL "https://polldaddy.com/poll/7803619/">OUYA?)</noscript>

(URL "https://AGameAWeek.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/02/20140214-013310.jpg"><img src="https://AGameAWeek.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/02/20140214-013310.jpg" alt="20140214-013310.jpg" class="alignnone size-full" /><br /><br />

Over on the OUYA website, they occasionally allow developers to write blog posts, and for some reason have decided that I'd make a good blog writer. Quite why this is, is beyond me, as we all know I tend to rant and waffle, and basically type any old crap into my own blog posts. But what the heck! I figured I'd join in anyway! (URL "https://www.ouya.tv/ouya-devlog-james-gamble-a-game-a-week/">My BlogPost!) It should be noted that I actually wrote this thing WAY back in December!...

Not normally the type of thing I post, here. I tend to leave AGameAWeek to the gamey stuff, but folk keep inquiring, so I guess it's something that some people seem to love to know about!

Space Popcorn : Battle your way through the evil forces of POPCORN!!! How much can YOU pop!? <img src="https://AGameAWeek.com/complete/Space_Popcorn_20140211A_thumb.png"> <img src="https://AGameAWeek.com/complete/Space_Popcorn_20140211B_thumb.png"> Sorry : Small screenshots really don't do it justice!!

I have no issues with the game. It's a bit shit, but then so is SpikeDislike.. SpikeDislike is "ball bounces, move right..." and has little or no substance beyond that. Of course, I then added a wonderful combo system, and then made a sequel with oodles of lovely new gameplay styles and plenty of options and such, but at it's heart it's still the same game it always was. Ball bounces, move right... In many ways, so is flappy bird. Flappy bird is "that helicopter game", but with harder obstacles to ...

Last night, I closed my laptop the lazy-man's way, by simply shutting the lid. I should know better. It never quite manages to "Resume Windows" without buggering something up along the way. This morning, it didn't boot at all, and I've spent most of the day doing the big format/reinstall stuff. At the time of typing this, I'm battling with Android and Java SDKs, desperately trying to get that stuff up and running again. Monkey's managing HTML5 and Windows targets, but OUYA and Android are currently o...

(URL "https://AGameAWeek.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/02/20140207-205552.jpg"><img src="https://AGameAWeek.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/02/20140207-205552.jpg" alt="20140207-205552.jpg" class="alignnone size-full" /><br /><br />

People often complain that my games look "too retro", and yet, this mostly-monochrome game with a seriously shitty sprite, is getting lots of attention. .. You can't please everybody! Seems to be going fairly well, and is relatively popular, but the exact same issue seems to be cropping up over, and over, and over and over again.. The helicopter only ever faces Right, and the planes only ever face Left. "OMG!! It doesn't turn around!!" "Why can't I turn round!?!" "It should be able to turn!!!" P...

I'm sick to death of, every single day, deleting buttloads of spam-comments from my Jayenkai Archive. Every day, mountains of the stuff.. And practically no actual comments, whatsoever. I think I've had 2, so far, this year.. .. and one of those was me replying to the first!! Ludicrous amounts of spam, zero actual usage. I figured, for every bit of spam, there's a half-a-second of CPU usage going to waste, even if nobody ever saw it. So, they're gone.. All of them.. Every single comment that th...

A lovely little flying game, this week, as you take control of a friendly little chopper, and try to save all your pals. As you race about the landscape, you'll meet plenty of enemy aircraft, hellbent on stopping you. Attack, Defend, and Survive!!

I woke up late, this morning, and felt somewhat lethargic. I tried doing a bit of coding, but nothing seemed to fall into place, and I couldn't really be bothered to tackle anything. I closed the laptop before dinner, and opted to give up on the day. Here's what happened on my day off..

I love my iOS devices, and I love the iOS Ecosystem. I also love that iOS has (so far) been the only bloomin' way that I've managed to sell my games in a fruitful manner. (Android sales have been.. *shrugs* Pisspoor!!) In order to get a Monkey-x game onto iOS, I first need to transfer the code to the Mac (Drag 'n' Drop over the network) then recompile with a few choice tweaks along the way. The game then needs approximately 738 different icons, which all look the same, but are marginally different si...

Coming up on Tuesday, "My Little Rescue Helicopter!", a nice retro game with a helicopter, and some evil enemy aircraft! (URL "https://AGameAWeek.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/02/ssc.jpg"><img src="https://AGameAWeek.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/02/ssc-1024x576.jpg" alt="ssc" width="590" height="331" class="alignnone size-large wp-image-3516" /> A lovely little shoot-em-up/rescue game with good old-fashioned old-skool graphics. Then, next week, relax wit...

(URL "https://Twitter.com/lessmilk_">@LessMilk_) has opted to give the whole AGameAWeek challenge a go, and has managed 6 so far. You can keep up with his efforts over on (URL "https://www.lessmilk.com/">his own site, here.) I wish LessMilk all the luck with his attempt, and will be keeping an eye on his progress for as long as I remember to do so!!! (URL "https://AGameAWeek.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/02/image.jpg"><img src="https://AGameAWeek.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/02/image-1024x57...

Welcome to February, everybody! ... How is it already February!!? In preparation for Tuesday's game, here's a lovely big wallpaper with a tiny little helicopter! (URL "https://AGameAWeek.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/02/Desktop_Feb2014.png"><img src="https://AGameAWeek.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/02/Desktop_Feb2014-1024x1024.png" alt="Desktop_Feb2014" width="590" height="590" class="alignnone size-large wp-image-3508" /> Click for MASSIVVVE!!!)

When I first bought my iPad, I never imagined the amount of "work" that I'd end up doing on the thing. The fact is, it's SO much easier to have your iPad on hand, than it is a giant laptop. That's not to say I don't use my laptop. It's pretty much an essential part of AGameAWeek. You can't exactly do your coding on iOS, so the laptop is there for the majority of the things I do, but over the course of the last year-or-so, I've found myself doing smaller bit-tasks on my iPad. I figured I should probab...

In the first of a (hopefully) full year of monthly Platdude related releases, Platdude gets to wander through a giant forest, battling enemy creatures, and avoiding deadly spikes! <img src="https://AGameAWeek.com/complete/Platdude_in_The_Endless_Forest_20140127B_thumb.png"> <img src="https://AGameAWeek.com/complete/Platdude_in_The_Endless_Forest_20140127A_thumb.png">