Today I'm focussing my blog on iOS trials and tribulations. The basic steps of designing a game when working with iOS. These are pretty simple things, and should be apparent, but .. having played a fair number of iOS games.. they're not always done! Note, this isn't really about my actual development, as such, more the train of thought that generates the end result. In a future bloggy thing, I might focus more on the what/where, than the how/why that this does. Let me know if this is a goo...

Another Day, Another Game! Today's is a little bit tricky, I must admit, but it's a nice and simple one once you get the hang of it. Tap the colour co-ordinated cursor key, just as the two fellows are meeting, and you score points. If you're too late, you get no points, and lose a life. Easy as pie'ish!

I'd already got bogged down into doing the Socoder Newsletter, there, when my beepy alarm reminded me to do my new daily bloggy thing! Good job I set that, or there'd be no blog today!

Because sometimes you notice Platdude on the bottom of your generic tiles spritesheet and go "hmm.. what could I do quickly with Platdude"...

Today I did a bucket of iOS dev, but not the think I'd been doing previously. As with a whole lot of other iOS half finished games, it seems that Microbes (MLG) will be stuck in it's special little rut until I can fathom some sort of difficulty level system that actually tries to kill the player, rather than kinda bob about a bit. Meanwhile...

Yup, seems like I'm doing this, so I might as well make a neat little calendar that can keep track of my progress. This is a GoogleSpreadsheet thing, so if you keep bouncing back to this page as the weeks go on, you should see it get filled up nicely. Unless I give up, in which case you won't!

iframe based Google Spreadsheets no longer seems to work

It's been an incredibly un-British warm weekend, here. I'm not sure why. But the past couple of nights have been spent without hardly any sleep at all. I think I've had about 5 or 6 hours in the space of 48 hours, and. .. I'm now wide awake. Which is really quite annoying!

So called because, although I know that other people love this sort of game, I really can't stand it at all.. bleugh.. Let me know if you like it..

PlayMyCode games no longer work

Since I'm now doing AGameADay for a while, I figured it might be somewhat of a change of pace if I also did one of those "blog" things daily. I tried doing this during my previous month off, and although it kinda worked, it didn't really last.. d'oh! Still, try and try again! As a reminder, I've set up a calendar alarm thing to bleep at me, every night, at 22:15GMT. Either that'll work really well, or it'll start to tick me off, to the point where I throw my otherwise completely and totally unused H...

Yes, this is a lot like that one from the Advent Collection. Simply roll around, avoid the blocks, and grab the little green dots.

PlayMyCode games no longer work

AGameAWeek teaches us one thing. Some games you win, some games you lose. When you lose, there's not a lot you can do. Pick yourself up, dust yourself off, and move on. This is a post about how I threw myself on the ground.

Rule Number One. If you're ever making a minigame collection, there absolutely MUST be a version of snake! This is a version of snake!

Today I've a few more PR'y bits and pieces for the Sheep Goes Left iOS thing to contend with. This is the WORST bit of iOS dev. Although.. to be honest, I didn't do ANYTHING for SpikeDislike. SpikeDislike just kinda took off on it's own, so the fact that sheepy isn't is.. well.. .. bah. Screw it, carry on. I'm considering my daily routine, and how I can slot in the AGameADay's. I might make some sort of timetable or something, so I can fit it all in, not sure, but we'll see. I normally have Sund...

The other day I suggested that a new set of AGameADay might be in order, since I'm totally stuffed for ideas, lately. Out of ideas, make the requirement more.... Sure, that makes sense, right?! Anyhoo, today I spent . um.. all day.. doing yet another one of those Framework things that I apparently love to do. This time I used PlayMyCode.com, and the resulting menu/score/game thing has actually worked out quite nicely. First game, Chase The Block, a simple chasey game. Created (using PlayMyCode....

Seem to be having a bit of a down-session, lately. I'm pretty sure it's down to the fact that Sheep Goes Left is going mostly ignored. I'm going to try and give it a bit of a shove in a day or two, once the Lite edition shows up, but judging by the fact that it's getting next to no interest, I think we're already at the "aw well, next!" point. Damn, that's depressing!

This week, I started a game on a grid. It started well enough, with a lovely grid-doodling method making nice colourful griddy squares, and a simple circle on the top for the player. Then I got to the point where I had to do character movement, and my head just kinda went "Ugh.. I just can't be arsed!!" (URL "https://AGameAWeek.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/06/NoGoA.png"><img src="https://AGameAWeek.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/06/NoGoA-300x236.png" alt="" title="NoGoA" width="300" height="236" clas...

I'm sitting, trying to type, but I'm so tired it's all coming out as bizarre random codey bits, and nothing's really working out at all. Things achieved since last sunday 1. Puzzobomb PlayMyCode 2. 2 ALChoons 3. Drum machine mixeybob thing, started, sounding ok, still not quite there yet.. 4. Sheep Goes Left, 100 level pack + new ingame objects + organised menu to do both the packs. (upped to Apple, waiting for release) 5. Sheep Goes Left Lite, albeit cheated 'cos in the end I figured having to make...

I love it. There are new features. There are old features remade. There are better ways to do things. Quicker ways to do things. There's a lovely set of notifications! The world of iOS5 is remarkably fantastic! But there are downsides.

On Twitter last night, there was a semi-conversation about how to go about doing AGameAWeek. Once I'd headed off to bed, I lay and typed this gubbins into the iPod's Notepad thing, and then swiftly forgot about it, until just now! It's a bit waffley, and probably not entirely intelligible (it was 4am!) but here it is anyway.. If anyone DOES want to give it a go, let me know how you get on, and .. should it become a proper thing, I'll see about making some kind of linkage system. (rem...

Yeay! <img src="https://AGameAWeek.com/complete/Sheep_Goes_Left_20110614_Logo_thumb.png">

Note to self : Don't post mp3 urls straight to Twitter.. Foook! Instead, here's that mp3! More info later..

A demo!!?!?!!?!?! With all the freeware that's on here, the years of making freeware, and the fact that I've only ever made games for the fun of making the games, it's pretty damn unthinkable that one of my games might actually be a demo! But that's how it's going to be for this one. I like this game. I like it a lot! Last month, this started as a simple remake of a shitty little spike dodging game. A quicky, or so I thought, to slap onto the AppStore as a semi-sequel to Spik...

Bonus iOS Game! <a href="https://bit.ly/SheepGoesLeft">For iPhone, iPod Touch and iPad</a> (£1.19/$1.99/equiv.) Got an iPhone/iPod Touch/iPad? Grab Sheep Goes Left!! Go get it! It's out now! I'll be posting the semi-demo half-assed ported to Win/Lin/Mac edition as Tuesday's AGameAWeek, so you can try it out there, but the iOS one's much neater, has nicer menus, lovely swooshy bits, and even contains a wonderful little 20-track soundtrack! (woot!) Addition...

The other day I played another of those Fire Escape style games. You know the ones. They started on the Game&Watch and got remade over and over. <img src="https://AGameAWeek.com/complete/Juggler_20110606_Logo_thumb.png">

I might skip another AGAW, this week, sorry! I have a half-game play-thing half done, but I've just started another one of those spur-of-the-moment things that might take over my entire weekend. .. again.. <a href="https://AGameAWeek.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/06/logo.png"><img src="https://AGameAWeek.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/06/logo.png" alt="" title="logo" width="320" height="160" class="alignnone size-full wp-image-1414" /></a>