OK, I'll admit it, I'm enjoying the OUYA. You can keep up with (URL "https://www.ouyalytics.com/developer/Jayenkai/">all my OUYA games here). There's currently 5 of them, and there's oodles more to come! (URL "https://AGameAWeek.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/11/icona.png"><img src="https://AGameAWeek.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/11/icona-150x150.png" alt="" title="icona" width="150" height="150" class="alignnone size-thumbnail wp-image-3272" /> (URL "...

This month is all about NeonPlat Extreme, as I slowly bulk up a minimalistic game with tons of brand new features! Woot! To celebrate, here's a lovely great big wallpaper! (URL "https://AGameAWeek.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/11/Wallpaper_Neovember.png"><img src="https://AGameAWeek.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/11/Wallpaper_Neovember-1024x1024.png" alt="" title="Wallpaper_Neovember" width="590" height="590" class="alignnone size-large wp-image-3252" /> Click for massively oversized version (32...

Welcome to Neovember, the month of NeonPlat, where I take the original NeonPlat Raw engine, and gradually upgrade it, adding new gameplay elements, features and modes. By the end of Neovember, we'll have a lovely big Extreme version of NeonPlat, and we can all sit around and play it for days/weeks/months at a time! In this first week, I've decided to tackle the task of bringing over the NeonPlat Adventures enemies, and popping them into the new gane. So far I've managed the first 35 enemies, ranging ...

Right, time for a new plan. The last plan fell apart, and I'm struggling to come up with new games that work with all the possible targets, nicely. Grrr! So, instead, I've opted to do something that I initially planned to do months and months ago. When I created "NeonPlat Raw" back in June, I purposely gave it the name "Raw" so that a future (premium?) expansion could be called "Extreme!" For Extreme, I'm thinking something along the lines of how NeonPlat 2 was a HUGE leap from NeonPlat 1. Different...

During most of October I've been building up a lovely little "Compendium". The idea was to make a collection of 25 little games, and pop it up as a sort of Advent Calendar type thing, but without it being thematically Christmassy, so that you could happily enjoy it at any time of the year. It's been about 2 or 3 weeks since I started the project. I got a lovely menu system working, and managed to fit all the usual scoreboard/icon/etc elements in. Then I started making games. .. and that's when the ...

Yesterday saw the launch of BlastTrax on OUYA. Since I've yet to figure out all that nasty Tax gubbins (I know, I know!!... eventually!!) I've not yet managed to add any IAP stuff to any of my games. Since an OUYA game is freely available as a download, and then the .apk gets reproduced all over the entire internet via robot-spammy-feed sites, you either have to do 100% free, or buttloads of IAP stuff. There's no mid-point, no way to create a "Demo vs Full version", or anything else like that. Since...

The internet is a place for trolls and complainers (like me!) who like to gripe at every opportunity. For the most part, we tend to ignore these types, which generally means that comments sections have become largely ignored. Here at AGameAWeek, the opposite has happened. There are apparently no trolls daring enough to even attempt to play my games! I seem to have scared most of them away. As a result, there are no trollers or complainers here, and since those are the types that make up the 99% of the ...

(URL "https://itunes.apple.com/gb/app/blasttrax/id689619329?mt=8">BlastTrax is currently (27th October 2013) free on the iOS AppStore) I really do find myself in a bit of a baffled state over this one. As the AGameAWeek guy, I'm certainly used to shrugging off failed releases, and in many ways this one should be exactly the same. This is simply one of many releases that I've made this year, and over the course of the year, pretty much all the games have had a day or two of interest, and then quickly...

Over the course of the past 5 weeks, BlastTrax has sold 16 copies. SIXTEEN.... That's just bloody well shit... I've made the game free for a couple of days. Grab it while you can, and don't expect any more damn updates. Sod that shit! (URL "https://itunes.apple.com/gb/app/blasttrax/id689619329?mt=8">Grab it Here)

Do you need maps for BlastTrax!? .. ... No.. You don't! Still, here they are! (URL "https://googledrive.com/host/0B-wPKt_YBHKfeU9JdkFCdWQwUVk/maps.htm">BlastTrax : Maps) There's a map for each of the first 15 levels of each of the 9 gamemodes in the current (V1.1) edition of the game. They're bloody useless, but there they are! Enjoy looking at the squiggles!!

Since I just answered this on the Monkey Forums, and created a nice little image to illustrate it, I thought it might be useful to repost my description here. Here's roughly how I achieved the Glow effect on NeonPlat. First, draw your sprite in a RAW form, then make a copy, make it bolder, then blur it all up a bit. Finally, load both the RAW and the BLUR into your game, draw the Raw first, then draw the blur over the top. It really is a simple effect, and depending on how large your blur-sprites ar...

So, I finally got an OUYA, and managed to get my first game into the OUYA store after a bit of tweaking. Time to update my Framework!

The Download

(URL "https://socoder.net/monkey/Framework_13_10_20.zip">Jayenkai's Monkey Framework, as of 20th October 2013) | (URL "https://AGameAWeek.com/2013/10/monkey-skeleton-13_10_20/">Blog Post)

Older versions

(URL "https://socoder.net/uploads/1/Monkey_Framework_2013_06_13.zip">Jayenkai's Monkey Framework, as ...