People keep asking about how I manage to code AGameAWeek, and one thing they all eventually pick up on is that I'm currently doing it all with Monkey. (URL "https://monkeycoder.co.nz">Monkey) is a fantastic language which allows for all manner of different targets, and does a great job doing what it does. It isn't perfect, and it's not for everyone, but it suits me down to the ground. As with any development tool, it all comes down to preference, and whether or not you agree with the methodology o...

I'm taking a slight break from my usual AGameAWeek schedule. Over the course of September, I'll be spending extra time building up a super awesome edition of BlastTrax, whilst also taking the time to enjoy GTAV properly! Hurray for games! Meanwhile, I'm digging through my archive of old forgotten gems, and plucking out anything that isn't yet part of my Archive for reasons of terribleness, or general forgetfulness!

Just because I'm taking September off from my regular AGameAWeek schedule, doesn't mean there won't be fun times ahead! I've decided to keep you entertained with a few oddities that have collected on my hard drive for the past decade or so, but have mostly been unpublished due to being "a bit shit", or me having lost their sourcecode. These are games that I've always considered to be part of my archive, but for various reasons I've never actually bothered to add to the thing. Games that I occasionally ...

To mark five whole years since (URL "https://AGameAWeek.com/2013/09/agameaweek-gold-jnkplat-ds-08/">the release of the greatest JNKPlat game, EVER), I've decided to do a JNKPlat themed desktop this month. Nice and simple! (URL "https://AGameAWeek.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/09/out.png"><img src="https://AGameAWeek.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/09/out-1024x1024.png" alt="" title="out" width="590" height="590" class="alignnone size-large wp-image-3142" /> Click for MASSIVE!) (Only 2048x2048,...

<img src="https://socoder.net/AGAWGold_128.png" style="float:right;">AGameAWeek Gold takes a peek back through the masses of the Jayenkai Archive, to see if I've released anything of importance on this day in history. Today's game might not exactly have been released on this day in history, as it actually went through a series of three or four separate releases.. I'll have to trawl through the various forum posts to be sure.. But today's the day that I've marked, so I'm pretty sure it had some sor...

This week, (URL "https://twitter.com/caffeinekid">@CaffeineKid) released his latest Android-based remake, a classic from the world of the 80s!! A lovely retro game from the age of static screens, and proper dungeon crawling, where the game had to have actual gameplay, because in those days, you couldn't rely on 50 bazillion polygons to wow the audience. You had to have a bloody good game!!! ( width="480" height="360" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/HXjFlWNxxGs" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen>

BlastTraxFAQs

What's with the track?

BlastTrax was originally devised as a classic Retro-styled GrandPrix-like racing game, with weapons. You would drive through the course, shoot the other drivers, and make your way through to the end. I started work on the game, made a nice retro-styled GrandPrix racetrack, added a few little cars, and then.. .. And that was when (URL "https://www.foppygames.nl/">@FoppyGames) decided to launch his Retro-styled GrandPrix racing game. D'oh! True, min...

Thankyou for waiting patiently, as 95% of the internet inexplicably got to play this yesterday, before I posted it to my own website!! *sigh* Ah well, lessons learned, must organise things a wee bit better in future. Doing worldwide launches at 10 in the morning, isn't all that easy! Anyhoo, this one's a corker, so it's well worth the wait!

Rather than have a bunch of different posts all over the place, as usually seems to be the case here, I thought I'd create a game-specific page and dump all the reviews onto it. <img src="https://socoder.net/uploads/1/BlastTrax_Logo.png"> BlastTrax seems to be gaining a teensy bit of attention, although exactly how much of that is due to one particular reviewer bombarding me with his over-excitement, thus making it feel like there's a bunch of excitement when in fact it's only his own exc...

<img src="https://socoder.net/AGAWGold_128.png" style="float:left;">It's been a while since I did an AGameAWeek Gold. There's not been a lot of stand-out stuff popping up on the old time-machine. Sure there's been a whole pile of games, but nothing that's really been noteworthy, so for the most part I've kind of been ignoring this section of the site. Today, however, a lovely little game popped up, and I spent a good hour playing the thing! Whoops!!

This coming Tuesday, August 27th I'll be releasing Game #300 in the Archive. Holy crumpets, 300!?!!? It's been a long trawl, getting BlastTrax finished in time, especially since I actually had to have it done by LAST week, so's it could get through Apple Review in time for the #300th! As a result, August has been one heck of a crazy month, and I'm pretty dang tired out. I'm currently considering taking most of September off, or at the very least a couple of weeks. I've reached a nice goal, it's tim...

BlastTrax has passed iOS Review, so all is looking good for it's target August 27th release date. Since the game is now up on the AppStore, but currently locked tight until the release date, I thought I'd have a bit of fun with it, so I posted the following challenge onto Twitter. (URL "https://AGameAWeek.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/08/photo-4.jpg"><img src="https://AGameAWeek.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/08/photo-4-898x1024.jpg" alt="" title="photo (4)" width="590" height="672" class="alignnone si...

Little Ember over on the Monkey forums, has released his first Android game, and it's free, so o/ yeay o/ A nice classic retro Space Invaders styled shoot-em-up, with lovely LED styled graphics, and lots of lovely shooty bang noises (URL "https://AGameAWeek.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/08/unnamed.jpg"><img src="https://AGameAWeek.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/08/unnamed-300x225.jpg" alt="" title="unnamed" width="300" height="225" class="alignnone size-medi...

Hello, I'm Jayenkai, and in 5 days time, I'll be adding the 300th game into my Archive. 300 games that I've single handedly created over the course of the past decade. Today, I received the following email. (URL "https://AGameAWeek.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/08/anemail.png"><img src="https://AGameAWeek.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/08/anemail-300x30.png" alt="" title="anemail" width="300" height="30" class="alignnone size-medium wp-image-3087" /> "N...

For the past week, I asked people on Twitter and Socoder if they'd like to join in with a silly new game by drawing costumes onto a sprite of Idigidragon. The results came fairly slowly, but a number of decent attempts were made. .. Then Rockford over at Socoder sent a HUGE batch of stuff, and I had to spend a good hour or so cutting them up into little parts! D'oh! Anyway, this is the result.

Coming up is a game that I've been building up over the past week or so. On August 27th, I'll be releasing the wonderful game BlastTrax. The game started well enough, but soon spiraled out of control as I realised it was much better than the quick experiment that it started life as. Rather timely, too, as it means I can release it as #300. But, what exactly IS #300? Hmmm...

An extremely rapidly cobbled together game, this week. If you've been following me on Twitter, you're probably expecting a nice swirly glowing awesome shooty thing. .. Tough, this isn't it!

We're a little bit later than usual, this month, but only because I couldn't come up with anything. This morning, I spent a little time making a new Facebook Avatar, and figured "what the hey! might as well big-ify it, for a wallpaper!" so, this is that!! (URL "https://AGameAWeek.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/08/AGAW_Desktop_2013.jpg"><img src="https://AGameAWeek.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/08/AGAW_Desktop_2013-1024x1024.jpg" alt="" title="AGAW_Desktop_2013" width="590" height="590" class="alignnon...

I'll try not to make a habit of making iOS Pay-For apps the "Weekend Retreat" thing, but there's something to be said for having decent iOS games that charge you upfront, rather than slamming adverts into your gameplay, and IAPs all over the damn place.. So.. Yeah.. If a game's good, it's good!!

As we near adding game #300 to the Archive, things are getting a wee bit chaotic in my Dev-folder. Games are being started, then largley ignored, as I constantly jump from project to project in a desperate attempt to find "That special something" which will do for #300. So far, nothing big has turned up, so, with only a few weeks until we get there, I've still no idea exactly what that game might end up being. Hmm.. Still, it's a fun trip, and this week's game idea comes courtesy of Twitterer (URL "ht...

Foppy's (URL "https://twitter.com/foppygames">(@FoppyGames)) finally released his lovely little retrotastic Grand Prix game!! o/yeayo/ It's a good old fashioned 3D-in-2D styled racing game. Looks like Pole Position.. Feels like Pole Position.. MMMmmmm.... Complete a lap before the time runs out, and then continue to do that until you can't do it no more! Scores are based on distance travelled, and cars passed.

Although this week seems like a quick re-use of old sprites, I can assure you that they are in fact a completely different set of sprites!! Brand new Puzzobomb sprites, ready for an all new Puzzobomb game! But before I tackle the lengthy process of making a whole bucketload of levels, let's see what it's like without any levels at all...