This morning I started a bit more work on this week's AGameAWeek. (Tomorrow! eek!!) And then I thought to myself "Why don't I finish off that new Showcase design for Socoder.. Should only take about 10 minutes". It didn't take 10 minutes. Instead, it took all day! So, no work on my games, today! The new Socoder showcase style is now up and running. Prepare the linkage!!!

Game #1, Sokoban, required a nice scrolling tilemap, of infinite size. I spent a couple of days getting that all up and running, so that it'll do for other games, too. But today, Game #2, Surprise!, required a different type of map. Game #2 needs a wraparound map, so you can move from one side to the other, and carry on in a continuous loop. This means that as well as drawing tiles where they're meant to be, on the DS's 512x512 pixel Background Layer, I also have to draw tiles if they'...

I just paid 400 points for Worms on X360. What the hey, right?! It's Worms... What could possibly go wrong!?! .. Well, aside from the things I ranted about, on the original DS version, a long while ago.. Well, would you believe it, there's something wrong with the Xbox Live version, too!

Bug fixes already! Oh dear! Sokoban had a bizarre map limit bug, whereby if you were off the left hand side of a small map, it freaked out, and the screen jiggled around like crazy.. .. oops! That got fixed early this morning, and then since it's Friday I took most of my time working on this week's AGameAWeek. (So I can bugfix Sunday and neaten it Monday, ready for release on Tuesday.) .. In many ways, I haven't done anything to PRC2! Maybe tomorrow! PRC2 : Still only 1 game....

I'm still building up the basic reusable map functions! Had some crazy memory issues, yesterday, but everything seems ok, this morning, so it's time to move from silly map things, to actually building the game up. Starting with a strange grouping of maptiles, I'm going to have to add crates, and a player, and get the movement up and running. It should be pretty easy to do, though, as all the arts ready and waiting. good-good! So with all that being done today (hopefully) I should be able ...

Yeah, I figured I'd forgotten a few things, and as Sokoban gets built up, slowly but surely, all the forgotten things are poking their heads out, waiting to be sorted. Click inside for coder-heavy stuff.. or just grab Sokoban from earlier today and play that for a while!!

As mentioned the other day, whilst sorting out all the PRC2 stuff, I first created Sokoban for windows, using Blitz. So here it is. Nothing special. <img src="https://socoder.net/uploads/1/soko.png"> A is the hard pack, B is the easy one. or as I like to think of it.. A is really hard..! .. And so's pack B. B's meant to be "For children and beginners", but I could only get up to level 11! *sigh* I suck at sokoban! All levels are from David W Skinner's Sokoban Level Si...

Yesterday was spent getting Sokoban to work in BlitzBasic for Windows. It ended up reasonably well, but there's a few things that should be tweaked, including one persons complaint that bundling all 600+ levels into a single pack kinda kills the fun of it.. A dull trek through a long list of simple levels before you even touch on the slightly more difficult levels, does not a fun game make. So, I'll split them back up into their seperate packs, and give folk a nice selectable menu system.

I'm yet to start coding anything gamewise, yet, but I've made my first start on the first game. Gerinych over at GBATemp suggested a Sokoban clone. Usually, I avoid Sokobans. They're kinda dull, generic and boring after 5 seconds, but there's something in Sokoban that's really useful right now. Sokoban has a LOT of levels, and since one of the Socoder members (JL235) is making his own Sokoban clone, he knew where I'd find a whole big bunch of levels for it. So, in rapid succ...

This time around, every game will have it's own quickly made titlescreen. Not wanting to spend too much time doing each one, I figured I'd get away with doing NES style titles. They're simple, but effective. I'm deciding all this, now, because it's so much easier than having to frantically throw it all together, later on, with 10 or so games all needing to be worked out! So, the style right now is, Title of game at the top, highscores below, and "Press Start" below that. Nothing...

For DS Development, I use PALib and DevKitPro. DevKitPro compiles everything nicely for the DS, whilst PALib is a set of functions that makes everything nice and usable, as opposed be being a baffling chaotic mess! However, if you try updating it, a whole fleet of incompatibilities arise, be it because of DevKitPro changing, or PALib. And, it's not just little things either. A simple PALib upgrade will mean that pretty much all of my old games start getting little breaks in them, and it's a ...

A nice and simple game, this week. <img src="https://agameaweek.com/completeB/2009/Storm_of_Idigidragon_20090224A.png"> Since I'm trying to decide what style Platdude Retro Collection 2 should have, I decided to try out a style in Blitz first, and see how it looks. You might notice it's still a little Atari 2600. .. I'm not sure if I'll stick with that. But I do like the nice big chunky sprites, and the whole thing feels much more retro than PRC did, originally.. So.. I dunno...

I say "Project", but of course, being me, I mean projectS.. #1 PRC:2 - 0% I'm restarting Platdude's Retro Collection from scratch, and building it up a bit bigger than last time, with nicer per-game spritesheets and things like that. Bigger = Better, usually.. .. I'll make sure that's true, don't worry! So far the selection's getting too big for it's boots, and at current rate it'll take about 3 years to finish the project, so.. going to have to whittle it down, and remember the "Keep it Simple" r...

You can <a href="https://agameaweek.com/?Game=165">Download JXW here</a> This one's for me!! If other folk enjoy it, then so be it, but I made this for myself because I was getting really ticked off by the lack of decent crossword games* on the DS. There's 3479 crosswords in the game. Each one's selectable from the very uninteresting title screen, and playable whenever you want. Pick a level, play it, done. If you want to save midway, hit start to return to the menu, th...

My mum likes crosswords!!! And, heck. I like crosswords, too! Except, the trouble is, there's not really a decent crossword game on the DS. Don't get me wrong, there's a fair few games, and The Times (released this week) in particular, has a cracking selection of clues/answers, and some really nice layouts. In fact, it's really quite nice, and would be fantastic if the actual game UI wasn't so mind bogglingly bad. And, I'm not saying it's "A little bit bad.." I'm say...

Doing your homework on the back of the bus.. A crazy week of illness, busyness, and a party, have meant that this week's game had to be done.. .. um.. today! And, as you could probably guess. I ain't got Jack! There's still a game, though! Take a look inside to see what it is..

I've taken onboard a few of AuthenticKaizen's suggestions, and there's now a slightly better edition of Disasteroids available. <a href="https://agameaweek.com/?Game=33">Same download link, right here</a> The game's pretty much the same as it was on Tuesday, except with a few added powerups to play around with. There's also (I forgot to mention this anywhere, but it's in there!!) a "Chill" mode. Hit Tab to start the game, and you play without those little white cr...

This week's Wednesday Workshop <a href="https://socoder.net/index.php?topic=1414">#186</a> was to create a nice Asteroids game. As I started creating it, I was planning a nice Horizontal Shooter-esque game, with powerups and all kinds of crazyness. But I ran out of steam midway. A shame.. <img src="https://agameaweek.com/completeB/2009/Disasteroids_20090203A.png"> BUT. It's still a nice swooshy game, with fancy particles, and nice explosions. It's mouse controlled, l...

This week, I've been working on an Asteroids game. On Thursday, it was a bog standard Asteroids game, that seriously needed updating. On Friday, I changed the controls to mouse. The game plays like a cross between Asteroids and Horizontal Shooter. On Sunday, I tweaked the controls further, and added particles. And today, I spent some time tweaking the difficulty. At this point, the gameplay's "OK". It's not amazing. And, I think because of that, I've kind of stalled. Right now, the...

Much as expected, this week's AGameAWeek has become a Vib Ribbon style game. To be honest, I had this idea for a moment, last week, whilst doing the Go Left game. The idea stayed in my head for about a minute, before vanishing. But having finally gotten around to playing Vib Ribbon, this week, I figured it was time to put the plan into action, and with a nice time-saving addition (the graphics!) I managed to get it done in time. So here's J-Walker. <a href="https://agameaweek.com/complet...

I've had it in my desk's cupboard for years. I bought the game not long after my original Playstation broke, thinking I'd pick up a PSX cheap somewhere.. I never did. And, I never bought a PS2, or a PSP, or PS3, or anything else that could play it. Over the years, I've tried it on Various emulators, only to have them spit it out, and die.. And yet I kept it, hoping to eventually play it some day. Yesterday I finally DID! And it's a cracking game. A wonderful piece of music based gaming, all nice a...

Every so often, I like to rant here, for no real reason. Today, whilst playing Burnout 3 on my Xbox Classic, the whole "Customisable Soundtracks on the X360" issue appeared once again, so I figured I should rant about it. See, on Burnout XBox, you used the game to pick the soundtrack, and then that played it in the background. But, it ALSO stopped the music when you crashed, turned down the music when there was information to be told, and other useful things. But, for some really bizarre inexplicable ...