Looking at the stats, either everyone decided to leave when I released NeonPlat (Why?!) or folk started to get upset when I mentioned my attempts at iPhing Development.
I'm not sure which, but there's certainly been an awkward shift.

So, I'm going to split things up.
Even though my iPod Development won't be "AGameAWeek" (or at least, not for a long long while) I've still decided to call my new site AGameAWeek iDev. Because, what the heck, that's my brand now! I might as well stick with it, right?!

*shrugs*

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This week's game came out a whole lot better than I'd expected it to.
It's still not fantastic, but given that the game only just started to fall into place yesterday, it's not turned out so bad.


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Still no name for the train game, so it's currently named "Jay's Train Game"! silly name!

It's a bit more gamey, now.
Some sort of cross between a proper sim-type thing, and a cheap arcade game! Odd.
Needs a few more "This is happening" type notifications, but it's all falling into place.
No idea if it'll all be done by the morning, but it's closer than it was yesterday, and it feels a lot more like I've bothered to plan it out!!!


Will it be fun? Only time will tell!

Meanwhile, possible names?

This week I've drawn a train, and some tracks, and am currently in the midst of desperately trying to get the train to behave upon said tracks.
So far, it's a stuggle!
Trying to get each carriage to turn at the right time, trying to account for the 30-odd track pieces that I've drawn, and trying not to make it look rubbish.
..
meh, what can you do!

It looks a wee bit unrealistic, but it gets the job done!
(hint for future Jay : probably shouldn't have gone for train sprites that were twice as large as the tracks ones!!)

The engine is piecing together slowly, and I've yet to consider any sort of gameplay.
Whether or not this all falls into place within the next day or so, is entirely up to how much I refrain from doing silly things on the internet, like typing large blog entries like this one.
..
oops!

Perhaps Tuesday : A new game, with a steam train, but with no name.

Not quite the 200 I was hoping for when I asked for levels the other week.
Only Shadow1w2 sent any in

Still, Shadow1w2 sent us 10 whole new fun mean levels to play with.

Meanwhile, I've been so busy with everything else that I hadn't much time to make any, so you'll have to make do with only 7 little levels that I made this morning! eek!

In addition, there's a fun new tile to play with. (only 1, mind.... and I struggled to come up with that!!)

hmm.
...

Is 17 levels enough?

Yeah, of course it is

Nice new version is over at The Jay Archive, Right here, for Windows, Mac and Linux

I made this about 4 or 5 days ago, and have had it as my desktop on about 3 different systems.
Oooh, it's luvly! (Even if I do say so myself)


There's a game-logic-error in the thing, but other than that it's a nice looking desktop.

It's a massive 3200x3200 pixels, but should scale nicely to your resolution... If not, feel free to chop it down to size a little!

Is it really 200, already?! Blimey!

The quickly made retrospective "look at what you've done" post..

I started writing games as a kid, went through school making silly games, and ended up with not-much-at-all to show for it.
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My super copyright infringing retro game is back!

Take one part Pitfall, one part Tomb Raider, and mix in a little Indiana Jones, and this probably wouldn't be the first thing that springs to mind.

Never the less...


Here she goes again!
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View on YouTube

Tuesday : Game #200 : RetroRaider II, Lara's Quest Continues

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Mmm.. Editor!

You can play along inside the editor, just like in the last one, but things get a bit shrinkied this time.
The game scales down from 7*pixels to 4*pixels, so that a bunch of extra editor clickables can fit around the side.
There's not a whole lot of clickables, right now, but it's all a WIP.
The levels then save as nice neat XML files, so you can even set about tweaking them in notepad, if you feel the need!

Um..
Nothing else to show, right now.. Looks/feels about the same as it did before!!
Oh, and those "Layer" things are so you can have holes with gripable vines, or dogs starting off at the same place as gems, or whatever.. together... rather than only having one object per "block".

The people at Curly's World of Freeware suggested that the original Microbes game might've been a wee bit too crazy.
Sorry, CWFers, this one's takes the crazy up a notch!!


View on YouTube

There are powerups! .. and...
...um..
actually, there's not really a whole lot more to it than that!
This is the original Microbes, with a little bit more, but rewritten to be smoother, and to run on Win/Mac/Lin!


Enjoy it, it's a great little shooter!

You can Download MICROBE2 from The Jayenkai Archive for Windows, MacOSX and Linux.

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AGAW Scoring : 45 weeks, 46 games.. and much better this week!

I just spent the past two hours trying to get my iPod game to pause when the user quits via Multitasking, or by the lock button, or whatever.
Trying to pass a variable (a single little integer) from one part of the program (AppDelegate) to another (ViewController) is probably one of the most difficult things I've ever had to do!

Good God, why do they have to make things so damn difficult!?

I mean, seriously, can't we go back to...
10 Print "Hello"
20 Goto 10
Used to work fine for me!?!!

Stupid new age languages..

It works now, and I'm pretty sure it'll do most cases.
I'm not 100% sure what happens when the user gets a phone call, since.. um.. Can't find that option in the Simulator. I can get it to show a status bar, but not go "YOU GETS AN PHONE CALL!!!!!", so.. um.. thanks for THAT, Apple! tsk..

Tomorrow, back to Windows : Microbe2 (Youtube Trailer!)

The plan was as follows..
A couple/more Big Remakes due to be released on the week of my 200th game
A couple of little piddly games to tide me over.

The plan is now..
Spent too much time on Remakes, releasing remakes instead!!

Aw well..
First up, Microbe2
A great little remake with.. um.. powerups are thus far about as interesting as it gets!
...


I'm thinking!!!

Tuesday : Microbe2

Hmm.. This iPhing dev is taking longer than my regular AGameAWeek stuff!
But I'm learning, and I'm practising, and I'm breaking and fixing things, too!

Today I got loading and saving to work, I got most of my menu working, and I even got the pause button going, too!
I've popped in the regular "Platdude Jingle", figured it'd do for the meantime, and..
..
Well, it's looking and feeling much more like a game, now.

The code is absolutely ghastly, mind, but that can be sorted.
Hopefully!

Okeydoke, where are we?
I still need to do the following..
1. Highscores
2. Rules + About screens
3. Badges? Might be interesting to add them somewhere.
4. "Phone Status".. I need to learn how to tell if the phone's been switched onto standby (pause the game) or if the phone's "phone" is in use (stfu, game!)
Um.. #4 is the bit I'm dreading, but will probably turn out to be the easiest!


No video today, there's not really much more to see than what was in the last clip.
But, o/ yeay o/, game!!!

Again, a bit more than 90 minutes, and again a lot like yesterday's task.

Whereas yesterday I was, for reasons unrevealed, playing with Microbes..
Today I'm playing with...

That one!
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Am I still doing that 90 minute thing?!
*shrugs*
Seems to have faded out a bit. Oh well, no matter..

Today I spent about 2 hours working on this.

..
Yep, that..

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This one didn't really turn out, so well.
It's a nice nature based bee game, with lovely floaty music, and some words.


You hit Tab to highlight the flower/bee, type it's unscrambled word into Barry's Belly, then hit return.

Rinse, Repeat


There's not a whole lot to this game, and it's not as fun as I was hoping it'd be.

Aw well, not to worry, maybe next week's game will be better!?

You can Download Barry The Spelling Bee from The Jayenkai Archive, where you can grab it for Windows, MacOSX and Linux.
Type away!

It's got a nice background tune!!

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AGAW Scoring : 44 weeks, 45 games, but a bad quality of games lately. Must try harder..

It's probably due to the sweltering heat, but my mind's not been very active today, and I've been really slow at getting anything done.

I got quite a lot of Barry the Spelling Bee done, and then decided to do a little work on Cardagain. But, boy, that got messy.
First off, I tried playing a bit of title music.
That just plain didn't happen!! After 2 hours, I scrapped the idea of title music!

Next up, the menu got half complete, and I figured I should add load/save mechanism for that lovely "Load Game" button.
That was, again, about 2 hours ago.
I've not finished doing that bit, yet!


View on YouTube

Can't think.
Too hot.

Bah!

Maybe tomorrow!!

If you hadn't noticed, I've spent most of this week working on my iPhing game, so what happens to AGameAWeek!?

Well, I've still got today and tomorrow, and there's nothing better than a rushed quicky game... right!?!

Yeah, why not!?

I drew Barry The Spelling Bee back in January 2008, but I couldn't quite decide how his game should play, so it never got anywhere other than the single Bee sprite.
This morning, I drew a flower to alongside him, and I think I've a vague game idea flowing in my head.
Now to get that working in code!

..
Wish me luck!!

Tuesday : Barry the Spelling Bee

My mum had a couple of games of Cardagain, today!
That's how far along it's come!!

In less than a week, I've not only finally managed to get a grip on the language, I'm actually making a pretty damn good game, too!

In the next couple of days, there's still a few bits and pieces to work on.
1. The menu is really really barebones at the minute, showing 4 items, but only having one clickable one.. (New Game!)

2. The loading screen could do with being switched for an AGameAWeek thing.

3. Maybe a title tune/jingle's in order? But I'm not sure it's essential. I've a fair few games on here without any music.. I think there's a bunch of dev'rs just assuming people are listening to music.
.. or just too lazy to add music!

4. Pause mechanism, threefold. It should pause when you hit pause.. It should allow for a pause after each round (if you ask it to do that).. and it should also pause when you hit the power button, 'cos it keeps running in the background whilst the system's on standby! yikes!!!

5. Oh, and loading and saving, too. Need to learn that!


On the other hand, I also need to make this week's game, so there's that too..
hmm..
What to do...?