Dum-dum-durrrr..
Over at Socoder, someone (Naming no names.. he knows who he is..) figured out that the encryption on my Highscore system wasn't exactly the most foolproof of encryptions, and that it's fairly easy to hack in a few fake scores.
Can't have that!

So I worked my arse off, early this week, and a new encryption method has been successfully trialled and put into place. It's no super-amazing method either, but it oughta do for a while.

The extra workload has meant that I might not get time to make a new game this week. (boo!)

In the meantime, though, I have been retrofitting the new scoreboard back into the games that already had them, and I also figured I might as well start popping it into some of my other older games, too.
Expect, on Tuesday, a nice big lump of games, all sporting brand new online scoreboards, but most of which you've probably played before if you're a regular here..

Still.. I've a few days left, though, so.. You never know.. There might be some bonus extra game in there somewhere!

Wootsocks..

This week, I haven't entered the Wednesday Workshop. Instead I had a try at the Monthly one (#013), which asked us to create a game with lots of guns, and bullets and shootyness.

Since I'd already done a decent enough shooter the other day (H~S) I decided to try my hand at something a little different.


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Due to all manner of obscure things happening this week (A HD Crash being one of them..) this week's effort isn't anywhere near as good as last week's!!

Still, a game's a game, even without a titlescreen, music, sound, an ending, scores, or anything else like that..
..
*cough*
...

A guy called Afro, over at Socoder had modelled a few little 3D objects. We all decided that the aim of this week's Wednesday Workshop #169 would be to take one or more of them, and pop them into a game.
Due to my rubbish lack of 3D knowledge, I just grabbed pictures of them, and used those instead!!

Out popped a game.
It's not much of a game, but it's something to play with..

You can Download Afro's Chair here..

Enjoy!!

A while ago, I made this. Horizontal Shooter.
Fly about, shoot the bad guys, guard the good guys.
A nice enough game, lovely lines all over, but somehow lacking in something extra.

This week.. I added something extra!


View on YouTube

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A quick update, albeit not a proper one..
If you download this new version of JNKPlat, you can use the inbuilt editor to play around with all the nice new features I've been adding in, lately.
I've not really gotten around to building a bunch of levels, yet, though! So you'll have to wait for that.

I'll be posting a new version next week with some new packs of levels, and maybe even a bunch more new features, too!

Head inside to find the list of new features..
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A sequel/repeat this week, as the Wednesday Workshop #167 asked us to create a game with 2 main characters.

At first I considered doing a Bill and Ted game, but couldn't think of a decent gameplay element other than "Move the blocks".. That'd be a most excellent waste of the characters.

So I resurrected Bibbleman and Bobbleman, and just used them instead.
Still the same game, mind.. So if you're worried that you're missing out on a Bill and Ted game, open up the gfx, replace them with Bill and Ted stuff. .. See.. It's a rubbish Bill and Ted game!


Use Bibbleman and Bobbleman to move the balls into the blocks, and then get going on the next level.
There are 5 whole levels to complete!
Shouldn't take you too long.

You can download Bibbleman and Bobbleman here
Z/X to grab a block, Cursors to move, Spacebar to switch characters.

If you want more Bibbleman and Bobbleman, let me know...
...
So, probably not, then!

A game a week's going to be hard to keep going, so I'd like to have a nice bag of thoughts that I can pop into every now and then when the ideas start dropping off.

If you've a crazy zany game idea, now's your time to get it, if not made, then at least considered

Do keep in mind that "a game a week" pretty much reduces the complexity I can add to these things, so I'll be trying my best to simplify (See Platdude's Retro Collection!) any suggestions that come my way!

Ideas can be DS, or Windows orientated, so get going with your best! (/worst!)

This week's Wednesday Workshop #166 asked for us to create a game that uses lots of Balance.
I couldn't come up with anything!

So, instead, here's JNKPlat DS 08.

It's a complete restart of the engine, coded wholly from start, but using the old sprites so as to keep the good old fashioned style of the last one! (Although, had I redrawn the sprites... they'd pretty much have ended up the same, anyway!)

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I'm not entirely sure who came up with this idea, but it's been roaming around the internet for the past few years.
This week's Wednesday Workshop #165 was to create a game using only one button.
So, Heck, why not!
??
I grabbed the generic Cowbell Hero logo from the net. I'm still not sure who originally designed it, but there it is.
In went Platdude, and a few silly songs, and then a few extra songs from the folk at ModArchive.com, and within just a few days the job was done.
??

??
And now you can play it, and be happy that Guitar Hero's a little more complex than that, and thus well worth the money!
yeay!
??
You can Download Cowbell Hero here.

This week's game will not include Super Online Highscore functions. The way it works makes it impossible to stop people from cheating.
Ho hum..
 
In the meantime, here's a couple of bonus games.
 

Space Loops

This is last week's WW entry. Nice as it is, it now also includes online highscores. Right click on the titlescreen to update them. Type on the titlescreen to change your name.
Sorted!
Now try to beat the highscore!
You can download Space Loops here
 

Spider

Originally, this game was a little example thing that came with Blitz Basic. For Wednesday Workshop 150, we had to take one of the examples, and smarten it up a bit.
Now, 15 weeks later, it's been given online highscores, too!
Yeay!
You can download Spider here.
 
 
And now, to sit and wait for this week's game.
It's a corker

I'm not the type of person who usually does a lot of things! For starters, you'll probably notice that 99% of my games are locked to the refresh rate of your screen. If your screen's higher than 60hz, my games will run all that much faster.
The reason for that is that all my systems are set at 60, and.. to be honest, I tend to forget that other people's aren't!
Whenever a game relies 100% on framerates and specific timings, I'll more than likely bother to sort that out, but usually I'm onto the next game before I even consider it!
 
So, to all those who find my games are too fast, all I can suggest it you try running at 60hz for a change, and put up with the flickering that it brings
 
The otherside of my lazyness is that I usually don't bother to do much more than a single highscore on my games, if at all! It's just so much easier to plonk in a Highscore variable, and leave it be. No complaints, and it does it's job.
Over the past couple of days, however, I've been working on a new online highscore system, over at Socoder.net. This is a nice simple, and importantly an easy to impliment way of getting your highscore variables up onto the net, and retrieving a highscore table for all your minimalist effort!
 
With any luck, should I bother to add the one or two lines it requires, it should mean that all my future games will have little scoreboards attached.
It's not much, but at least it's something.
 
As for what this week will bring, I've not yet decided. The Wednesday Workshop #165 is "Games that require only one button", so if you couple that with highscores, it'd probably be something like the good old Yeti Sports. But like I said, no decision has yet been made. We'll all have to wait and see!

Wednesday Workshop #164 suggested we should make a game using vector graphics. I took this opportunity to remake the fantastic Dos game, Boogaloopers!

Move the ship around with your mouse, and trap enemy within it's trail. Nice and simple gameplay-wise, but a complete git to get working code-wise! Not only did I have to figure out the points that the mouse crossed the trail, but then do that whole polygon-shrinking thing, too!
Not easy! And I even accidentally left a little gap at the opening point! (oops!)

Still, that's only a graphical issue, and the game works exactly as expected.
There are 4 enemies of varying speeds, but I've not added pickups, or weapons, or anything like that.
Lazy? Maybe!
If you'd like to see more added, let me know, and I'll see what I can do.

In the meantime, you can Download Space Loops, and have a bit of fun!

This week, Socoder's Wednesday Workshop (#163) challenge was to create a game with Money in it.
I initially was going to create a top-down dungeon romp, but as the plan grew and grew in scale, I scrapped it and just ended up making a nice quick platformer instead!
??

Mr Money Grabber features you rushing through the level collecting all the coins you can.
You have 5 lives, and lose them if you touch the red monsters.
Nice and simple, but quite fast and frantic!
??
You can Download Mr Money Grabber here.

Wednesday Workshop #162 asked for folk to create a game with a big-ass timer.
My entry was simple.
Open a vault, Grab the loot, Run for your life, Drive to escape, have a gunfight, sorted!
All with a timer in the corner, and all played with the mouse.

The game's mostly all Left clicks, but the short driving scene requires you to right click occasionally, too.

Download and play The Heist.

I tried to keep a blog. It didn't work.
It's no surprise, though. I've never been one to keep a working active blog.
No matter, I'll try something else.

Welcome to A Game A Week.com

I'm pretty much already producing games at a fast enough pace, what with the Wednesday Workshop and all. So I figured I might as well get a bit of publicity out of it by adding a nice shiny noticeable domain name!

Will it work? We'll have to wait and see.

Here's the rules of this site.

1. When I make a new game, I put it on here.
That goes for Really Really Good games, like Retro Raider, Puzzobomb, JNKPlat, Centipong, Alien Deathmatch, and all the rest.
It also goes for the extremely bizarre games that don't really make much sense! Hey, it's a Game a Week, what do you expect!

2. If I don't make a new game within a week, I'll head into my collected archive of gubbins, pluck out a rare specimen, and give it a little shout out. That should at least give you something to play that week!

3. If the folk at Socoder make a great game, I'll plop that on here, too. That goes mostly for Workshop entries, but will also count if there's something really good, too.

And, I think that's about it.
There won't be posts about what new games are coming out in the shops, or things about new hardware, or other non-related garbage. Although there may be the odd occasional rant, and I'll probably still post "Me in a magazine!!" type things if they ever happen again

So, pretty much the same as it ever was, then.
But, hopefully, with a tiny bit more content.

I've still got to work out a nice layout, though. .. But it'll do as it is for now.

Puzzobomb gets a place in WebUser, issue 189.
That's exactly 20 issues after Horizontal Shooter was in.
And, if you're counting, it's exactly 2 pages earlier.. I've been bumped up to page 38, now! Woot.

2 pages in 20 issues..

Hmm..
By issue 549 I should be on the front page!
Woohoo! That's only 13 years away!

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Puzzobomb rears it's head once again, this time in a Junior capacity.

Puzzobomb Jr DS is basically just Puzznic! But, hey, there's nothing wrong with that!
Just because the titular "Bomb" is completely missing, doesn't mean the game's not fun.
And with over 2000 levels to work your way through, you'll be playing away for quite a while..
..
Or giving up!

This game might end up with lots of extras, some time in the future. For now, though, it's just a big collection of levels!

Hurray!

You can Download Puzzobomb Jr here..

Should be in every format necessary!

Tomb Raider meets Pitfall!


Retro Raider took a few days to get into a decent build, and then over the course of a few weeks I added lots of extra little chunky bits.


Recently I've been tweaking it even more.
There's now a handful of levels, a few collectables, doors, keys, and even a little Ghost Replay/Time Trial mode.


Good, clean, retro happyness!
There's even a level editor to keep you entertained even longer!

You can Download RetroRaider here, and have some fun! As usual, that link will be the most up to date version, and if there's any major changes, I'll let you know.

Puzzobomb, a mix of Puzznic and Bombs.. (For Jericho!)

Starting with the Wednesday Workshop base from the other day, I decided that yes, I would build it up a bit.
 
So, I opened up the Amstrad CPC game "Puzznix" which, since I was a kid, I'd always assumed to be "the original game".. Turns out it wasn't...Read More

I don't normally post individual Workshop entries. They're not usually good enough to make it to single-post-worthy status!
This week's workshop is a Jericho-based "Explosive" challenge, and so I made a small puzzle game with Bombs.
It's quite an interesting puzzle game.
Take the basic rules of the classic Puzznix game, add bombs, and score it all on a Golf-style scorechart.

The game looks quite nice, nicking the "chunky" block style from Blockman, and there's some half-assed sound effects.


Essentially though, it's a nice puzzle engine that I think I'd like to build upon.
Quite where it'll end up, I'm not sure, but for now it's got a nice 18-puzzle level set, and a few of them are vaguely puzzley!

Left mouse to move, right mouse to explode bombs, and that's pretty much all you'll need.
You can download Puzzobomb here.

For now it's Windows only.