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.

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">

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.
S...

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 tha...

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...

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 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 "K...

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.

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.

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!

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 litt...

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..

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.

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://agamea...

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.

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 biz...

I've had a couple of emails about the donate button already, so thought I should clarify why it's there.
I write a game a week.. Sometimes they're good, sometimes their rubbish, and sometimes they're really fun, playable, and can keep you playing for a good few hours.
I can do this, because I have a lot of free time. And by "a lot of free time", I mean A LOT of free time.
The webhost is pretty much minimal cost (GoDaddy), the programming languages range from 0 cost (DS/XN...

A short and sweet game, this week.
Would've been more (extra graphical niceness) but I ran out of time! Aw well..
Here's the basic form.
<img src="https://socoder.net/workshop/dlds/184_go_left.gif">

I'm not sure if you figured it out from the picture I posted the other day, but it seems that the project I'm currently working on in XNA will turn out to be Centipong.
To be honest, I wasn't actually planning to do Centipong!
I was actually just shoving in a basic sprite, and getting it bobbing around on the screen, in order to duplicate my basic "Blitz 2D-in-3D" command set within the XNA environment.
So far that's working out rather well, and I've near enough created...

I've said on other forums that this year will be my Xbox Live year.
That I'd take the time to learn how XNA should work, and eventually build things up so they work nice and happily.
Unfortunately, my coding's stuck in the 80's&90's, and I can't get out of my "horrible" Basic habits.
Well, other folk call them "Horrible" habits, but honestly, I just see most Basic commands as common sense.

A nice, quickly made game, this week.. For obvious reasons. Bah..
Still, a game created in 2 days can be just as much fun as a great big month long project.
..
Occasionally.

Since I currently have no PC in my room, I'm down to the bare essentials.
I can use the downstairs PC to code on (and have a nice half-finished puzzle game ready for tomorrow), but all my music is sat on 2 inaccessable SATA drives.
My TV shows are on there, my codings on there, and a whole lot more.
Luckily, I found that DVDs with DivX content can actually be played on your Xbox.

PC 1 is dead.
However, PC 1 made nightly backups from Drive 1 to Drive 2, so all my data's safe and secure.
Unfortunately, They're both SATA drives, and PC2's a really old Celeron that doesn't have a SATA connector!
So, although all my stuff's safe, I can't actually get to any of it!

And, back to the old routine we go..
This week's AGameAWeek sees our old friends the Space Monkeys, rolling around in balls, through a maze, to get the bananas.. Again!
As with Super Monkey Balls, you needn't get all the bananas, just reach the goal, and try to get through all 8 available levels.
<img src="https://agameaweek.com/completeB/2009/Space_Monkeys_Go_Bananas_20090106B_thumbb.png">

No new game again, this week, but here's my New Year's Resolution.
AGameAWeek
There you go!
I almost managed it for a few months, so I'm going to try and stick to it all year round next year.