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[Jayenkai]

Year Three
A fresh new year's worth of AGameAWeek.
I've decided not to worry about the whole "Every Week" rule, because last year got a wee bit crazy towards the end, with the constant game making taking it's toll in rather odd ways.
So, although I'll AIM for AGameAWeek, if I don't quite hit the target, I won't be worried about it.

The Games
1. Ted Bob's Pet Hammer
2. Space Clusters
3. GeeBee Hop
4. Jay's Retro Sprite Tool
5. Super Happy Speedy Gerbil
6. No game, game too big!

[Jayenkai]

Week One
Ted Bob's Pet Hammer
Without any ideas what I'll be making, I jumped headfirst into the new year, and came up with a strange memory/hammer based game.

A simple puzzle game involving a variety of objects inside crates.  Smash the crates containing pets (to rescue them!!) and ship out the boxes containing TNT.
Plays much better in the harder modes!

Week Two
Space Clusters
A remake of sorts, based on an old Amstrad CPC game, Space Hawks.

Destroy the baddies as you would a regular shooter, but should the enemy be stationary when hit, it drops a little pod which'll kill you.
This gives it a nice controllable difficulty level, whereby if you don't shoot like a crazy person, then you won't be bombarded by falling pods..
...  whereas if you go mental, the game will similarly be much more difficult.
It's nice and fast, and again it's better on the harder modes!

Week Three
GeeBee Hop
I took the time to make a nice simple gameboy styled platform game.

Simple rules.  Z to run, X to hop.
Grab the gems to open the door, and then exit.
The lives are quirky, in that they don't kill you once you've lost them all!  Instead, you're penalised for every extra life that you lose.
A bit odd, but it seems to work nicely.

[Jayenkai]

Week Four
Jay's Retro Sprite Tool
Not a game!

I took some time to make a crazy Sprite creation tool.
It's not the best thing in the world, and it's all a wee bit random, but as a starting point it's something fun!
Give it a whirl, and you might end up with something random!



:

[Jayenkai]

Week Five
Super Happy Speedy Gerbil
People who call themselves "Sonic fans", but hadn't noticed the ridiculously stupid physics in Sonic 4, must be completely blind to the fact that you CAN actually let go of the Right button..



This game's for them!

[Theon]

Jay's Retro Sprite Tool looks pretty darn cool! Dl'ing

[baconman]

Digging through a bit, I'm liking some of those remakes/demakes and the slot machines. JNKSlots/JNKFruits are pretty wicked fun! You seem to have some good basic framework there. You make that framework yourself?

[sergiocornaga]

Super Happy Speedy Gerbil

This is almost unbearable to play, but I guess that's the point.

[Jayenkai]

Yup, the current 2010 framework was done during the first month'ish of this year.
It's all done in BlitzMax which saves having to faff about with the background stuff, then there's my menu/pause/scores/etc thing over that, and then it's simply a case of throwing a game into the great big loop in the middle!
Nice and easy.

.. As for the Speedy Gerbil being insanely crazy... yup.  That was entirely intentional!  Just for fun!

[jrjellybeans]

Great job buddy!  Your quest to continue making games is a huge inspiration to me.  I'll give Space Clusters a try in a bit...

I didn't know that you used BlitzMax... I always assumed you used Game Maker or MMF.  In other words, you've impressed me even more!!!

[Jayenkai]

Sometimes I wish I could wrangle Flash, but every time I try, I find myself so busy doing AGameAWeek that I can't quite fit in the Flash Learning time!
Bah!!!!

[iffi]

Ooh, I like the idea of that Retro Sprite Tool. I'd better try it out later (I downloaded it to my desktop so I wouldn't forget)!
It seems to pixel better than I do.

By the way, I've played some of your previous games, and I am continually impressed by the level of quality you manage to put into your games every week. Keep the great work up!

[increpare]

Week Four
Jay's Retro Sprite Tool
Not a game!

I took some time to make a crazy Sprite creation tool.
It's not the best thing in the world, and it's all a wee bit random, but as a starting point it's something fun!
Give it a whirl, and you might end up with something random!



:

Oh, neat

[baconman]

It's really nifty, and seems to work rather well. And i did manage to notice the redeeming quality of Gerbil. The options setup screen of it is solid aces. I'd consider working that into being a semi-permanent part of your framework if I were you.

What impresses me most w your framework is how straightforward it is. It would be interesting to see what you could get by combining elements of Gerbil w RetroRaider.

Speaking of simple and straightforward, JNKPlat/Slots is pretty amusing too.

[Jayenkai]

Tab-Options is indeed a permanent fixture.
Any game I've made since January has had it, and it's pretty much integral, to the point that I general have options there for things that aren't even in the game! (ie, Music's missing from most games, but the music volume control's still there!!)

Any of These Games will have..
a) Tab-Options
b) The luvly score graph
c) The ability to live side by side, so you can stuff them all into the same folder, with all the exe's sitting beside each other, and all the files inside a single files/ folder.  Jay tries to be neat!!

[Jayenkai]

Week Six
Blank

Having started, and worked on a "mini" RPG this week, and spent most of the week plodding along at a slow rate, not really sure what I was doing, the game exploded into a multitude of ideas on Sunday night.
I've spent the past two days desperately trying to wrangle it all together, but alas... sometimes that just can't be done.

This week's game is annoyingly going to take a while longer, and will instead be a two-week game.

sux..

[baconman]

Not sux yet. It may be worth the effort! Only time will tell. Might even end up better that way.

[Jayenkai]

We can only hope, but my mind's already coming up with something else for this week, and it's all getting a bit chaotic in here!!   Stop thinking, Brain!!!

[Jayenkai]

Week Seven
Box's Romp

After two weeks building this, I got so sick of it, I kinda half assed it.
More info here!

[Jayenkai]

After the disappointment of the MiniRPG, and due to the fact that Xmas is usually chaotic at my house, I'm taking December off from AGameAWeek.

Awww

Not to worry, though, I'll be doing AGameADay through Advent.
.. Sure, that's sensible..

(*rolleyes*  Sometimes, Jay, your ideas are just plain idiotic)

Game #1 is up, Games 2->24/25/? are coming every day.

[baconman]

Hey! Don't get so bummed about that being a bitch to do quickly. It's totally different when you can take preexisting framework (platform physics/sprites, for example) and make something shiny just with a few additions and touch-ups. Writing that entire thing, presumably from scratch, since I don't see how anything besides maybe "Blockman" or your Sprite Tool could even have any influence in this, at all; within two weeks is a lot more impressive and painstaking.

Also, I like the nod to the Fifth Element in it.

If you're going for "Milton Bradley's Rogue," you're very close in getting it right! I just think you're being too hard on yourself... but think about it. Something like what you're trying to achieve here (from what I can tell) is usually broken into 4-5 "mini projects" and then tied together later. You just sat down and knocked (92% of) this out in half that time.