Another year goes by, and not a huge amount done… Well, actually, I tell a lie. The Badgers actually released a couple of things!

First up is Sploosh! http://arcadebadgers.itch.io/sploosh This was done for the LowRezJam, and I went for a Gameboy like aesthetic. It placed relatively well, but I botched the controls up pretty well, so it didn’t get as much of a play as it perhaps deserves. Should probably have another look at this later, and fix up the controls.

Then there was Snake-A-Roid http://arcadebadgers.itch.io/snake-a-roid This was a Mini LudumDare entry, which was to mash-up a few different games to see how it worked. As you can guess, I went with Snake and Asteroids. It had no right working as well as it did, so I set about updating it and released a newer version ( for $1.50 ) with multiple arenas, couple of game modes, different controls, and more powerups. Still adding to it - I’ve plans for two more large updates, as well as porting to other platforms - so may bump the price up a bit.

I also attempted the 1bitjam.. had a good idea for it, and some design work laid out, but the quick turnaround and lack of time sadly killed it off. Still have the design stuff so would like to have another look in at it.

Also… GameMaker:Studio 2 launched! That took up quite a bit of time as of course, the day job comes first. But it’s more or less released now, and it’s just some finishing up work on it before final release ( we’re in Open Beta just now. ) Seems to be doing good though, and proud of the small part I’ve played in it!

What else? Oh yea.. illnesses… I gained a new one! Cluster Headaches! Though I suppose technically, I’ve always had them, just didn’t know what they were… now being medicated for them and they’ve not bothered me since. I also thought I’d avoided the seasonal flu… until it hit me a week before Christmas break, and is only now clearing up. Seems like it decided to go for my chest and sit in there. So hasn’t been the best of Christmas/New Year breaks in that regard. Stupid flu…

So, plan for this year. As always, try and make the Badgers self sufficient… this requires actually releasing things and making a bit more noise about it. Both of which I find difficult with time constraints, but will be giving it a damn good go as always. Main plan is to add two large patches to Snake-A-Roid this month. One adds a set of Bosses to the end of each arena - plus a boss run mode, naturally - and another adds yet another mode, in the vein of an “Arrange” or “Black Edition” - and stashes off the powerups until you explicitly use them. Certainly adds that strategic edge. After that, it’s porting to various other platforms.. likely Mac, Linux and Android to begin with, and go from there.

I’d also like to try and push out some other games - ideally one a month, starting from February, but we’ll see.

At any rate, here’s hoping 2017 has things settle down a bit.

So, it’s the middle of 2016 already.

The original plan was to start pushing out quick games in January, focus on something more substantial in February, start a bigger project in March to carry through to May, then start over again with some prototypes, pick some to develop, etc…
That didn’t work.

But that’s just life.

Funnily enough, we’ve actually been relatively active recently.
While the original idea of quick prototypes, further develop then polish one didn’t quite come to plan, we have released two quick prototypes in the past couple of months.
Sploosh! - http://arcadebadgers.itch.io/sploosh
Snake-A-Roid http://arcadebadgers.itch.io/snake-a-roid or http://gamejolt.com/games/snake-a-roid/153761 if you want to show off on the leaderboards

Sploosh! was done for the Low Rez Jam, and runs at 64x64 upscaled to 512x512, and is a little homage to Scuba Dive on the Spectrum. I quite enjoyed it, and though I managed to make a mess of the controls ( it wasn’t obvious where you were swimming ) I’d like to return to it - or the idea of it - to develop further.
I worked on this on and off through two weeks, doing all the art, sound, music and code. Just what I needed to break my codeblock!

Then we did Snake-A-Roid.
This was quite quickly pushed together in a little over two days and just worked off the bat.
Ironically, I thought it was too hard to begin with so slowed it down - where some of the feedback stated it was easier than they expected - ho hum!
That said, this one worked out really well, so have taken it to stage two - adding extra features, various platform support, and general rounding out to take it to store for selling.
I have it running on Android, there’s leaderboard support in for various services, 360 pad support on Windows, new power-up/downs, difficulty levels, and customisable controls.
So yea, Snake-A-Roid is coming.. probably add DX or something to it so that the original one can stay free and playable.
I reckon I should have it ready for the end of the month, barring any new madness that life brings.

After Snake-A-Roid… there’s a couple of projects to look into.. as while January didn’t quite work out as planned, I did throw together a bunch of little prototypes to test things throughout the months.
These include such odd things as:
Grubs - a sortof gameified Marble Solitaire meets Bejeweled type thing.
Moons of Subterrane - a remake of an old Ludum Dare entry I did.
Munch Munch Munch - A mobile specific game that I can only describe as Hungry Hungry Hippos meets Guitar Hero.
Blast Zone - a Defender-esque thing.
Invade - a reverse space invaders that didn’t quite work out, but did spawn an idea of a Tactics style varient.
PowerOUT - a remake of another old project I did.
Shot To Ribbons - meant for the 1bit jam, but didn’t finish it.. wrote a chunk of the outline for it though, and would probably return to it.
Smoosh! - an endless vertical climber/runner thing.
Metal Boa - Snake vs Robotron, and amusingly started before I did Snake-A-Roid - which is Snake vs Asteroids.

So one of them is likely to be next.

Will see how I feel at the end of the month once Snake-A-Roid is released.

Another difficult year gone by…

A year full of family passings and particularly nasty illnesses from all fronts meant no Badger work got done at all - and it’s looking very close to being shut down if I can’t turn fortunes around in the next month or so. The passing of my Mum had quite an effect on me, and have found it very difficult to concentrate on much beyond YoYo work. Hence why, for yet another year, this site is still not exactly completely functional and is missing images and files and all sorts. That said, I did manage to recover a number of source archives from backups, and immediately uploaded them to GitHub… which included the source for Plight of the Weedunks, SGZEngine and the aborted SGEngine. With another two family losses early in the year as well, however, my head just hasn’t been in the greatest of places.

As for illnesses… I got hospitalised with tonsilitis, had a second bout of vestibular neuronitis ( basically confirming that this will be a recurring pest I’ll have to live with, ) and have just finished a particularly nasty case of the flu - where the last one that was this bad had put me in hospital a few years ago. If I’m ill, I’m definitely ill! No minor ailments for me, sadly… Add to that and my daughter being finally diagnosed with “oral allergy syndrome” after about six months of wondering what on Earth was going on, and it’s certainly been an interesting year. It’s certainly fun to explain to a school why she can’t have fruit, soya or dairy ( her current triggers ) particularly when it’s all “Healthy Eating” initiatives. This knocked out the Summer holidays as a block of free time to do stuff in.

Also managed to rack up a bit more in the debt department due to playing the “what’s safe to eat” game.. but we’ll get that sorted.

Now then, 2016 is just round the corner and it’s going to be a bit of a bugger to start with. While the flu is more or less over with, I’ve still been left with a niggly cough that I can’t quite shift yet. And the Badgers are skint. There’s enough money scraped together to get it through another month and that’s it. As such, I have to get something released to try and get something in, or I will have no choice but to close it. This makes for a tricky situation as while I’d ordinarily do Badger work in my spare time I’m not quite able to do too much as, due to the flu, I was taken out most of December so have a lot of YoYo work to catch up on… So, I need some quick turn around games.. of which diving into the archives of design notes I have, there’s a couple that I can hopefully get done. Ideally, I’ll release a few “big” games next year - Tiny Critters ( finally! ) along with a new Germies! and perhaps a strategy game of some sort… be that Yargh! or derelict_ or something else.. there’s a few ideas kicking about at any rate. What I’d really like to do, is alternate between a couple of quick games, and a big one.. but that depends greatly upon what free time I can get. Tricky.

Oh well, life is life, let’s just get on with it.