Nine months without new games. That’s about to change.

After what seems like a long time without any notable news, or new games, I’m finally at at point where I can safely say that “Yes, there will be more games…and soon” ๐Ÿ™‚

Over the last month I’ve been working on 4 of my games in progress. That would under normal circumstances be crazy, but they’re all so close to completion, so while I’m waiting for the final graphics, music or some feedback one one game I can usually tweak something on another game.

First game to be finished will be Black Widow. It’s basically finished but I’ll wait the rest of this week to see if I get any feedback that needs attention, then compile the final version during the coming weekend. It should be out next week.

My third Christmas game, Buggerman, is also largely finished – I just need to tweak the music a bit, but as it’s a Christmas game I’ll hold its release off until December.

Hopefully I’ll also have X-Quest 2 done before the end of the year. The coding is mostly done and bar some small tweaks here and there all it needs are new graphics and some better sounds. I can do the sounds myself and I’ve found a guy that wants to do the graphics, but he’s a tad busy at the moment. I’m really hoping he can find the time soon, so I can get this game out there.

Finally I’ve also been getting back into my vector Invaders game, Neon Invasion Earth. The last time I worked on this was in January 2011 when I began adding a “classic Invaders mode”, and I’ve been finishing that over the last couple of days. Yay. That still leaves the main game to be finished, but this is also mostly done with mostly some smal bugs and a whole lot of gameplay tweaking and testing left.

So there it is; my roadmap for the immediate future – two games already finished and two more very close to completion, so check in again soon …there’s a good chance that there will be something new to download. ๐Ÿ™‚

I’ve also decided to open up the site for comments again, without registering as a user first, but if the spam gets to bad I’ll put that limitation back. But let’s see how it goes for now. ๐Ÿ˜‰

Coming soon: Black Widow remake

Argh, almost 5 months since last update…again. *sigh*

So, yeah, I haven’t been terribly active lately, but the last 3 months I’ve been getting back into development again…and I must say it feels pretty great to be working on something that’ll result in a finished game very soon. ๐Ÿ™‚

For a couple of months a little while back I was working on a new Spectrum game, but then I decided – about a month ago – to put it on hold for a while, to just work on something else for a change, so I decided to continue working on my remake of Black Widow which I put on hold about two years ago. I’ve now been working on it for about a month and it’s very close to being finished. At this point it’ll probably still be a couple of weeks, but I think that’s the timeframe.

I’ve got one (hopefully easy to find) bug to fix, one small (and easy enough) function to be written, and some music to sort out, andย  apart from that all that’s left is tweaking the gameplay and difficulty, and that shouldn’t take too long.

So, keep your eyes peeled for a new remake in the near future. ๐Ÿ™‚

Black Widow – old WIP screenshot.

 

Hopelessness

Okay, not quite as bad as it sounds (the title of the post) – I’m not about to kill myself, but today it’s been exactly 3 months since my last update and I don’t have a lot to show for it. I just haven’t been inspired much to do any big chunks of programming the couple of months. I’ve done a little, though..just not a lot, and it’s frankly frustrating the hell out of me. Still, it’s a creative process and I’m not getting paid for this so luckily I can just lean back and relax. The alternative is to force it but then I wouldn’t be enjoying myself. Better to give my inspirationย the time it needs. ๐Ÿ˜‰

However, I have made a bit of progress on my Christmas game in these 3 months, and not a lot is left to do really…but inspiration (and time) only comes in small chunks, but hey –ย I’ll release it when it’s done – I won’t wait until Christmas. ๐Ÿ˜‰

And the artist I’d hoped would help me out on X-Quest 2 disappeared off to make his own game, but now it seems he’s putting the finishing touches to that and he’s been in touch to tell me that he will have more time again soon, and I have to say that I’m quite exited about that. That game is (also) almost done and would benefit immensely from what he can bring to it. So I’m looking forward to that.ย ๐Ÿ™‚

I’ve also done a bit of Z80 programming lately – but again…not a lot, but I hope to finish a new Spectrum sometime later this year (although I haven’t started on anything yet). I have no specific plans about what to make yet, but it’ll probably be an original game and not a remake.

Basically I just wanted to say that I’m still alive and let you know that I’m still working on my games (or at least trying to ;)). Just keep your eyes and ears open – suddenly there’ll be something new here.

…and because I wanted a picture to go with this post – I found this. It almost fits…but my name is not Sakurah, so it WILL happen. ๐Ÿ˜‰

Don't know who that guy is, but I can assure you - more games WILL happen. ๐Ÿ˜‰

Website hacked, new download page & Dingo review

For some reason someone had hacked my site and none of the download links worked anymore. :-/
What’s the world coming to when people think it’s bad to give things away for free? I’ve fixed that now.

While reconstructing all the links I added a new “Downloads” page to the site, where all the games are listed in one place, and where it’s easy to see what games are available on what platforms. See it here.

I’m also happy to say that my remake of Dingo for the ZX Spectrum is reviewed in the latest issue of Retro Gamer Magazine, and it has scored an impressive and very satisfying 91%. ๐Ÿ™‚
(I’ve blurred the text – just in case – so I don’t get into trouble for posting a scan from a new magazine).

 

Dingo scores 91% in Retro Gamer Magazine.