software.dev

Been awhile since I’ve written, but I have certainly not been idle! This past weekend I read up on ActionScript classes, and have sort of gotten the hang of how they work out. I made a Missile Command style game without using classes, where each object had its own ActionScript (without a specific .as file; it was written write into the object). While this was certainly easy, and apparently, some people work like this, I did not really like it at all. I think this approach might be more intuitive to someone with less of a programming background but for me, I much prefer to separate out the ActionScript from the Movie Clips.

There are two things I really like about Flash for game development. Firstly, it’s really easy to get into. There aren’t dozens of lines to get a blank window on the screen, I don’t need to write routines to load graphics, playing a sound is simple, etc… Basically, Flash abstracts all the boring stuff, and lets you get into the actual ‘game’ part very quickly. Secondly, it’s very easy to distribute your game. Getting people to download a .exe can be difficult; getting people to view your game on a popular Flash game site is really easy. Certainly, Flash is less appropriate for ‘epic’ games, but I think it’s superb for quick, fun games.

Right I’m currently working on what I call a ‘Swarm Game’. Think those games where you’re in the middle of the screen, and progressively powerful enemies continue to attack you in greater numbers until you’re swarmed to death. That’s basically what I’m making. You are controlling a turret in the middle of the screen and can swivel your gun to fire at incoming enemies. The game starts out pretty slow, and quickly picks up. Of course, I love power-ups, so there will be a multitude of power-ups (the usual suspects: rapid fire, score multipliers, limited invulnerability, etc …) as well as several different types of weapons. I hope to have a demo, at the very least, up in a week or so.

Until then..!

This entry was posted on Tuesday, October 24th, 2006 at 12:33 pm and is filed under games, flash. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.