I’ve always wanted to get into Flash game programming. Flash is a program by Macromedia (later purchased by Adobe) that allows you to serve up animations on the web. But it’s programmable, so many people have been using it to write little web-based games. Most of the tutorials I’ve found on the web expect that you at least know the basics of Flash before you get started. I didn’t know anything, so getting started always bugged me.
So, I finally broke down and bought a “for dummies” book earlier this week. It really was enough to get me started on the basic concepts. Beyond that, my previous programming experience with C++ and java really helped learn the Actionscript layout (which is very java-like).
24 hours later, I’d done this:
Yes, that’s pretty much Pong (table tennis to avoid the trademark infringement) .
Nothing amazing, for sure, but I’m learning quite a bit. Here’s my latest effort, which is admittedly much more complex..
I totally put the book aside (while halfway through it) to give it a go on my own. All of the graphics and code were done 100% from scratch (though I did use a few images off of the web as a reference, I didn’t cut and paste them. I re-created the graphics by hand in Flash).
I’m learning a lot with this trial, and have run into a few snags that left me scratching my head, but weren’t insurmountable. My years of prior programming have really paid off I think. I’m having great fun and learning tons..I think I’m almost ready to branch out and try making my own game from scratch!
The incarnation of one my brothers in his 1970’s life form should be heading towards your house any moment. Just as soon as he finds his keys, and smokes, and lighter, and stash. He’ll just need your basement and plenty of ashtrays. A quadraphonic sterero with Pink Floyd and Led Zepplin on 8 track (for that clickedty-click sound) will be all he needs. And beer. If Mom calls, tell her he just left.
Heh, I have a day job, too. I find my free time elsewhere. For instance, the average person watches about 20 hours of TV a week. I think I average about 3 hours a month.
My interest in writing flash games is more greedy than geeky, though. As easy as it seems to be for me, I hope to put a small number of games up on a website and bring in some trickle of ad revenue. I’m just excited that it’s coming easily this time..last time i looked into programming Flash, it seemed really difficult.
dont let em give ya a hard time, ya gotta stroke yer inner geek somehow.
myself i’m making a text-based role playing game in java that has it’s own “terminal” that it runs in with the intention of converting it into an applet playable from the web.
I did a little DirectX stuff, but I never did many games in the past. Writing all of the video page flipping, video memory loading, and sprite routines (hit testing, rotating, scaling, etc) was just so colossally tedious that I never got deeply into it.
I was mostly just referring to the fact that I’ve been programming now for a couple of decades, and that really helps when learning ActionScript, since it shares the same kind of structure as C++ and Java.
Ok, just curious. I’m not much into graphics programming, either. I leave that for the guys who actually enjoy it. Though I have been writing animation code lately, which somewhat falls into the realm of graphics.
You aren’t too far from a hub of the games industry, you know. Austin, TX has quite a number of game development companies, though not quite as many as a few towns in CA (Los Angeles, San Francisco, San Diego). Seattle’s got a fair number, too. There actually are a few companies in the Dallas area.
If any inquiring minds would like to know about game development companies in various locations around the world, I highly recommend this site: http://www.gamedevmap.com. It isn’t a comprehensive list, primarily because that’s near impossible to make due to the number of companies starting up every day (not to mention the ones going under every day).
