There was a time, more than 20 years ago, when every friend I had as a kid wanted to be a computer game programmer. We all had different computers (Atari 800, Apple IIe, Commodore 64, IBM PC XT, TRS-80, Ti-99 4/A), and we all fought over which one was the best (Atari), and yet we all fell in love with the idea that we could program our own games on our own home computer. This was the age when the arcade reigned supreme, and games like Asteroids, Galaga, Time Pilot, Pac-Man and Donkey Kong, were revered as the panacea of game design and playability. We were disappointed by the home versions on the Atari 2600, and Colecovision, and we were sure we could do it better on our own computers. However, to the kid, nearly everyone failed. We did not know how to program well-enough, and our 8-bit computers were not powerful enough to mask our lack of skill. Through the next 15 years or so, there were some advances that made making games easier (STOS, Click And Play, VB, Director), but for the most part, creating games was left for the hardcore C++ programmers. This left most mere mortals, who had interesting ideas but were not accomplished programmers, out of luck.
It was not until Flash 5 was released almost 8 years ago, that the playing field started to change. Flash, while not an easy development system to grasp at first, created a cross-platform game development tool that was powerful, yet could be mastered in much less time than anything previously released. The key to this was the Timeline and ActionScript. The Flash IDE helped take care of graphical tasks, while the powerful scripting language could take care of game logic. Even though it was a rather primitive start, by the time Flash 8 and ActionScript 2 were released the develop environment had advanced to the point where nearly any type of 2D or 2.5D game could be created, given the proper effort. This has opened the door for almost anyone (kids, teenagers, adults and kids at heart) with the right amount of determination and drive to finally bring their creations to life. It’s a fantastic time if you enjoy games, because the game ideas of thousands of people are being unleashed. New genres are being created daily, with new talent emerging with them.
However, the one drawback to this is that the code being created doesn’t always match the ideas being put forth. ActionScript can be all over the place, in-line functions can be spread throughout MovieClips, and Flash source files can quickly become unmaintainable messes. To fix this problem, one must take some lessons from the “serious” programmers and their object oriented C++ code. There was nothing wrong with what those hardcore C++ programmers were doing all that time, and there was a good reason they were doing it, it was just not accessible to the masses. In fact, efficient, well-designed games that can stretch Flash to its limits need to utilize some of the basic ideas of Object Oriented languages like C++ and Java to be successful. That is what this series of tutorials is about — taking a seemingly basic game idea, and showing how it can be implemented in a straightforward manner using some of the Object Oriented features of Flash 8 and ActionScript 2.
Over the course of several lessons, I will be describing in detail how to create a very basic game in Flash. We will be building a very simple shooting game named “Home Computer Wars”, inspired by all my friends who wanted make games in the 80’s, but never succeeded. In this game you will play “Atari” in an attempt to fight off the onslaught from IBM, Apple, Commodore and Texas Instruments computers.
Tutorial Outline:
- Lesson 1: Game Setup – We first learn how to set up our game framework in Flash, and then create a player that can move and fire missiles.
- Lesson 2: Creating Enemies & Game Environment – We add a scoreboard and waves of enemies that gradually get harder and harder to fight.
- Lesson 3: MochiAds, MochiBot, and the MochiAds Leaderboards – We add MochiAds, MochiBot and the MochiAds Leaderboards service
- Lesson 4: Finishing Touches – Balancing And finishing: Level Balancing, Sound fx, Logo Screen
We will be coding this game in ActionScript 2, however we will be using an object oriented messaging system that can, with some effort, be ported to ActionScript 3.
Read the rest of the series: ‘Anatomy of a Flash Game’
- Anatomy of a Flash Game: Lesson 1 – Setting up the game
- Anatomy of a Flash Game: Lesson 2 – Creating Enemies & The Game Environment
- Anatomy of a Flash Game: Lesson 3 – MochiAds, MochiBot and MochiAds Leaderboards
Wow, just what I’ve been looking for. Nice article.
Just curious–
In section 4, what does the ‘F’ prefix indicate in your Movie Clip names and identifiers?
It’s just a convention. Back when we were building everything with components, one of our developers told us “that was the way to do it”, and I’ve continued to do it. It helps to find the assets that have classes associated with them, but in rteality, any convention you use (or none) should work fine.
You files to download are different then the code in the tutorial. For some reason, my title screen won’t load. I’ve tried putting trace’s
to see where things are being triggered.
I put a trace in the function
function fSTATE_TITLE_SCREEN() to see if it was even getting in there but it is.
Then I decided to put a trace in the TitleScreen.as
Trace did not go through. I checked many times to see if maybe linkage Identifier was incorrect or class was incorrect and they were not. I also checked to see to make sure that I had unchecked export actionscript on frame 1.
So, not sure what the problem is. Any help would be appreciated or if you could post the files that you use the code from this tutorial.
Because I noticed the code posted for the file TitleScreen.as does not include the create Delegate.Create.
Also, the code on the main.fla is different as well.
Well, that won’t suffice. Can you .zip your files and email them to me so I can take a look at them?
Send thjem to: stevefulton@adelphia.net
Also, check this:
1. Put a travce in the constructor of TitleScreen.as to see if it ever gets called.
2. Make sure the class is named TitleScreen in the TitleScreen.as and the contructor is named function TitleScreen()
-Steve
Going to send you my files zipped.
Thank you for taking interest in my problem i appreciate it.
jeff
Nice piece! Learned a few things, disagreed with a few things :o) Have you benched the event dispatcher versus normal method calling?
fyi you can use: for (var i in array) {item=array[i]} to interate backwards through an array , plus it is faster…
I downloaded the files but I can’t get it working in Flash CS3. It firstly complained about missing classes ScoreBoard, Enemy, PowerUp, and EndScreen. It also complained about being unable to find the ComponentBase class. I fixed the first four errors by creating empty stub classes for those but I have no idea how to fix the ComponentBase issue….
I do like the tutorial and I’m looking forward to the remaining installments as even though I’m an experienced programmer I’m finding it quite a challenge to develop an interactive application in Flash as I’m not sure how to tie the MovieClips and the code together.
It sounds likw the wrong set of files was zipped and put up for downloafd. I’ll send the Mochi guys another one today.
Paul,
Thanks!
All others:
Sorry about the files. It looks like the wrong set got posted. I sent Mochi an old .zip I’m not sure how I made that mistake. I’ve sent Mochi a new batch. so hopefully they will be up soon.
Thanks,
-Steve
Hi, and thx for sharing your methods,
My (very personal, I admit) opinion about programming games is that the code should be the simplest possible.
While the techniques you showcase (EventDispatch, implementing UI stuff programmatically) deserve to be known, they are not absolutely required when programming a simple game.
Much of the UI stuff can be done in the timeline almost without code, for example. Regarding game mechanics, standard method calling may be more efficient than event dispatching.
From a learning standpoint, the result may be that some users think it’s quite complex.
Flash has this strange property that implemeting a simple button can be done in about 100 different ways ;-), then it’s always good to share techniques (seems that flashers love doing that)!
olive
Olive,
You are right, there are dozens of ways to do most anything in AS2, and nothing I have presented is absolutely required. However, I have programmed many games, and the methods I showcase are the ones I have developed that that save the most time when maintaining the code, updating, the code, adding new features, and using the code as basis for additional games, all the while maintaining performance.
Hi everyone, the correct files should be posted now. Thanks!
eagerly waiting for next lesson
I just wanted to state that f in front of your state functions is an example of “Apps Hungarian Notation” and the f stands for function. Very good tutorial by the way!! I enjoyed it :)
Justin, I think yo uare correct…which means the prefix is absolutely useless in this context. It should probably be “o” for object. Just goes to prove that you shouldn’t blindly follow a convention just because other developers you know do it, especially if you don’t know the reason for doing it!
…by the way, I just finished the code for the next lesson today, and I’m writing the text now. I hope to have it completeld
shortly.
So, where do I go to download all the sources?
Btw, I am a fifteen year old who, like you at childhood, wanted to make video games. I got Flash CS3 and even Photoshop CS3, but I am just getting started on programming, and I hardly can keep up with this guide. Is this begginer orientated or should I try something easier?
jimsotonna…
jimsotonna dropped by…
free quotes…
Excellent post. Keep it up!…
I am new to Flash programming, and find it difficult to follow this tutorial. Is there a download of the entire project that I could examine?
How do you set the path for objects in library folders? If I don’t put MovieClips in a folder then Flash can find them.
This is not a beginner guide and not an advanced guide…
If you can’t follow this than you should use another tutorial(I started with a few tuts from emanueleferonato.com).
nice guide any way
Realize I’m coming to this somewhat late, but I got to say, Steve – I paid my way through a Master’s Degree in IT, and this tutorial taught me more in substantially less time! Outstanding work, and remarkably generous of you to share your knowledge. I found myself repeatedly hitting a sort of mental block when it came to Flash until reading this tutorial.
I’m extremely grateful to you. I’ve purchased video tutorials on Flash that were less thorough and less approachable. You’re a gentleman and a scholar, sir! =D
I wish you’d start with more basic basic’s. For those of us who have never programmed flash; what do we need? Is it possible to do so without forking over $800 to Adobe?