A Story

I've made a game from my latest experiments with flixel. Flixel is really cool game library that I like more and more.
 After reading the post on mochi blog about making a retro plartformer with flixel I got inspired and now this is the result.

 The art isn't much but hey, don't expect cool art from a developer.
You can try the game on kongamato - A Story.
There are seven different levels made with Dame - by the way Dame is really cool editor once you learn to use it. You can get Dame free from its official site http://dambots.com/dame-editor/ and yea, the site is awful and my head hurts after a minute there. Till now I used Tile Studio by Mike Wiering. Actually the tiles in A Story a made with it but now I use Dame to make maps because its easier to integrate with flixel.
So the game has 7 levels - 4 with this grass land as you can see on the screenshot and 3 with lava tiles and theme. I get bored too fast when I make art or maps. I prefer to work on another game so this is a reason that I have hundreds of unfinished games.

Get A Story free for your website:
<embed src="http://games.mochiads.com/c/g/a-story/AStory.swf" menu="false" quality="high" width="640" height="480" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" pluginspage="http://www.macromedia.com/go/getflashplayer"></embed>

Experiments with Flixel

After reading an interesting article at Mochimedia Blog I got interested in Flixel. It's an open source game making library for flash, you can see more at its site: http://flixel.org/

Here is an early version of my next idea - its a retro game of course.

Newgrounds

I'm pissed! I am totally pissed with this site.

I've used them for two years and great number of my games were uploaded there. I really liked the constructive criticism of the community. But now its over.
Few days ago when I visit it I found that my account is deleted without a trace. And I found my games blamed or what ever is the term they are using. After some thought I made another account and start asking questions.
I contacted the administrators and asked what happened. And ofter some stupid questions I received this:

I found out the account was deleted because the Flash was reported as stolen and the name on the account didn't match the name in the Flash. You should always make sure your NG name, contact info, etc, matches up to the names in the Flash. Otherwise we have no idea it is your work. You are welcome to resubmit with the proper credits listed.

What? My name is in the credits of all the games. You just need to go and see the credits. But obviously they haven't checked this. So my account and around thirty games got deleted. But where is the funny part? Here it comes:

We can not restore the account. You can resubmit your games, but they have to clearly show you own the rights to them.

And I asked:

My name was in the credits and in account details. More clearly?

The answer:

Can you submit a couple as they were and let me know once they are on the site? I'll then take a look to see if they are okay.

I'm really pissed. My games aren't the best but are my own and I like them. And they are a giant who won't cry after losing one member so who cares.
Anyway their site was getting slower and slower with advertisement everywhere that bugs my firefox when I try to submit games. And with the last adventure I think I get enough.

How to make space shooter game with ActionScript 3 and FlashDevelop - part 1

As I mentioned in this post (How to make flash games without the expensive Flash IDE) you can make flash games and earn money without buying the Flash IDE. Actually, its very easy and I prefer to make my games this way. Here I’ll show very basic example that is appropriate even for beginners.

What do you need for this tutorial?
FlashDevelop - http://www.flashdevelop.org
Flex SDK - http://opensource.adobe.com/wiki/display/flexsdk/Flex+SDK

The basics

Let’s begin. Create new AS3 project and name it as you like. I’ll use the name Shooter for it.

This is what will be created for you.

And this is the content of Main.as:

package
{
   import flash.display.*;
   import flash.events.*;
   
   public class Main extends Sprite
   {
       
       public function Main():void
       {
           if (stage) init();
           else addEventListener(Event.ADDED_TO_STAGE, init);
       }
       
       private function init(e:Event = null):void
       {
           removeEventListener(Event.ADDED_TO_STAGE, init);
           // entry point
       }
       
   }
   
}

Add
trace(“Hello World”);
as the last row of the init function:

private function init(e:Event = null):void
       {
           removeEventListener(Event.ADDED_TO_STAGE, init);
           // entry point
        trace(“Hello World”);
       }

Now build and run your project. If everything is done wright you must see “Hello World” at the output window.

Let’s make some changes. First lets change the size and the frame rate. Go to Project->properties and make these changes:

Now our game will be 500x500 and will run at 50 fps(most of the time).

How to make space shooter game with ActionScript 3 and FlashDevelop - part 2

A collection of fast flash tips that may be useful

How to open an URL with AS3:

 try {
   navigateToURL(new URLRequest("http://site"), '_blank'); 
 } catch (e:Error) {

   trace("Can't open site!");
 }

How to enable button mode on MovieClip (hand cursor):

        mc.buttonMode = true;

How to hide/show the mouse:

 import flash.ui.*;

 Mouse.hide();
 Mouse.show();

How to choose a random element from an array:

 var ar:Array = [0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6];
 var randomIndex:int = Math.random() * ar.length;
 trace(ar[randomIndex]);

Get free Typing Game for your website or blog

Get this game free for your website!


Embed Code:
<embed src="http://games.mochiads.com/c/g/typing-game/TypingGame.swf" width="550" height="500"></embed>

SWF Location:
http://games.mochiads.com/c/g/typing-game/TypingGame.swf

Thumbnails:

Get Coffee Bubble game free for your website

Get Coffee Bubble Shooter free for your website or blog.


Embed Code:
<embed src="http://games.mochiads.com/c/g/coffee-bubble/CoffeeBubble.swf" width="650" height="500"></embed>

SWF Location:
http://games.mochiads.com/c/g/coffee-bubble/CoffeeBubble.swf

Thumbnails:

Flash games - how to monetize them?

How to make money from flash games?
I can talk a lot about this question but I’ll try to make it short and clear.

There are several ways to make money from a flash game. And most of them can be combined for better profit.

First and most popular - flash game sponsoring.
How it works?
Basically a sponsor pays you a certain amount of money to place his logo, splash screen and eventually API into your game, then the game is released on his site. More about flash game sponsoring you can learn here - http://www.flashgamelicense.com/view_library.php

Other way to make money from your flash games are in-game ads. The most popular networks for in-game ads are CPM Star and MochiMedia.

Third method - selling in-game items and upgrades. I haven’t tried this yet so I can’t tell details about it but my opinion is that this way works better on mmo and social games.

Forth method - self sponsoring. Its the same as sponsoring but you advertise you own game portal and make money through it. This gives you some more freedom but its also a bit risky. Anyway if you can’t find sponsor for your game you can always self-sponsor it .

Resources
FlashGameLicense - you can find sponsor here or learn more about game sponsoring.
MochiMedia - ads, in-game transactions, leaderboard API and good distribution
CPMStar - in-game ads
Playtomic - analytics, leaderboards, distribution
FlashGameDistribution - distribution
HeyZap - game transactions, distribution

List of tutorials for beginner game developers - Flash and ActionScript

Here is a list of good Flash and ActionScript tutorials for game makers. If you want to learn more about how to make flash games consider reading them all.

Avoider Game Tutorial
http://gamedev.michaeljameswilliams.com/2008/09/17/avoider-game-tutorial-1/
Really good and detailed game tutorial.

Flash game creation tutorial
http://www.emanueleferonato.com/2006/10/29/flash-game-creation-tutorial-part-1/
Another good and long game tutorial.

Tile Based Games
http://www.tonypa.pri.ee/tbw/start.html
If you are serious on making games read this one too.

Make a Flash game like Flash Element Tower Defense
http://www.emanueleferonato.com/2007/10/06/make-a-flash-game-like-flash-element-tower-defense-part-1/
Good tower defense game tutorial.

How to create Tower Defense in ActionScript 3
http://www.flashgametuts.com/tutorials/advanced/how-to-create-a-tower-defense-game-in-as3-part-1/
Great tutorial!

How to make a vertical shooter
http://www.flashgametuts.com/tutorials/as3/how-to-make-a-vertical-shooter-in-as3-part-1/
Detailed and useful tutorial on making a shooter game.

How to create a Platform Game in AS3
http://www.flashgametuts.com/tutorials/as3/how-to-create-a-platform-game-in-as3-part-1/
If you want to make platform game read this one.

Build Tower Defense in ActionScript2
http://www.goofballgames.com/2009/10/25/building-a-tower-defense-game-in-flash-as2/
Its better to use ActionScript 3 but you can always get the idea and make the changes.

Complete Bejeweled Game
http://www.emanueleferonato.com/2010/12/16/complete-bejeweled-game-in-less-than-2kb/
How to make Bejeweled-like games - the tutorial is very detailed and not too hard.

Jigsaw Game tutorial
http://www.actionscript.org/resources/articles/13/1/Jigsaw-Puzzle/Page1.html

How to make flash games without the expensive Flash IDE

Can you make flash games without buying the Flash IDE? Actually, yes. You don't need to buy it to make online games. You can build flash files with the Flex SDK that is absolutely free tool by Adobe. You can learn more and download it free from here.

If you are serious about making flash games with Flex SDK I recommend you to use one more free tool called FlashDevelop. Its very useful open source editor for action script files with code completion that actually works.

If you are determined to make flash games but don't have much action script or game programming experience I recommend you to take a look at this open source game making library Flixel.

My new game - Black Sea's Treasure needs testing

This is my latest game - Black Sea's Treasure. I hope that people would like it but who knows. The players are unpredictable most of the time. Anyway I'll be grateful for any feedback.

New game up for sponsorship

This is a screenshot of our new game.

New Game - Snail Invasion

Yesterday I tried and succeeded in making a game for one day. It was an experiment for me and I'm very glad about the results. Actually if I am motivated and stay focused I can work really fast and clean.

Snail Invasion

So here is my next game - Snail Invasion. Its sort of typing game with snails. Hungry snails attack your garden and you must type the letter on them to stop them and make them flee. The snails are getting faster and eventually it will become impossible to type all.
The art is done by myself and its not really awful - that's a surprise. I really enjoy drawing and doing art stuff so making the art for my own games is fun and I want to get better.

Play Snail Invasion

New game - Hell Storm

Hell Storm is our latest game – it’s a shoot’em up game inspired by some retro games (guess which). The game has four different missions and several nasty bosses.

New game - Toy Tank Defense

Last week we've released our latest game – Toy Tank Defense. It’s a tower defense game with great art (made by Krasi Wasilev), six missions, six different towers, many upgrades and countless enemy waves.

Play Toy Tank Defense

New game - Dinner Frenzy!

We've just released our latest game - Dinner Frenzy! It's nice small game with one minute gameplay and emphasizing on player's competition for better ranking. The player's goal in this game is to eat as much food as he or she can in one minute. Simple, isn't it?

Dinner Frenzy! - menu

FGL blog post - optimizing for mobile

Here is one very useful blog post about optimizing games for playbook and mobile.

FGL Blog - Dillo Hills: Optimizing Games for Playbook and Mobile

My game War of the Words got 3.47 score on Newgrounds!

Yesterday I’ve submitted one of my games to Newgrounds. Today as I’ve checked my newgrounds profile I was surprised with this:

Pretty amazing because the game is not something special. It’s a simple word game, masked as space shooter. Enemy ships are attacking and you must write the words written on them to destroy them. The game starts slowly just with single letters on small blue ships. Anyone can stop the first few waves, even a kid. Later on the game is getting harder with bigger ships with whole words. Later on these ships begin to spawn interceptors with letters and short words.