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