Book Image

Flash Game Development by Example

By : Emanuele Feronato
Book Image

Flash Game Development by Example

By: Emanuele Feronato

Overview of this book

<p>You can't call yourself a Flash game developer unless you know how to build certain essential games, and can quickly use the skills and techniques that make them up.<br /><br />Flash Game Development by Example is an ultra-fast paced game development course. Learn step-by-step how to build 10 classic games. Each game introduces new game development skills, techniques, and concepts. By the end of the book you will have built ten complete games &ndash; and have the skills you need to design and build your own game ideas.<br /><br />The book starts with simple well known puzzle games: Concentration and Minesweeper. After learning the basics of game design you&rsquo;ll introduce AI with a four-in-a-row game. Then as you build your own versions of old arcade games such as Snake, Tetris, and Astro Panic. The book ends with a collection of modern casual classics.</p>

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Flash Game Development by Example
Emanuele Feronato
Mar, 2011 | 328 pages
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Table of Contents (17 chapters)
Flash Game Development by Example
Flash Game Development by Example
Credits
Credits
About the Author
About the Author
About the Reviewers
About the Reviewers
www.PacktPub.com
www.PacktPub.com
Preface
Preface
Free Chapter
1
Concentration
Concentration
Defining game design
Setting stage size, frame rate, and background color
Welcome to Concentration ("Hello World")
Creating the tiles
Adding randomness: shuffling the tiles
Placing the tiles on stage
Picking tiles
Checking for matching tiles
Making the player see what happened
Preventing the player from cheating
Fine-tuning the game: adding educational content
Summary
Where to go now
2
Minesweeper
Minesweeper
Defining game design
Creating the empty field
Placing the mines
Adding the digits
Optimization needed
Placing tiles on stage
Showing tile contents
Auto showing adjacent empty tiles
Flagging tiles
Timer and game over
No sudden death
Summary
Where to go now
3
Connect Four
Connect Four
Defining game design
The game field
Showing smooth animations
Splitting the code
Adding the board
Placing the board to stage
Creating more classes
Placing the disc
Moving the disc
Applying game rules
Checking for possible columns
It's raining discs
Determining a cell value (if any)
Making your move
Waiting for the disc to be added to stage
Checking for victory
Animating discs
The animation itself
Making computer play
Unleashing CPU power
Playing with AI: defensive play
Summary
Where to go now
4
Snake
Snake
Defining game design
Array-based games versus Movie Clip-based games
Preparing the field
Drawing the graphics
Placing the snake
The snake itself
Simplifying the code
Letting the snake move
Controlling the snake
Placing fruits
Eating fruits
Making the snake grow
Placing walls
Making the snake die
Summary
Where to go now
5
Tetris
Tetris
Defining game design
Importing classes and declaring first variables
Drawing game field background
Drawing a better game field background
Creating the tetrominoes
Placing your first tetromino
Moving tetrominoes horizontally
Moving tetrominoes down
Managing tetrominoes landing
Managing tetrominoes collisions
Rotating tetrominoes
Removing completed lines
Managing remaining lines
Making tetrominoes fall
Checking for game over
Showing NEXT tetromino
Summary
Where to go now
6
Astro-PANIC!
Astro-PANIC!
Defining game design
Creating the game and drawing the graphics
Adding and controlling the spaceship
Adding a glow filter
Making spaceship fire
Making the bullet fly
Adding enemies
Moving enemies
Being killed by an enemy
Killing an enemy
Killing an enemy—for good
Killing an enemy—with style
Advancing levels
Managing current score and high score
Saving data on your local computer
7
Bejeweled
Bejeweled
Creating documents and objects
Placing the gems
Placing the gems for real
Selecting a gem
Preparing to swap gems
Swapping gems
Swapping gems for real
Selecting which gems to remove
Removing gems
Making gems fall
Adding new gems
Dealing with combos
Giving hints
Summary
Where to go now
8
Puzzle Bobble
Puzzle Bobble
Creating documents and assets
Placing and moving the cannon
Drawing the game field
Drawing the game field with alternate rows
Drawing the game field according to Pythagoras
Loading the cannon with a bubble
Firing the bubble
Letting bubble bounce and stop
Adjusting bubble position and reloading
Allowing bubbles to stack
Detecting bubble chains
Removing the chain
Removing unlinked bubbles
Summary
Where to go now
9
BallBalance
BallBalance
Creating files and assets
Adding the balance
Choosing where to drop spheres
Dropping the spheres
Stacking spheres
Removing spheres
Adjusting floating spheres
Moving the balance
Summary
Where to go now
Where to Go Now
Where to Go Now
Index
Index

Splitting the code

There are three reasons why you should always split the code: first, this practice improves script readability. Remember that script readability is everything when you aren't working on your projects for a while. It's easier to see what this script is supposed to do:

connectToServer();
displaySplashScreen();
startTheMusic();

rather than this one:

// connecting to server
...
... // big set of instructions to connect to the server
...
// display splash screen
...
... // big set of instructions to display the splash screen
...
// starting the music
...
... // big set of instructions to start the music
...

With the first method, the one you'll be using from now on, you can easily see what the script does just looking at the first three lines. You don't have to read anything more unless you want to check how the functions connect to the server, display splash screen or start the music. The second script is not as intuitive, although there are comments, especially if a lot of...

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