Book Image

Monkey Game Development: Beginner's Guide

By : Michael Hartlef
Book Image

Monkey Game Development: Beginner's Guide

By: Michael Hartlef

Overview of this book

Monkey is a programming language and toolset that allows its user to develop modern 2D games easily for mobile and other platforms like iOS, Android, HTML5, FLASH, OSX, Windows and XNA. With Monkey you can create best selling games in a matter of weeks, instead of months.Monkey Game Development Beginner's Guide provides easy-to-follow step by step instructions on how to create eight different 2D games and how to deploy them to various platforms and markets. Learning about the structure of Monkey and how everything works together you will quickly create eight classical games and publish them to the modern app markets. Throughout the book you will learn important game development techniques like collision detection, handling player input with mouse, keyboard or touch events and creating challenging computer AI. The author explains how to emit particle effects, play sound and music files, use sprite sheets, load or save high-score tables and handle different device resolutions. Finally you will learn how to monetize your games so you can generate revenue.
Table of Contents (16 chapters)
Monkey Game Development
Credits
About the Author
About the Reviewers
www.PacktPub.com
Preface
3
Game #2, Rocket Commander
4
Game #3, CometCrusher
5
Game #4, Chain Reaction
6
Game #5, Balls Out!
8
Game #7, Air Dogs 1942
9
Game #8, Treasure Chest

Time for action — playing Pirate TriPeaks


Pirate TriPeaks is a solitaire kind of card game. You can find it at http://www.monkeycoder.co.nz/Community/topics.php?forum=1059&app_id=59.

The gameplay is easy, features nice animations of its graphics, and has some good sound effects. You have to click on matching cards to have them removed onto the open stack on the right. Also, you can click on a hidden card on the left stack to have it flip over and be visible on the right stack. The round ends once all cards from the left side are gone or in the event of removing all cards lying out in the open.

Play a few rounds and try to see what kind of gameplay or visual features make Pirate TriPeaks special.

What just happened

Did you notice a few things? For example, the spinning card animation when you click on a card and it flips down onto the stack. Or the coin animation, when you removed one of the three pyramids? Or the sound effects? All these little extras are the eye and ear candy that can separate one game from another. Here is a short list of features:

  • Spinning card animation

  • Flipping card animation

  • Sound effects

  • Coins falling from the top when a pyramid is removed

  • Playable with just the mouse or a finger on a mobile device

As a game developer, and also game designer, you should always play other people's games. Not only to have fun, but also to take inspiration from other games for your own one. Try to analyze them—what they did wrong in your opinion and also what they did great.