AS3.0 newbie here.
My goal: To create a side-scrolling motocross game (horizontal - already have terms on side scrolling methodology).
The bike - should react to jumps, etc.
Wheels need to turn when gas is pressed, etc (is this a basic animation on keyboard events, or is it actually what 'drives' the machine??)
The rider - should hang on to bike, lean forward, backward, etc.
My question lies within where should be the best place to start? I know this isn't going to happen over night, and my primary focus is on the bike & suspension & rider physics (making sure the suspension/bike/rider react correctly to bumps).
The end result (someday) will be something similar to:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mpR0wbE_6Qs
Kind of an abstract question, but any help is greatly appreciated.
Thank you
There are a handful of resources for Flash game development out there,
http://www.seinia.com/ teaches some useful basics.
Adobe has a good list of some engines as well: http://www.adobe.com/devnet/games/gaming_engines.html
I would definitely check out Box2D and Fixel as they are pretty slick.
There is a similar topic with a few good suggestions for side scrolling physics games: Scrolling the 2d world with physics
Related
I'm developing some platform-like game in Flash using AS3. Everything is quite clean. The whole code is class based etc.
I've already done the most of the mechanics, and now I need to do some main character animations. I've already designed it, and it's waiting to be animated as a vector graphics.
A the problem starts here... What is the proper way of doing that? I would like to use bone tools to make it smooth. But as far as I tried to find any materials about it on the Internet everybody just do some simple animations and play it separately one after another. How about playing legs animation simultaneously arms and other parts of the body? Maybe some tricky usage of state machine... I don't know.. Is there any ready solution for that?
More tips is better here, or even some tutorials - just anything.
This tutorial by Chris Georgenes seems to be exactly what your looking for: http://www.adobe.com/devnet/flash/articles/character_animation_ik.html. Chris teaches the reader while animating a simple character. Having a strong overall knowledge of the bone tool will allow you to get the nice crisp animations you seek. I sincerely wish you the best of luck with your project.
I'm a beginner in programming world, never touch any programming language before. But last 3 days I decide to try make a flash game, I looked some tutorial about AS3, try it, yes I understand a little bit. But I'm still confused about this:
How do I know or to decide what codes I write first, what next? example: I want to add a hero, then a enemy, then a tiles, then a background, event listener.
Is it okay if I write code randomly, example: first I add enemy, then add tiles, add background, then add hero, etc?
What is the best way to completely learn all AS3 codes, especially about flash game dev?
I'm now in frustration mode, so I decide to learn from you all who have mastered AS3.
Check out this guide by Michael James Williams. I was in the same situation as you, and that guide helped me a lot. It goes through a lot of the basics and does a good job of explaining each step.
To answer some of your questions, the order in which you code stuff doesn't matter too much. You can always go back and adjust your old code, and you'll definitely end up doing that at some point.
For learning AS3 syntax, just look through some examples and tutorials, and don't be afraid to read the official AS3 docs. They might be intimidating at first, but once you start learning some of the terminology, they're very helpful.
you can try some video tutorials like these
http://www.lynda.com/ActionScript-tutorials/AS3-language-fundamentals/123492/129625-4.html
http://www.lynda.com/Flash-tutorials/Building-Flash-Games-Starling/98951-2.html?srchtrk=index:1%0Alinktypeid:2%0Aq:flash%2Bgames%0Apage:1%0As:relevance%0Asa:true%0Aproducttypeid:2
If you're frustrated NOW, are you sure that you're ready to invest a couple of YEARS in becoming half-good with Actionscript? You'll have to like learning from your mistakes (an excellent way to learn, actually), because you will make thousands of them and they will cost you thousands of hours!
Do NOT write 'randomly' unless you want to greatly lengthen your time to mastery. Everything you do should have a purpose. I would start (if I were starting again) by giving myself a series of the smallest challenges: make an object appear; make it disappear; make it appear in one second from now; make it appear when I tap a key or click my mouse; make it move across the screen; make it move back; make it follow my mouse... etc.
There are many hundreds of basic programmatic elements like these that will add to your growing grasp of logic, data-structures and language. There are usually many ways to accomplish the same task -- learn and practice all of them.
Luckily, the Internet is full of good tutorials and references to Actionscript, and some decent forums like this one where you can get help.
I know this is king of old but someone might still find this useful.
I think that if you are serious about game development and also want to learn some techniques that are independent of the platform (Flash/AS3 in this case) you should use a framework.
For Flash the best game framework is the Starling along with Feather for UI.
They run on Stage3D which means that run on the GPU not the CPU which make them very fast.
With Starling you can also create mobile games that run in AIR so I think it really is something to consider.
On hsharma.com you can find a free video tutorial that goes through everything you need to know to get starting with game development so it should answer the question on how to create enemies, backgrounds, etc.
Hope this helps someone.
Can anyone recommend a decent tutorial, add-on or approach to creating a page rip off effect in flash?
I want to create a notepad where each page can be ripped off to reveal further content.
Thanks
Paul
are you looking for a pageFlip with a tearing feature? if so it does exist even though I can't find the link (anyway it was AS2).
if you want more flexibility, you can take a look at a cloth simulation ; derschmale did a great example and pixelero did sort of the same with linked lists (=faster)
there's also this particle physics engine called Traer that have been ported from java and that allows you to get the cloth behaviour with fewer lines of code and some fine tuning (stiffness, damping a.s.o. ).
the general idea is to subdivide the displayObject you want to tear off into a series of triangles, take a snapshot of that object in a BitmapData, then redraw the distorted grid with the drawTriangles() method.
I think it is how they do the thing in the cloth examples.
hello i want to develop AI car(opponent) in car race game what should be my direction to develop them with less complexity because i don't have any idea. because the player car is moving on the scrolling track plz suggest me should i have to use relative motion or way point concept but that should also be change on the scrolling track (i.e. player car movement)
You can have a good start by browsing/using the opensteer library.
A simple first pass would be to just "cheat" and keep the opponent car within X distance of the human car, and then slow it down if the human ever gets too far behind. You vary this behaviour with the difficulty level. This is kind of how Super Mario Kart for SNES works.
If you want something more realistic then I think egarcia's opensteer idea sounds like an interesting way to go.
There is a lot of explanation on this page, with java demonstration (applets) to explains the differents solutions.
regards
Guillaume
I would like to know this to understand why some games like Mario is still playing today and because no other. This is to implement in future game projects.
What are the factors most important to developing a game?
Gameplay or Graphics? Both?
EDIT:
It's Possible combine these two?
Gameplay, combined with the often-missed concept of ease of play. If I can't pick up a game and make progress in a couple minutes I probably won't go back to it after I've been away. It's just disheartening to have to relearn how to play a game. Mario tended to have simple interfaces, one or two commands only, which makes it easy to come back to. Comes back to this: http://xkcd.com/484/
Gameplay. So many modern games just seem to spend their entire budget on developing an incredible graphics engine and forget to include plot / interesting gameplay. One example is Doom 3. It's kind of interesting, and spooky to play, but it's SO REPETITIVE. Tunnel after dark, deserted tunnel... compare it to Doom 2 which had a plethora of different types of missions. Doom 2 had crap graphics, but there's a reason people keep playing it.
That being said, a big reason people play old games is from nostalgic value. The gameplay might not be particularly excellent, but it does bring back memories, so that automatically adds value to the game.
Graphics are, of course, also important... you can't get away with 16-color 2D sprites anymore (or at least, not as easily). Rather than spend the entire budget on graphics, though, look into an OK graphics engine, and spend some time making the game:
Fun to play.
Have replay value.
Easy to pick up.
The most important is that you ENTERTAIN your target users.
Some users want gameplay. Some users are wow-ed by just graphics.
The think the real importance is addictiveness, which, of course, is rather hard to program in. However, I think the key to that is a task which is very easy to "almost" achieve. It's the "I'm almost there; just one more try" effect that keep most people coming back.
This might be a bit old-school for most peoples liking, but I'd have to say gameplay.
Put it this way, I still find myself running old SNES games I loved on an emulator these days, but I can't see myself playing a game that had great graphics but rubbish gameplay after it has had its time.
Both are preferable, but it's gameplay that generates the classics of each era.
Game play is what gets you hooked, especially if there's a very low learning curve such as pacman or breakout. Graphics is what sucks you into downloading / buying a game. Sometimes nice graphics is a demo don't necessarily translate to a nice game. I've seen so many games that have beautiful front screens, background, etc. but the actual game graphics such as characters, objects, etc. suck. Generally it's a good idea to think about your game design to make it easy to understand and play initially, then it gets harder with later levels by adding bosses, threats, bonuses, increasing speed, etc. Then fine tune how the game looks with snazzy graphics.
I would say it depends. For indie games, gameplay is the most important because that's what will keep your players entertained. obviously for big budget games, you need both to be successful. But as long as your graphics are clean and neat, players shouldn't complaint too much.
Distinguish between designing the game and programming the game. For a programmer, a game is simply an application, no different from any other kind of software. Game design is a whole 'nother beast of a different color :) If you can program well, you can program a game well.
Good game designers are the same kind of rare creative as good storytellers--who aren't necessarily always good writers.
Gameplay in terms of being easy to get the basics but difficult to master would be one factor, for sure. For example look at Diablo II for something with some nice basic elements but also some elements to keep playing for a long long time, like horadic cube recipes for example.
Replayability is another factor. How much does the game change if I pick a different starting character, assuming a game with this style like an action RPG or FPS or beat-em-up(Street Fighter II)? Is the game enjoyable from different views? How good is the AI if I have computer opponents in a real-time strategy game and how many settings are there?
Graphics can be a nice complement but just because a game looks nice doesn't mean I'll spend hundreds of hours on it. Titan Quest would be a nice example of taking the Diablo II style and adding some eye candy that makes for a nice game.
Nostalgia is a big factor in why some old games are still played like the old Super Mario games. The memories of playing those old games and seeing how cool it was to get to the next level can be why some will go back again and again. It is the reason why I still play my SNES at times.