Coding IDE
I’ve switched my development tools from Flash and Notepad++ to Flex Builder. I have tried a number of environments in search of the best environment for my style of coding. Since all of the ActionScript 3.0 Cookbook examples are all based on Flex Builder, i decide to give it a try. It has some clear advantages.
- Based on Eclipse
- Cross-Platform
- Integrated AutoComplete and Help
- Excellent debugging features – This has saved me a bunch time!
Currently, I’m working with the public beta for Flex Builder 3, which looks pretty solid at this point.
ActionScript Books
I recently completed Beginning Flash Game Programming For Dummies
I’ve also picked up ActionScript 3.0 Cookbook: Solutions for Flash Platform and Flex Application Developers
Documentation
I’ve finished pouring over the Flash Help documentation for ActionScript 2.0 and 3.0 and I now know just enough to be dangerous. I’ve started work on a design document for the third game idea, space tank. It seems like a good concept to get started with and learn the basics.
I want to do all of the documentation online so that I can easily work from multiple computers. Google Documents is the obvious choice for word processing and spreadsheets. So I just needed to find an online drawing application to handle user interface wireframes. Cumulate Draw is a nice online drawing application. However, it doesn’t store your files online. Saves occur locally in a variety of formats, but the application can only open files in it’s native format. Online storage would be a nice addition. Gliffy has a very similar feature set and it does offer online storage. The only drawback is the on-page plug for the premium service.
Here are the preliminary wireframes, click to see a larger version.
The Insanity Begins
A confluence of events has convinced me that it’s time to cut my teeth at creating a video game. This will require a number of skill sets: game design, graphic design, programming and marketing.
I have done a fair amount of game design recently for work, so I’m pretty confident about being able to come up with a game design. As for graphic design, I have seen some pretty solid examples of it not being as important as game play for basic web games, which was a big concern before now. It’s been awhile since I’ve had a good programming project to sink my teeth into. Marketing will be the least fun aspect, but I have more experience now than I did with past web ventures. Now that the weather is improving, it will be a good excuse to spend early weekend mornings out on the deck!
I started by working up on some design ideas to get the ball rolling. I came up with three, which I called office manager, poker puzzle and space tank. I’ve got many pages of notes, so I’m good there. Then I spent this last weekend working on getting up to speed with ActionScript. A Flash-based game is the most logical to get started with. The syntax of ActionScript is very straight forward, so that should not be a big deal. The time consuming part will be getting familar with the Flash API.
My ET:QW Stats
