Coding IDE

July 11, 2007 · Filed Under books, game dev, software · Comment 

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.

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ActionScript Books

July 11, 2007 · Filed Under books, game dev · Comment 

I recently completed Beginning Flash Game Programming For Dummies. This is a very solid introduction to game development concepts. It’s a bit light in places for those with prior programming experience, but the content on movement, physics and math makes up for that nicely. On the downside, this is strictly a ActionScript 2 and Flash reference. I’ve decided the develop with ActionScript 3 and Flex Builder. While most of the code samples need to be reworked for AS3, the book still provide a good conceptual reference for game development topics.

I’ve also picked up ActionScript 3.0 Cookbook: Solutions for Flash Platform and Flex Application Developers from O’Reilly. This is an excellent reference book. I read the first few chapters in their entirety. Now, I’m just reading sections to solve specific problems. I am eager to get my hands on Essential ActionScript 3.0, which was just recently released.

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The Insanity Begins

June 4, 2007 · Filed Under game dev · Comment 

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.

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