capz:
I would put forward the argument that, that is what they said about Java when was first released. Now people are saying it is very nearly reaching the efficiency of cpp. Clearly Flash will never become THAT good, yet with the improvment of technology, it will allow software rendered apps like those produced by Flash to become better and better... just a matter of waiting, I dunno, 10 years?

I like the idea about using Flash to create GUI's for games... Is there anywhere I can read more about this? Particularly Java, as I haven't learnt cpp... yet... and thus we are entering our 4E5 contest with a Java game.
Is take it there is no built in support through sun, but maybe a free open source pakage which will allow Java to not only embed Flash movies, but also read input from them?
cheers

I've got your answer right here. That's my blog, you'll find a few topics related to Flash (just pick the category in the sidebar).

I would heartily recommend it for anyone doing a 2D game (3D is possible, though not worth it for that in my opinion except for in a few limited cases). You can think of it being equivalent of Super Nintendo, but with a really great vector renderer. And I'd design your graphics engine that way: the newer Flash 8 and 9 players have specific optimizations for incredibly fast bitmap operations. Create your artwork in vectors then at game load just render them all out to sprites. Or hand-create bitmap sprites in the first place (just like the good ole days) in Photoshop.

For those who dislike Adobe's Flash IDE or can't afford it, there's a bevy of free stuff available, including a better-than-Adobe's ActionScript compiler. There's also free tools for compiling assets; you end up with a full game production toolchain, completely free if you need it to be. Head on over to OSFlash for all the fun.

Every project I'm doing for the next several years will be built on top of the Flash platform. And this is coming from an experienced next-gen console engineer (Criterion/RenderWare, now EA), who has access to any 3D technology I want. It really presents a toolset at nearly the perfect abstraction level for building 2D games; and hey, the flawless cross-platform compatibility and the fact that Flash artists are a dime-a-dozen in the web community (on par or exceeding folks with 3D knowledge out there, let alone your-specific-modeler-knowledge).

Quote:Original post by WillPash
I totally agree with Capz, Flash, even though it has its advantages in rapid development wasnt made for games development. Therefore has plenty of issues in that regard. If C++ or C# wasnt a language you want to use to write a simple game. I would again recommend Director...

I would strongly disagree with Capz and WillPash: Director is not the direction to go, and Flash most certainly is a viable game development platform. This is an incredibly common myth about Flash. Hell, I believed it myself, and I was even a die-hard Flash geek back in the day (founded OpenSWF.org). But with release of open-source ActionScript compilers, linkers, and IDE's, you can basically treat it like Java, C#, C++, Python, etc... with the upside that it produces a nearly universal executable.

Flash is far more "write once, run anywhere" than either Java or C# ever will be (not that they're necessarily trying to attain that, but Java certainly embraced that dream back in its beginnings).

With free tools like ScreenWeaver (was commercial until earlier this year) or commercial tools like MDM Zinc, SwfStudio, or any of nearly a dozen others, you can go from a folder of raw ActionScript files and PNGs to a MacOS/Windows/Linux/PocketPC/Xbox360/PS3/PSP executable at a click of the button. Sure, it won't have cutting edge 3D graphics, but it will have cutting-edge 2D graphics which is still how the majority of the art world works! [grin]

And remember, a lot of customers for games (if you have any commrecial ambitions) don't have decent 3D acceleration, but they usually do have memory and CPU cycles more than you would expect (they're relatively cheap by comparison). And that's what Flash works wonders with. And it's fast 2D stuff... and since it's all software, you can do fun things like have it perform Fourier transforms on your own arrays of data, or apply a Guassian blur to your data (influence maps, anyone?). Incredibly handy...

So, the question is simple: am I doing a 2D game. If the answer is yes, you should be using Flash if you're truly focused on the *game* and not on the tech. If the answer is no, I'm doing a 3D game, then I'd probably recommend to go along.

LordZod6, it sounds like you made the right choice in sticking with Flash. Anything else would be unnecessarily expensive in either time or energy.

What free tools do you reccomend? Flash seems like something I would like to try, but I'd rather not if there isn't a decent free IDE. Your site seems like it's down right now.

To get the most out of flash performance, make sure you use raster images instead of vector images. They are MUCH faster in flash. The latest version of flash has the "cache as bitmap" option which allows flash to treat vector graphics as raster ones.

If, as you say, you are just making a point and click game, flash will be more than adequate performance-wise.

I made a crappy real time game in flash that is probably the upper limit in what you can achieve while still maintaining good fps. It runs much better in exe format, rather than in a browser.

http://infotech.monash.edu.au/about/news/archive/2006/resources/zombieattack.exe

Though flash wasn't originally intended for creating games, many people use it for that purpose these days and Adobe would be crazy to ignore it. They will continue to add features that make it easier to create games. I hear AS3 is meant to be much faster, tho i havent used it yet.

Quote:Original post by Daniel Miller
What free tools do you reccomend?

Grab FlashDevelop. It's all you need. It includes MTASC (Motion-Twin ActionScript Compiler) and SwfMill (XML <-> SWF tool), plus some other bits and bobs for capturing debug output (FlashOutput, I think).

The FlashDevelop IDE is great. It's got "IntelliSense", project management, syntax highlighting, etc...

There's not a lot of info on using strictly FlashDevelop, but I'll hopefully get some of my own tests up there soon enough.

Sweet, thanks a lot. I'll download that right now.

edit: This is going to look stupid... but does FlashDevelop use a unique version of ActionScript? That's what it seems from reading a few questions on the official forums.

[Edited by - Daniel Miller on July 23, 2006 10:27:55 AM]