Artwork

While I was building the functionality with the symbols created in the storyboarding process, the artist was developing the artwork that would actually be used in the final version.

Complex Vector Graphics

During the storyboarding process, he had drawn one large island with a barrier separating the halves as we had discussed. But we decided to make the game more interesting by dividing the island into two islands. He started out by creating the more complex artwork in Freehand, Macromedia's full-featured vector graphics design application. (See Figure 25.7.) Tough-looking tank operators are always a nice touch.

Figure 25.7.

Players could use the arrow buttons to set the controls, but it was hard to balance accuracy with speed in setting the control. We decided to put a handle on the end of each control's indicator and allow players to drag it to set the control. (See Figure 25.8.) The angle control used the indicator-long movie clip, and the direction and power controls used the indicator-short movie clip.

Figure 25.8. Dragging the indicator is much easier than using arrow key buttons.