Category list

Appendix F. Other Games

As I worked through the material for this book, I created (or sometimes encountered ) games and games-in-progress that didn't quite fit in, but that I think would be useful and informative as you get more adventurous in your game development—or if you just want to have fun. These games, partial games, and game- related files are all included in the OtherGames directory on the CD and are described briefly here. Enjoy!

3D_race.fla

I created this file to prove the concept that a real-time 3D racing game in Flash is possible. This file contains only the most basic level of the game—a limited 3D engine you can use to move through an environment. It is a good starting place for learning how to create 3D racing games .

asteroids

This directory contains files contributed by Aaron Silvers, who has created a very good clone of the commonly known game of Asteroids.

cards.fla

Jennifer Rosenthal created this deck of playing cards. Most decks in Flash games are imported as JPEGs or GIFs and have a total file size of a few hundred kilobytes. These vector cards weigh in at just under 8 KB!

foxandgeese.fla

I created this simple puzzle game with Flash 5. It is just waiting for someone to give it nice graphics. The rules are easy to understand and are included in the game.

fruit_smash.fla

This is the main engine for a game I've been working on called Fruit Smash. It is an addictive puzzle game similar to some you may have seen on the Internet. The hard part (the engine) has been done. Select any two horizontally or vertically adjacent pieces of fruit by clicking them; they swap positions. If swapping these positions results in a vertical or horizontal match of three pieces of fruit, they disappear and new ones come in.

invaders

This directory, contributed by Paul Neave (www.neave.com), contains a well-written clone of Space Invaders.

iso_maze.fla

This is one of my successful simple experiments. In Chapter 9, "Artificial Intelligence," we discuss random maze generation. In this file we use the random-maze-generation algorithm but display it as an isometric maze. You can move a ball around through the maze.

jigsaw .fla

This was one of my first game attempts with Flash MX while it was still in beta. It is a simple-looking jigsaw-puzzle game that uses dynamic masking to randomly generate the shape of each puzzle-piece mask and also mask a movie clip. The great thing about this jigsaw puzzle is that it can even cut up an animation! Unfortunately, I would consider this a failed test; all of the pieces are generated properly, but the dynamic masking proves to be a huge performance hit. As a result, when dragging pieces around, you experience much visual lag. However, this works perfectly for puzzles with small numbers of pieces (under 20).

matching.fla

This is a simple memory game I created with Flash 5. The goal is to flip two matching cards. If you flip two that are not matching, they flip back over.

pacman

Another great clone contributed by Paul Neave.

projectile_motion.fla

In Chapter 3, "Trigonometry 101," and Chapter 4, "Basic Physics," we covered all of the information needed to develop projectile motion in Flash. Here is a simple working example of how that is implemented.