Game Overview

The objective of Ice World is to grab the flag at the end of each level, while squashing as many enemies as possible and collecting as many of the ice cubes as possible along the way. You've got to be careful, though you have only a limited number of lives, which are lost by falling in a gap or by running into an enemy. When creating this game, I focused on the ActionScript, not the story. So, unlike Super Mario Brothers, this game has no grand objective, such as saving a princess.

Let me introduce each of the graphic objects. Each object is followed by a description of its properties.

This is the character you control. We will call him the hero. You can make him walk left or right by using the left and right arrow keys, jump by pressing either the spacebar or the up arrow key, or crouch by pressing the down arrow key.

The lowest point in any level is the ground, which is created from the floor movie clip. There are gaps in the ground that the hero can fall through watch out for those!

Don't be fooled by how cute and harmless this guy looks he is your enemy (also called a baddy). In each level you will find several of them. You jump on them to squash them. If you run into one (not by jumping), then you lose a life.

These ice cubes are the collectible items in this game. You collect them by running into them.

This cube is the most common platform found throughout the levels. Cubes are solid on all sides. You can jump onto them to stand there or to position yourself for gaining access to another area. Some of these cubes contain secret ice cubes. If you bump one from underneath, it may expose an ice cube that gets automatically collected.

This type of platform may be stationary, or it may move (horizontally, vertically, or both). I will call this the "ice platform." By jumping onto one, you can be transported to a new spot to find secret items or get closer to another platform you need jump onto.

When falling from above, you can land on the "tree platform." However, it is not solid from the sides or from underneath. In terms of the collision properties, I will call the other platforms "solid" and this type of platform a "cloud."

This is what you're aiming for on each level. You collect this flag by running into the pole. Once you collect the flag, you've completed the level, and you move up to the next level.

Now that you have been introduced to the game elements, you should play the game a few times to get a feel for everything. Open ice_world.swf in the Chapter15 directory. When you see the menu, select Start Game. After the first level has been loaded, you will see a Play button. Click that, and you will find yourself on level 1. Use the directional arrow keys to navigate the world. Collect the ice cubes, squash the enemies, and collect the flag at the end. You will see that, as you would expect, the levels get more difficult as you progress.

Speed Boost for Windows Users

As you are probably aware, the Flash Player has gained in popularity at an amazing rate because of its small file size (read: fast download). But that small file size also meant that there are a few things Macromedia could not fit in the Flash Player, like powerful graphics-rendering ability and faster code execution. Plug-ins like the Shockwave Player for Director are much more powerful than Flash's, but they have large file sizes and hence are less popular. For most Web applications, Flash's level of power is acceptable, but to the game developer it can pose a problem. As the number of graphics and calculations per frame increases in a game, the Flash Player slows down dramatically. Luckily there is a new product (Windows only) that can help with one of these two deficiencies graphics rendering Design Assembly's swfXXL (www.swfxxl.com).

swfXXL takes a Flash projector file (which is output from the Publish settings in Flash) and creates a new executable file from it. The new file runs in full-screen mode and takes advantage of Microsoft DirectX for the graphics. This is great news for Windows game developers. It doesn't necessarily speed up any code, but it frees up much of the processor resources that were being devoted to graphics rendering, which can then be used by the Flash Player for code execution. The result is that you can easily create games that run at up to 60 frames per second (the frame rate of most professional non-Flash games). Check out the file called platform_standalone.exe in the Chapter15 directory. It is Ice World after being modified with swfXXL. It plays full screen, and it plays fast.