Chapter 31: Creating a Game in Flash

Overview

In This Chapter

Thinking about gameplan logic

Using the break and return functions

Asking questions with conditionals

Using arrays

Writing code with the new event model

Creating text fields dynamically

Creating Movie Clips dynamically

Using setInterval

Using SharedObject

Creating a game requires much more than programming. It is a combination of many skills — game design, interaction design, visual and sound design, and scripting — that brings it all together. These skills also represent the different phases of game design and are covered in this chapter. You must devote your attention to all these aspects of design to produce a successful game.

To illustrate the different aspects of game design, we deconstruct a simple game, the universally known Hangman.

Note 

In order to open the Flash Project file associated with this chapter's example, you need to be using Flash Professional 8. If you are using Flash Basic 8, you can open the ActionScript files (.as) in a separate text editor such as Macromedia Dreamweaver, Notepad, or TextEdit.

On the CD-ROM 

Before reading through this chapter, copy the ch31 folder of the CD-ROM onto your hard drive. Double-click the hangman.html file located inside of the copied folder to play the game in a Web browser and become acquainted with our project. Now, open the hangman.flp file in the Project panel of Flash Professional 8. The functionality of the game is broken down into three classes: GameModel, GameView, and GameController. You learn about the purpose of each class file as you proceed with this chapter.