Part Two: Beginner Games

Chapter List

Chapter 3: Programming Interactivity: Mouse Chaser

Chapter 4: Creating Instances Dynamically: The Button Menu

Chapter 5: Arrays: Match 'Em up and Sliders

Chapter 6: Objects: Critter Attack

Part Overview

Now that we've covered the basics of the authoring tool and ActionScript, we're ready to start on the more advanced programming concepts as well as our first games. This part contains five chapters that will build your programming skills and introduce you to several basic games. The following list describes each chapter:

• Chapter 3, "Programming Interactivity: Mouse Chaser ," continues to look at ActionScript while giving you the tools necessary to bring your games to life. This chapter is accompanied by source code for a game that demonstrates a small creature chasing after a mouse as the user moves the mouse around and clicks on a target. The source is broken down and described piece by piece to demonstrate some of the interactivity that is possible in Flash ActionScript. The movie focuses on interactivity with the mouse because on the Web and in Flash, the mouse is the primary input device.

• Chapter 4, "Creating Instances Dynamically: The Button Menu," describes a foundational concept in ActionScript: dynamic instantiation. After describing this feature, along with many other elements that support its use, an in-depth example of a button menu is given. Although this example is not a game, its implementation is reasonably complex, and it will be reused in many of the games in subsequent chapters.

• Chapter 5, "Arrays: Match 'Em Up and Sliders, " introduces the concept of arrays, which are used in nearly all programming languages to hold large sets of data. After describing them in depth, this chapter breaks down a pair of games that demonstrate their use. The first game, Match 'Em Up , is a memory game. The second game, Sliders , is a tile moving game. Both are reasonably simple games that allow you to get the hang of Flash programming while creating interactive games that are fun to play.

• Chapter 6, "Objects: Critter Attack, " covers the concept of objects formally . This powerful tool is the basis for creating larger games with extendable complexity. This chapter reaches a critical point where we have covered not only the majority of the ActionScript language, but also basic game design and implementation. From here, we can concentrate on more complex, larger scale games.