Box2DFlashAS3 – a library to watch

Behind the not-so-mnemonic Box2DFlashAS3 name, there is an open source port of Erin Catto’s powerful c++ physics library Box2D.

What is Box2D?

From the official website comes the explaination:

“Box2D is a 2D rigid body simulator for games. You can use it in your game to make objects move in believable ways and make the world seem more interactive. From the game’s point of view a physics engine is just a system for procedural animation. Rather than paying (or begging) an animator to move your actors around, you can let Sir Isaac Newton do the directing.”

You can watch the demo at this address and it’s really interesting.

Too bad it does not have documentation yet, but I am waiting for some more complex tutorial

Another project based on Box2D is motor to be released open source before the end of this year.

Meanwhile, I’ll keep on studying APE, but I have to admit that Box2D-based phyiscs engines look awesome

Christmas Couples: the finished Poux prototype

This is the last step of the prototype of a Flash game likePoux. Read steps 1, 2 and 3 before continuing.

As said, I finished the game. I called it Christmas Couples

Let’s see its features:

* Fancy graphics
* Improved scoring system
* Cool sound loop
* Highscores

As you can see, graphics, sound and highscores are developed from third parts, so I focused only on coding and gameplay.

This is a pretty good example of a copycat game. It’s coded with 204 lines and it took about 6 hours to be completed… and now I am going to explain line by line how it’s made.

Ok.. time to show you some actionscript… obviously all in the 1st (2nd to tell the truth…) frame! Read more

Experiment: monetizing a Flash game – Part 5

Multipart tutorial: available parts 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9

A month passed since the release of Circle Chain… read steps 1 to 4 to get informed about it.

It’s time to make some considerations and to start looking for a game sponsor.

How’s going with Circle Chain

Circle Chain is living a 3rd moment of “glory” as you can see in this graph

In the graph, you can see three peaks. The first one was after the submission of the game to the big portals such as Newgrounds, Kongregate, etc… the second one was after the submission to minor portals and viral marketing, and the 3rd one, the one currently in progress, is due mainly to italian market.

Too bad Mochiads does not pay well outside US.

Let’s talk about incomes:

Mochiads: 151,547 impressions -> $57.18
AdSense: 25,331 impressions
Kongregate: 1,653 impressions -> $0.26

for a total of $174.86… $9.36 this week… very bad but enough to reach the first goal of $172

Even if the experiment is not over yet, I am releasing the source code, as promised last week.

Don’t expect clean on optimized code because I made it in 3 hours and I did not have time to make everything as fine as I should do. Anyway, it’s a 210 lines game… think about it… that’s $0.83/line right now.

Now, let’s continue with the experiment

Submission of a partial game to sponsors

I don’t know if this ever happened to you too… but when I am making a project (either a game, a web site or a software) I always ask to myself: will people like what I am doing? When you deal with a real customer it’s not a problem… pick up the phone, call the customer and ask “do you like this one?… what… a real crap?… oh, sorry, I forgot to upload the right one… back in a minute”… and… panic…

Just kidding of course… but the problem is I started a new game… worked about 5 hours on it… and even if it’s playable I am planning to spend about 5 more hours to adjust gameplay and add new features.

But I want to know if there is a sponsor interested in my project.

So I mailed to Crazy Monkey Games and Game Gecko this message:

Hello,
my name is Emanuele Feronato and I run the blog www.emanueleferonato.com

I am developing a game I would like you to sponsor.

It’s not finished yet but it’s playable, and I would like you to tell me if you are interested in the game.

It’s part of an experiment and you can find a screenshot here.

I plan to finish it in a couple of days.

Moreover, I would like to post your reply (if any) on my blog, if you’ll decide it’s not confidential

Regards,
Emanuele

I know they only accept finished games, but with a bit of luck I’ll get a proposal before I complete the game. Or maybe they’ll reply something that will help me to learn the world of Flash game sponsorship

This is the screenshot of the game:

It’s a sort of puzzle/action game.

Do you like it? Wait a day or two, and hopefully you will see it finished and sponsored.

Meanwhile, take the source code of Circle Chain… I removed Mochi code but the game it’s the same you’ll find in internet. And in a couple of days I’ll write the “making of…” the complete tutorial about Circle Chain creation.

Multipart tutorial: available parts 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9

Prototype of a Flash game like Poux – Part 3

November 28th update: Finished project released

3rd update of the prototype. Remember to read part 1 and 2

It’s beginning to become something like a complete one-day game… let me introduce what I did.

First, I added cute graphics… on zeus box you will find some cute free icons with a completely free license, no matter what are you doing with such icons. I downloaded a Christmas pack so now the game looks like a Christmas game. I called the game “Christmas Couples”.

Then I added a score system, a time bar, some animations when you click on the icons, increasing difficulty, an highscore system, a game over status and a green “X2″ bonus bar acting like a 2X bonus if you remove an icon touching the bar.

Obviously, just in a few rows.

About the highscores, I used an ArmorBot account. Installing it is very easy and you can change almost everything in the highscore page. You can even add your own ad.

The page I made sucks a bit but it’s still under development… or maybe not… give it a look. At the moment you can only submit scores under the “triqui” name… but I am going to add a text field in the final version.

Anyway, let’s see the actionscript Read more

Gobble: a game by Andre Marianiello

This is absolutely one game I would have done by myself. It’s a creative mix of Snake, Circle Chain and String Avoider.

It’s called Gobble and it’s a really good game!

That’s what Andre told me:

I made a game based on your string avoider tutorial, and it was inspired by your circle chain game. Perhaps you would like to review it?

In Gobble you control something like a Snake, that must collect all balls in the stage. When you collect a ball, it sticks to your tail, and you have to avoid your tail to touch other balls. Easy? Yes… for the first 3 or 4 stages.

Then, different kinds of ball come to make your life harder.

Gobble features an hypnotic background and a nice music… right now I am writing this review with the background music of Gobble… nice choice of colors, design and music!

Gobble has MochiAds ads, and it’s very a pity that Newgrounds blammed it even if it had a score of 3.34.

Nevermind, from now on you can play it on my site, and there’s more!

If you manage to create an awesome game, I’ll publish it to my site, I’ll review, I’ll feature it on the “experiments” column and I will let you have your Adsense code in one of the two ads under the game!

This means that now I am waiting Andre’s Adsense cliend id and ad channel!

Think about it, give Andre Feedback and send me your works!

Win 3 Flash guestbooks with Flashloaded contest!

I am happy and proud to annunce that emanueleferonato.com is running his first contest.

In partnership with Flashloaded I am giving away three Flash guestbooks powered by flashGuestbook.

What is flashGuestbook?

The flashGuestbook component is a highly flexible system for recording feedback and comments from visitors to your websites. The component is deployed on the server side using PHP and MySQL with the resulting messages displayed within the Flash movie. Entries can be moderated and manually approved using the backend admin panel.

I wanted to test the component so here it is my test drive:

I installed the component with a double click on the .mxp file provided in the package. Then in a minute, filling two or three fields, I was able to setup the database.

The software does not come with a manual, but you can find an exhaustive online guide at this link.

Following their tutorial, I was able to create this example in a few minutes: Read more

Experiment: monetizing a Flash game – Part 4

Multipart tutorial: available parts 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9

This is the end of the 3rd week and here I am with another update.

I suggest you to read part 1, 2 and 3 before continuing.

This was a bad-luck week… had two server crash in my company with 3 scsi disks knocked out.

This means I had to work also in the spare time so I could not continue the one-week game… hope I will finish it before next sunday (I HAVE to finish it before next sunday, being a one-week game).

In a day or two I’ll publish another one-day game just to test some highscore APIs that you can find on major Flash portals. It will be a very copycat concept but I am doing it only to test highscore tables.

Now let me introduce Circle Chain earnings:

Mochiads: 100,770 impressions -> $51.80
AdSense: 24,040 impressions
Kongregate: 1,601 impressions -> $0.26

For a total of $165.50… only $13.55 this week… I think Circle Chain is almost history because this week got less than 2,000 impressions/day.

So I decided that next week I will release the source code.

While I was checking everything was ok during server crashes, I found an interesting way to have a nice Flash game concept without being a game design wizard: download a Commodore 64 emulator like VICE, and start playing with some arcade classics.

I think there is a gold mine to dig in old C64 games… and it’s waiting for us.

This sounds a lot as “copycat” but… come on… let’s call it “inspiration” and add some new features to old games. And think about an original concept between a “while” and an “end if”.

I am sorry I can’t tell you more about the experiment but it was a very busy week. My PS3 will wait a week more… I wanted to play Assassin’s Creed…

Multipart tutorial: available parts 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9

Prototype of a Flash game like Poux – Part 2

November 22nd update: part 3 released
November 28th update: Finished project released

Ok… this is the quickest prototype update ever. Yesterday I came with the Prototype of a Flash game like Poux, a bit incomplete because you could merely watch tiles grow.

It was a 50 lines prototype, and today I am publishing the second part, with another 50 lines (now we have 100 lines and an almost complete game!).

Now you can use your mouse to click on contiguous same colored tiles to remove them.

Light, camera, actionscript: Read more

Prototype of a Flash game like Poux

November 17th update: part 2 released
November 22nd update: part 3 released
November 28th update: Finished project released

Ok, I know, you are asking for full tutorials and not prototypes, but you have to know that a prototype is the first step to a tutorial and some of you realized nice games starting from prototypes or “incomplete” tutorials.

Anyway, I promise I’ll continue all “open” tutorials.

Today I am introducing you the prototype of a Flash game like Poux

Poux is a fast and challenging board game you have to click on contiguous same colored tiles to remove them.

Time is running fast and adds a new line of tiles at the bottom. Bombs can eliminate a whole line of tiles. Use them wisely.

You can play a nice version of Poux at LightForce.

In this prototype I have only an object linked as “tile” that contains all tiles, one per frame. Read more

A “very old” Flash Sokoban prototype

This is a Sokoban prototype I made in 2005 after reading some tutorials on gotoandplay.it.

It does not look that awesome and I am afraid the code sucks a bit, but I think it could be a good start for a project.

I plan to work on a Flash version of Sokoban someday, meanwhile you could have a look to my Javascript version.

Just in case you don’t know what is Sokoban…

From Wikipedia: Sokoban (warehouse keeper) is a transport puzzle in which the player pushes boxes around a maze, viewed from above, and tries to put them in designated locations. Only one box may be pushed at a time, not two, and boxes cannot be pulled. As the puzzle would be extremely difficult to create physically, it is usually implemented as a video game.

I won’t comment the code because it’s an old work, I will do it when I’ll create a new version.

Anyway it’s not that hard to understand, specially if you are an old time reader Read more

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