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!

Line 1: Have to stop in this frame because I installed MochiAds and MochiBot on the previuos frame. Yes, I am going to (try to) monetize this game too…

Line 2: This is a mandatory line if you want to use highscores feature provided by ArmorBot

Line 3: Array containing the game field

Line 4: Attaching the splash movieclip. It contains the splash screen, the one you see when you start the game

Line 5: Attaching the play button

Line 6: Attaching the “Stop Sound” button

Lines 7-10: Adjusting play button and sound button positions.

Line 11: Creating a new sound variable

Line 12: Attaching the sound clip linked as music

Line 13: Playing the sound clip 10,000 time starting from second zero (the beginning)

Lines 15-46: Highscores management. This is the code provided by ArmorBot. I only made some changes to make result appear where I want them to appear and to show top 10 only after the last score was submitted.

Line 47: game_init function. This function is called at every new play.

Line 48: Setting removed tiles to zero

Line 49: Setting the score to zero

Line 50: Setting the interval between two new row insertions to 250 (frames)

Line 51: Setting the initial position of the horizontal green bonus bar

Line 52: Setting multiplier bonus to 1

Line 53: Setting game_over to zero (it’s not game over)

Line 54: Settings turns to zero

Line 55: Setting tile placed to zero

Lines 56-61: Initializing the game field with all zeros. Now the board is empty

Line 62: Creating the movieclip that will contain the objects

Line 63: Initializing the text variable that will display the current score (initially zero as seen on line 49)

Line 64: Calling the place_line function. This function will place a new line (line 81)

Line 66: This is the function to be executed when the player presses “play” on the splash screen

Line 67: Saving the name the player entered in the splash screen in a variable called player_name

Line 68: Setting a variable to tell we are actually playing the game

Line 69: Attaching the background of the game

Line 70: Attaching the horizontal green bonus bar

Line 71: Creating an empty movieclip that will contain the time bar

Line 72: Attaching the movieclip that will contain the score

Line 73: Calling the game_init function we saw at line 47

Line 74: Removing the splash screen

Line 75: Moving the Stop Sound button off the stage. I had to do in this way because removeMovieClip does not work on buttons

Line 76: Same thing with the play button itself

Line 78: Function to call if the player presses the Stop Sound button

Line 79: Stop the music

Line 81: Function to place a new line

Line 82: Counting from 1 to 10 (the number of columns)

Line 83: Increasing tiles_placed variable, to keep count of how many tiles we have placed so far

Line 84: If there is a tile in the spot where we should add a new tile…

Line 85: Call the function push_blocks. This function il push blocks from the bottom, to raise the stack of tiles

Line 87: Attaching the new tile

Line 88: Generation of a random number between 1 and 6 and saving it into num

Line 89: Stopping the tile movieclip at the num-th frame. Obviously I have a different tile on each frame

Line 90: Saving tiles_placed value in the field array

Line 93: Function to be executed at every frame

Line 94: If it’s not game over…

Line 95: Decreasing interval… time is passing…

Line 96: If interval reaches zero…

Line 97: Increasing turns variable

Line 98: Setting the new interval value to 250-turns. This means new lines will be placed faster and faster. How faster? 1 frame faster than the last one

Line 99: Calling the function place_line (line 81)

Line 100: Finding a new random position for the horizontal green bonus bar

Line 101: Moving the horizontal green bonus bar to its new position

Line 103: Clearing the bar movieclip

Line 104-109: Displaying the time bar by drawing two lines, one a bit thicker than another. To know more about Flash drawing routines refer to Create a flash draw game like Line Rider or others – part 1

Line 112: Function to push blocks (called at line 85)

Line 113: Scanning all vertical tiles in the col_number column

Line 114: If it’s not game over…

Line 115: If the place we are scanning is not empty…

Line 116: If the row is not the top last row… (it’s very important because if I don’t have more space where to store tiles, it’s game over)

Lines 117-118: Bringing the tile at ith to the ith+1 position… both in the field array and physically

Line 120: If it was the top last row…

Line 121: Making tiles half transparent (it’s game over man…)

Line 122: Setting game_over to 1 (I told you it’s game over…)

Lines 123-126: Sending scores to the highscore table

Line 127: Attaching the game-over movieclip (the one with the highscores)

Lines 128-130: Placing the “play again” button

Line 131: Function to be executed when the player presses the Play again button

Line 132: Remove the movieclip with the tiles

Line 133: Calling game_init function to start a new game (line 47)

Line 134: Removing the game over movieclip

Line 141: Function ti be executed when the player clicks the mouse

Line 142: Checking if we are playing the game

Line 143: Checking if it’s not game over (I could merge this line with the above one with an and)

Lines 144-145: Determining what tile did I click according to mouse coordinates

Line 146: Checking if it’s really a spot where it could be a tile

Line 147: Checking in the field array if there is a tile in the tile-space I clicked

Line 148: If all conditions are true, then call the remove_tiles function you see at line 161

Line 149: Once the tiles have been removed, call update_field function (line 190)

Lines 150-152: Calculating the score for the last move in this way: 2 tiles removed = 2+1= 3 points; 3 tiles removed = 3+2+1 = 6 points… and so on. Score is then multiplied by the multiplier

Line 153: Updating the score string

Line 154: Reset removed variable to zero

Line 155: Reset mutliplier variable to 1

Line 161: Function remove_tiles called at line 148. Three arguments: the x position, the y position and a flag to determine if the tile to remove is the clicked one (that’s why I called with the last argument set to 1 at line 148)

Line 162: Determining which type of tile (star, snowflake, …) I am going to remove according to its current frame

Line 163: If the tile is not the clicked one

Line 164: Function to be executed at every frame for that tile

Line 165: Moving it down by 1 pixel

Line 166: Making it a bit more transparent

Lines 167-169: If it’s completely transparent, then remove it! This is the animation you see when you click a tile

Line 171: Setting its field position to zero… now there is an empty space

Line 172: Increasing remove variable

Lines 173-175: If the tile was in the horizontal green bonus bar, then set the multiplier at 2

Lines 177-179: If there is a tile of the same type on the right of the tile just clicked (or remove) then recursively call remove_tiles for that tile with the clicked argument at zero

Lines 180-182: Same thing with the left tile

Lines 183-188: Same thing with the above and below tiles.

The clicked flag is used to not remove the clicked tile if there aren’t adjacent tiles of the same type

Line 190: Beginning of the update_field function (the last one!) called at line 149

Lines 191-192: Scanning the entire game field

Line 193: If there is an empty space under the field position we are looking at…

Line 194: Assign to falling the vertical position of the tile that must fall down

Line 195: While there is an empty space under the falling tile and it hasn’t reached the “ground”…

Lines 196-198: Updating field array and physically moving down the tile

Line 199: The tile has moved down so falling must decrease

And it’s over! This is the longest all-in-once explaination of this blog! I hope this will be useful

Now I am submitting the game to some portals, then I’ll release the source code.

Meanwhile… enjoy!