Create a Flash game in minutes with PlayCrafter

Today I am going to talk about a revolutionary way to make quality Flash games: PlayCrafter.

I must admit I am overhelmed by the enormous amount of options of this tool, but I’ll try to be as much clean as I can in my review.

Tired of making online games? Make a game online

First, PlayCrafter is an online tool. You don’t need to install any software in your computer. And this is the first great feature, because this means you don’t even need a computer to make a Flash game, you can just sit in an internet cafè and make your game in a matter of minutes.

The power of drag & drop

In PlayCrafter, you don’t need to write a single line of code. You just drag and drop elements to the stage, designing your level in a few clicks.

Any element has its own features, so a turret will automatically fire, a car will skid, a space trooper will jump and fire bouncing bombs, and so on.

The engine that handle physics is the famous Box2D so expect accurate physics simulation.

New elements are added frequently so you’ll never run out of ideas.

You can even edit your element or import your own graphics.

The Community

There is a quite big community behind PlayCrafter. You can play, rate and even edit games made by other players.

When you game receives a good feedback from the community, you can export your Flash game and publish it on game portals

The price

PlayCrafter is free to use, but you can pay a monthly fee ($4.95) to upgrade your account to “Premium” and unlock exclusive features such as raising the limit of levels to 100 and exporting the games to Flash portals.

Moreover, some assets in the game cost an a mount of Pips, the PlayCrafter’s currency. You can buy Pips with real money or you can have for free if your refer users.

The limits

At the moment, the most important limits are the fixed stage size and the lack of scrolling. In my opinion, if PlayCrafter guys do not add more and more assets this will cause a large number of games with no difference among them.

Monetization

I am going to test the monetization of this tool very soon, meanwhile play Matcheroo to see a nice game made with this tool.

Final considerations

I strongly suggest to try PlayCrafter even if you are an experienced developer… you know… at school or at work you can’t install Flash… so why don’t you make a game between a task and another?

Expect a game made with this tool very soon…

Apply amazing filters to your photos with Virtual Photographer

If you are looking for a software that lets you instantly apply high quality, professional photographic styles to your digital images with just one click, then optikVerve Labs ‘ virtualPhotographer is the software you need.

This free package comes in two versions: as a Photoshop plugin or as a standalone software.

I tested the PS plugin and that’s what I think about it:

First, on the official site you will find virtualPhotographer is compatible with Photoshop CS3 and older

But I successfully installed (and used) it on my CS4 Master Collection version. Read more

Design quality WordPress themes in a minute with Artisteer

Having a nice and original blog theme is very important if you want to distinguish from the crowd.

Unfortunately, designing a theme from scratch can be difficult due to a lot of variables to consider: header, sidebars, buttons, css and more.

There are a lot of free and not free themes available on the web, but the best ones are downloaded a thousand times every day… not exactly what I would call “unique”…

So I am going to introduce you a software able to create a quality WordPress theme in a matter of minutes, without any knowledge of HTML, Php, Css and so on.

It’s Artisteer and I am going to review it.

The most interesting idea about Artisteer is the “Suggest” button… you can let Artisteer suggest the whole theme, playing with more than 100 variables, or make it suggest only some features, such as typography, color schemes, buttons, menu and so on.

These are three randomly generated themes.

It’s important to know each theme was created in a click. In a review, some pictures are worth a thousand words. Read more

Improve your brand with a logo

Every company should have one little (and sometimes not so little) graphic displayed next to its name, and sometimes this graphic becomes so famous that people will recognize the brand just looking at the graphic.

Just look at these logos

There isn’t any name next to the graphic, but you surely recognized the companies just with a brief look at their logo.

So if a logo is important for a big company, it must be important for a small company too, or even for a personal website.

Having a polished, well designed logo will make your page look more professional. The more polished and original your logo, the more chances people will remember it.

That’s why I wanted a logo for the blog.

I designed about a dozen logos for some companies around here in my career, but I wanted to try a company that is specialized in logo design. So I googled for “logo design” and started watching the portfolios of some companies listed in the results page.

I was impressed by logos made by The Logo Company so I decided to buy a logo from them.

I purchased the basic package for $149 that included 5 mock-ups to choose from, unlimited revisions and initial concepts in three business day.

Let’s see what happened:

December, 7th

I placed the order. I had to fill a form with some information about the logo I wanted, such as the style (illustration, text based, …), the feel (high tech, corporate, …), my preferred colors and so on.

I wanted something like an avatar, so I sent them a picture of me.

Then I had to pay in advance. It was sunday, so nothing else happened.

December, 8th

A project manager was assigned to my logo, and wrote me an email saying he would send me the initial designs in a couple of days.

December, 9th

After only one business day, I got five design concepts. Being just concept, they wasn’t that polished, but I liked this one:

I liked the deformed look… but I don’t have blonde hair nor I like green shirts… so I wrote them about it.

December, 12th

I got four revisions of the logo I choosed, and I had an hard time having to choose between these two logos:

I loved them both but I decided to continue with the rightmost one because it looks more like me. I just asked to change the font, but I already decided to use the logo without my name, or with my name written by me. A geek always has to mess around with everything.

December, 15th

I got my logo in various formats, included the master I can edit with Adobe Illustrator.

Now that’s my logo:

Expect to see it on the new blog design coming “soon” and in my next Flash games.

» A well designed logo be be very important when it comes to branding your name, and a good logo can be used for all kinds of great promotional products and other types of marketing strategies to increase brand awareness.

Distribute your Flash games worldwide with FlashGameDistribution

If you’re not a professional in marketing, one that loves to promote and sell games, pins, socks… whatever… Flash game marketing can be an hassle, or even a nightmare.

Unfortunately, if your game does not hit the frontpage of one of most popular portals spreading virally, you’ll have to manually submit your work to at least an hundred sites to earn some cash.

As said, it’s not a problem if you like marketing, just remember that every hour you spend in marketing cannot be spent in programming… or enjoying the summer.

That’s why I can’t wait for FlashGameDistribution (FGD from now on) to be released.

Still in a limited early beta, FGD is the last work from the creators of FlashGameLicense (read the review) and First Impressions (read the review).

FGD’s goal is assisting developers in distributing their flash games accross the internet, allowing developers to easily post their games to game portals, contact game portals, and automatically distribute their games to FGD partners.

The service will remain in beta until FGD crew will be able to count on a considerable amount of portals distributing the games through their API (I’ll review it later) and until some minor issues will be fixed.

Obviously this service is not only for developers but for portal owners too… they will be able to install an API that will automate game submissions.

I decided to test the service, as usual… this time on the developer side. Read more

Fine tune your Flash game with First Impressions service

“How do I make my game better?” is the number one question Flash developers ask. Perhaps you’ve finished the game and think you’re done… but no sponsors are interested. Or perhaps you have a rough version of the game finished but have no idea how to turn it into a polished gem of a game. How do you improve your game?

First Impressions are the answer! We ask arbitrary users with wildly different gaming backgrounds to play your game for 5 minutes and give you their first impressions. They each write a paragraph of comments, along with some ratings on things like graphics quality and intuitiveness. Once you’ve gotten ten or twenty fresh opinions about your game, you’re bound to have a better idea of what to do next. And once you’ve made improvements, you can get more first impressions to see how people reacted to your changes.

First Impressions

With these words FlashGameLicense crew introduce their new service, called First Impressions (FI from now on).

If you don’t know what is FlashGameLicense (FGL from now on…), it’s a marketplace where Flash game developers and sponsor can meet. Read my review about it.

But now we are talking about the FI service. Basically, you are paying for people to play and review your game.

At this time, you may wonder why should you pay for a review when you can freely submit your game to a portal that allows people to review games and get reviews for free. Read more

Monetize your Flash game with GameJacket

If you are looking for a new way to monetize your Flash games, then you should take a look to GameJacket, an online game advertising service actually in beta.

According to the faq, to start earning money you upload the game source files (.swf) through the GameJacket Developer Console and output your custom ‘GameJacket’.

Each ‘GameJacket’ .swf is unique and acts as the substitute for the game source files.

This is the file that you can freely submit to game portals and allow to spread virally around the net. When somebody plays your custom ‘GameJacket’, both the advert and the game source file are loaded in dynamically from the GameJacket servers.

You can find some useful information at the developer page http://www.gamejacket.com/developer.asp and in the FAQ http://www.gamejacket.com/developer.asp?devSection=faq#nav_anchor, but I got some exclusive information from Barry White, Founder & Director of Content at GJ

$1000 paid in advance

There are a lot of rumors in the net about the $1000 bonus, so let’s see what Barry says:

The $1000 bonus is not actually a bonus, it’s a guarantee that’s paid in advance on any advertising revenues the developer may earn from their game. If they don’t earn a $1000… we don’t chase you for it! It’s yours to keep and after 6 months, if you want to, you can remove your game entirely from the GameJacket Network. All we ask is that for the first 6 months, every version that appears on the web is in it’s GameJacketed form, unless the developer wishes to sell a site-locked non-exclusive version to another portal.

$0.50 CPM guaranteed

If you are worried about your low CPM when the ad is displayed in non english speaking countries, you should read what Barry has to say:

a) Our version control system also allows you to upload different language versions of the same game and the custom GameJacket detects the users browser settings and serves them the correct localised version of the game.

b) Some of our developers have realised that GameJacket allows them to sell a new kind of license, one in which they can actually place sponsors logos within the game or game menus for a set period of time, when the license expires they simply upload a new version with a new sponsors message! Our technology also allows developers (although no one has done this yet) to upload different sponsorship logos specific to different territories; so for example a developer could sell a 12 month advert for Heineken Beer for all game files served to Dutch users and a 6 month advert for Kronenbourg Beer to French users… all this from the same custom GameJacket .swf

c) Currently we are guaranteeing a minimum of $0.50 CPM for ALL impressions, regardless of which territories they originate from.

d) It’s important to state that developers always have full control over what versions they choose to display or whether they wish to remove their game from our service. (6 months with the $1000 advance)

Sign up for the beta

You can sign up for the beta here http://www.gamejacket.com/developer.asp

It’s useless to say I signed for the beta and I am going to try GJ with my next game, then I’ll made the complete report.

ActionScript 3.0 Game Programming University

If you want to learn some good AS3 game development basics, then you should read ActionScript 3.0 Game Programming University.

Inside ActionScript 3.0 Game Programming University you will find a brief introduction to AS3 and a guide how to create 17 among the most common Flash game types you can find in every game portal.

Games range from platform games to puzzles, and every game is explained starting from the creation of a working prototype, then adding more and more features until you get the final game.

You won’t get NewGrounds frontpage with such games, but you will learn the AS3 basics behind the creation of a game.

I have to say this book is not for absolute beginners: you will need some previous experience with AS2 and Flash environment.

Also, sometimes I felt like the author took shortcuts to avoid some common problems you will have to face in the creation of a Flash game.

But if you are familiar with AS2 and are afraid to jump into AS3, this book can be the one you are looking for.

Even if the code is well explained, sometimes in my opinion the author does not explain why should you write that code, giving a feeling like “shut up and code like me”

Anyway, maybe I am just envy he wrote 17 AS3 game tutorials while I still have to write one.

On the official site you can find the source code of all games, a forum where to discuss with other readers and a blog with some other tutorials.

Go buy the book!

Create a nice Flash photogallery with gridNavigation component

Today I’ll show you a Flash component that you will find very useful for a photogallery or an interactive portfolio.

Remember that there are thousands of sites showing their best photos/works, and you must show your work in an interesting way if you want to get noticed.

Personally, I don’t click anymore on the classic “click here to open the image in a popup”. We are in 2008, and we are looking for something new.

That’s why I am going to recommend you the gridNavigation component by Flashloaded.

The gridNavigation is a thumbnail based navigational system or a portfolio/photo gallery in a grid or pyramid style layout. The thumbnail content is clickable and zooms in to display the selected full size content while the other thumbnails are pushed aside. Content can be external images, animated SWFs or movie clips. Content can be added or changed directly in the Component Inspector, through ActionScript or using an external XML file.

Ok… that was a simple cut/paste. When I review something, I do a test drive.

Like all components, you can install gridNavigation with a double click on the .mxp file provided in the package.

There is not any manual in the zip file provided by Flashloaded but you can find an complete guide at this link.

Let’s start our fancy example!

First, from the Components window, drag and drop the component on the stage and set its size as you like.

Then, you can just play with the parameters in the component inspector like in the other million galleries released in these years, or feed the component with an XML file (much, much better).

Let’s see this XML Read more

Find a sponsor for your Flash game with Flash Game License

If you developed a Flash game, you had this problem. Once your game is complete, you want to find a sponsor and get some cash for your hard work.

Then, you start submitting the game to various Flash game portals… the first one only accepts form submissions, the second one only accepts mail submissions, the third one has a very very small link almost hidden in the footer… and you don’t know where to find the 4th one.

Believe it or not, the all hours you spend looking for a sponsor raise the amount of time you dedicated to the game. No matter if you develope or promote, you are spending time to make your game work.

Chris Hughes and Adam Schroeder come in our help with an idea to create a marketplace where developers and sponsors can meet and save time.

As a developer, you will save time because you don’t have to submit your game to a million sites, as a sponsor you will save time because you have a place where to test all new games without checking a million emais.

You can find this marketplace on flashgamelicense.com

Don’t be scared of the “made in a minute” feel of the site… you will find all you need to find a game/sponsor inside, and all in all this is a beta stage, even if I heard a lot of successful stories.

Chris told me he hired a programmer to overhaul the system, to fix all basic features and add some really cool features as soon as possible.

Let’s see how does it work:

Developers side

Once you sign up as a developer, you can submit your first game. The game submission form is very user friendly, let me show it:

The game detail section isn’t different than any game submission form… just imagine you are on NewGrounds and fill the form

In the development detail section the most important fields to fill are the one where you will enter your game state (alpha, beta, gold… ) with a percentage, amd the one where you already published your game or not. Obviously never published, almost completed games have more appeal than an alpha game.

Then, in the acceptable licenses section you will choose what kind of sponsorship you are looking for: the more licensing types you open, the most appealing is your game

Finally, you have to say how interested you are in game advertising and revenue sharing

Now, you can submit your game.

The system recommends you to sitelock your game and encrypt it for security reasons, but it’s up to you locking/encrypting it or not.

Once you submitted your game, you can watch it in the game view area, where you can see the latest offer for your game and the number of views. You also have a private messages area where sponsors can give you feedback.

I submitted a 25% completed game (updated today at 35% as you can see in the picture) and I already had a feedback from a sponsor saying:

Awesome concept! I cant wait to see it with better graphics :)

Very good!

The service is free but you are invited to share 10% of your sponsorship with site owners. Should I find a sponsor this way, I’ll positively give their commission

Sponsors side

You can’t sign up as a sponsor… al you can do is sending an email to the address you will see once in the sponsor section and wait for Chris to create you an account. This is necessary to give maximum protection to developers.

Once in the sponsor game area, you can see all games, divided by exclusive licensing and non-exclusive licensing. I can’t show you a picture of exclusive games area for a security reason, but is basically the same as the non-exclusive, except that the sponsor has an “offer” button to make an offer for an exclusive sponsorship. For your information, offers vary from less than $50 to more than $6000

The non exclusive area show 3 games per row along with description, exposure until now and developer requests to include sponsor’s APIs, branding, and so on.

In my opinion this is an extremely useful service, anyway I am testing it with a game, so stay tuned for the next part of the experiment.

Stay tuned!

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