Hey guys!

I haven’t been posting on gotoAndBlog lately because I’ve been concentrating my efforts on my electronic music blog boyinaband instead.

My plan is to get that off the ground as a strong community of musicians wishing to learn and improve their abilities, then once that is substantial enough I hope to return here and turn gotoAndBlog into the Flash Blog it was always meant to be!

Also, check out my personal blog www.davidpaulbrown.com if you’re interested in my progress with boyinaband!

Take it easy!

Okay, there are a ton of reasons to choose a platform for writing a program, but this one is the reason Flash is numero uno when it comes to Internet Applications…

Check out this link: http://www.adobe.com/products/player_census/flashplayer/

99% of the internet have flash. Woah. The internet is pretty big, and considering the next largest platform, java, only has 82%, that’s 17% more of the internet that can play your game or use your application if you have made it in Flash. So - unless you are Jagex and can somehow pull millions to download java just to play your MMO, and it seems Runescape is the exception and not the rule on this one, then Flash is definately the way to go.

I have been working on a rhythm game that combines sequencing with looping and I have to say that flash is one of the most rhythmically challenged things I’ve ever come into contact with, including the drummer from my first band… but I have found some ways around it!

My initial idea was to trigger a sound with the sound.start(); function every time a loop finished, but since Flash is less than perfect, it introduces a random length gap just long enough to cause a problem, meaning the loops are not seamless, as it has to do some calculating before it plays the loop again.

So this has led me to my new method - I have used actionscript to split the 4 bar loop into 8 half notes. I took the sound.duration() value, divided it by 8 (for the half notes), and stored each multiple of the note in an array. Each frame I check the array, and if the sound.position() value is plus or minus a margin of error close to any of those multiples, it must be on the beat - then I can tell it to do things.

Though this is still not perfect - I am at current refining this method, but thought I’d share it with the rest of the internet!

Any other suggestions as to how to keep flash in time? Share them with a comment below!

When it comes to programming a tower defence game, you have a choice to make (Well, you have loads of choices, but this is a pretty big one) - Should I use a pathfinding algorithm to give the enemies their sense of direction, or pre-program in a set of Waypoints?   Let’s see what the good and bad points of each method are…

Pathfinding

Pathfinding algorithms will mean that the enemy can dynamically change its path depending on the level layout - for example, if you build a wall then it will go around it, meaning some more interesting tactical gameplay can be created!   Take Xeno Tactic for an example - this game involves making mazes of towers to maximise damage done to enemies, something that would only be possible with a pathfinding algorithm!

However, it’s not all peaches and cream.   The pathfinding algorithm is costly processor-wise.   Running the algorithm each time the map is updated on every enemy on screen can cause a LOT of slowdown.   And with a game genre such as tower defence, it can get busy on screen!

Waypoints

Waypoints mean pre-defining where the enemies will go - following a set path from the start to the finish.   Games such as Flash Element td and Protector use this method, and it allows you to do things like make the enemies go in circles around an area more than once instead of straight to the exit.   It is also a lot less processing - the enemies have a set path and do not veer off it.   Sorted.   More processing time for some pretty particle graphics =D

…But means that nothing can be placed in their way, else they’re just going to walk into it and the game would be a little bit easier than intended!   The gameplay will undoubtedly be simpler than if you can alter the path the enemies go.

Overall

It comes down to what you want.   If you want a strategic game with tactical choices and dynamic, intelligent senemies then pathfinding is the way to go.   If you want a simple start-to-finish Tower Defense game that runs fast, then waypoints are the future for you.   Maybe a combination of both is possible in larger levels, where the enemy finds the path between certain waypoints only, meaning less processing and more tactical choice (and more coding for you, you lucky ducky!)

Any other advice when it comes to coding tower defence games?   Share it with us in a comment below!

Tower Defense, Rhythm game, scrolling beat ‘em up, platformer and shoot ‘em up.   It’s all here folks!

Tower Defense Game Tutorial (E.g. Xeno Tactic):

http://www.emanueleferonato.com/2007/10/06/make-a-flash-game-like-flash-element-tower-defense-part-1/

Rhythm Game Tutorial (E.g. Flash Flash Revolution):

http://www.mrsunstudios.com/2008/08/tutorial-make-a-rhythm-game-in-as2/

Scrolling beat ‘em up (E.g. Streets of Rage):

http://www.gotoandplay.it/_articles/2006/06/beatemup.php

Platformer (E.g. Sonic the Hedgehog):

http://www.kirupa.com/developer/mx2004/platform_game.htm

Shoot ‘em up (E.g. That “kill the teletubbies” game):

http://www.sitepoint.com/article/shoot-em-up-game-flash-mx/

They are taylored for different versions of flash but the basic principles apply to any version, and they all seem to work in CS3!

Know of any other decent flash game tutorials for a genre not hosted here?   Paste them in a comment below!

I’ve been playing Fishy whenever the Tower Defense gaming is thin on the ground, and it is one of those games you can just pick up and play.

The concept is that you are a fish. You eat fish to grow, and avoid bigger fish to stay alive. Touch a bigger fish and it’s game over, and the past hour of eating fish was for nothing.

It’s brilliance is in its simplicity - you don’t have to think to play this game; you can turn off your brain and while away a few hours with the cheesily animated seaweed and the cheesier music.

I’d definately recommend it.

Head over to XGen games and play Fishy!
http://www.xgenstudios.com/play/fishy

Bringing external images into flash is a really useful thing to be able to do, so let’s get educated!

In this tutorial I’m going to teach you how to click a flash button, then display an image in the same folder as the flash file within the running swf!

Step 1 - Making the picture holder

Open Flash and make a new Actionscript 2.0 file. Go Insert > New Symbol and create a movie clip called “picture_holder”.

Drag an instance of the picture holder onto the stage. Click it, then in the properties tab, give it the instance name “holder”

Step 2 - Making the Buttons

Make a rectangle on the stage, highlight it and go Modify>Convert to symbol, or press the shortcut key F8. Make it a button, and call it “btn_1″. Add another layer with some text over the rectangle, saying “Image 1″.

Right click btn_1 and click “Duplicate”, naming it “btn_2″. Open it up and change the text to “Image 2″.

Make a new layer in the main stage and call it “Buttons”. Drag both buttons to the stage.

Step 3 - Add the code

Select button 1 and input the code:


on (release) {
loadMovie("image1.jpg", holder);
}


What this does is when the button is released, it loads the image “image1.jpg”, which is in the same folder as the .swf, into the instance of picture_holder we named “holder”.

Click button 2 and add the code:


on (release) {
loadMovie("image2.jpg", holder);
}


Which does the same except for “image2.jpg” loading.

Step 4 - Find some lolcats

Have a quick google image search for lolcats and pick a few to load into your flash. Rename them as “image1.jpg” and “image2.jpg” and put them in the same folder as your flash file.

Step 5 - Lolcats venture forth into Flash!

In flash, press Ctrl+enter or go Control>Test Movie. Try clicking the buttons - voila! Lolcattage!

Now you can go on to do something perhaps more useful with your skillz, yo!

Download the source files here.

I was creating a flash gallery for my friend after designing it in Photoshop, then when I was importing an individual picture from the .psd, thinking I’d have to copy and paste each individual element on each layer, I noticed the .psd file itself was available for importing.

I tried it, and that little double click saved me hours and hours of time. You can automatically send each layer into Flash. Fantastic!

Some things to remember though:


Keep all your layers in Photoshop named
In Flash, they name the images and movieclips (Yeah, it automatically creates a movieclip for each image too…) after the name of the layer it’s on.

Keep all images you want to animate seperately on seperate layers
It can be easy to slack off on making layers for each item, but it will save faffing around later in flash if you can organise it all in Photoshop beforehand!

So give it a try - make your flash content look awesome in photoshop, then make it work in Flash!

Flash is awesome on its own, but its true power lies in its integratability with other mediums - PHP being one of them. And since PHP is fantastically well connected with MYSQL, these three combined can be the key to some highly interactive, involving web content.

The only thing is - how do we do this? I’ll show you…

Firstly,we need to understand how we are going to integrate the 3. The order is:

Flash - PHP - MYSQL.

PHP acts as a bridge between MYSQL and Flash, giving and taking data to and from them.

For example.

Create this MYSQL table (On my hosting there’s a convenient little web app called PHPMyadmin which allows you to manage your MYSQL data - If you have this too, enter the code in the “SQL” tab):

CREATE TABLE `mydatabasename`.`mytable` (
`ID` INT NOT NULL AUTO_INCREMENT ,
`Name` VARCHAR( 25 ) NOT NULL ,
`Age` INT NOT NULL ,
PRIMARY KEY ( `ID` )
) ENGINE = MYISAM

This creates a MYSQL table with 3 columns - ID (which will be our primary key - a unique value that we can identify that row of the table by), Name and Age.

With our table in place, the next step is to learn how PHP can link to MYSQL.

Open up notepad and type in the following code:

<?php

// Connect to the server (surprisingly enough, you should replace username and password
// with your actual username and password.
$sql = mysql_connect(’localhost’, ‘username’, ‘password’) or die(mysql_error());

// Select database
mysql_select_db(’mydatabase’, $sql);

// Define some variables that we’ll insert into our new table.
$username = ‘Frank’;
$age = 30;

// Insert those variables into our table!

mysql_query(”INSERT INTO mytable (name, age) VALUES (’”.$username.”‘, “.$age.”)”) or die(mysql_error());

?>

This is the first data that will go into our table! Save the file as “phptomysql.php”

Upload the file to your hosting and open it… Nothing appears to happen - you get a blank page, but if you look in your PHPmyadmin at your table… Gasp! Frank is 30 years old!

The ID is automatically created, since in the code above you defined it as “auto_increment”, which (shock horror) automatically increments the number in that column.

Ok, so now we have the data in, it’s time to get it out!

Back to notepad - open it up and type the following

<?php

// Connect to the server (surprisingly enough, you should replace username and password
// with your actual username and password.
$sql = mysql_connect(’localhost’, ‘username’, ‘password’) or die(mysql_error());

// Select database
mysql_select_db(’mydatabase’, $sql);

// Put the Query into a variable…
$query = “SELECT ID, name, age FROM mytable”;

// …and run the query!
$result = mysql_query($query);

// While there are still rows from the result of the query…

while($row = mysql_fetch_assoc($result))
{

// Display the data!

echo “ID :{$row['ID']} <br>” .
“Name : {$row['Name']} <br>” .
“Age : {$row['Age']} <br><br>”;

}

?>

Save it as “mysqltophp.php”, upload it and run it. BLAMMO! Our friend Frank is still 30 years old! Good to know.

And there you have just:

1. Made a MYSQL table
2. Input some data into it.
3. Retrieved the data and displayed it in your browser.

Pat yourself on the back! You earned it! =D

I have come across a TD game called “Temple Guardian 2″ - A sequal to the original TD game in which you defended the temple (Shockingly enough) from a bunch of invading creeps.   Standard Fare, but it was still an engrossing game that took many an hour of my time.

TG2, though, seems less like a Flash game and more like something that should be on a PS3 or 360.

Okay, I exaggerated a bit.   It is 2D and perhaps the graphics are a tad low-key for a next-gen game, but my point is this game is HUGE.   Like, “Woah - mount everest just made a flash game” huge.

There are just so many elements to it.   There is the standard Tower defense.   There is a strategy and research element, where you can upgrade your towers and money-making ability.   There is a whole RPG-esque hero section, where you can recruit heroes, train them up and get them to battle the creeps for you.   There is the God Powers section where you can smite your enemies with fireballs, lightning and a host of other epic powers.   This game is massive.

As a result though, it is very hard to get into.   There is a tutorial, but even though it does a decent job of teaching you the controls, the learning curve of the actual tactics and mechanics of the game is pretty steep.   You might have to play it a few times first to remember everything you need in order to… well… survive.

But if you are a hardcore gamer, this is definately for you.   If you are tired of tower defence games ending a few hours after you begin them, try out Temple Guardian 2.   There are weeks of gameplay once you get the hang of it in this game - it’s just amazing that it’s free with such a lifespan.   I can barely imagine the months of development that went into it!

Play Temple Guardian 2 at Kongregate.com!