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Jay is Games Flash Competition 2: Need Ideas!

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Deozaan:
I don't know Jack Flash. Do you think it would be possible to go from Zero to Competition-grade Flash game in time? I did something similar with Torque Game Builder for the Accessibility Game Contest, but I don't know if that was a one-time fluke or if it is repeatable with Flash. Can any of our resident Flash experts chime in with some of their thoughts? Are there any freeware or open source tools available to make building Flash games easier or do I need to fork out hundreds of dollars to Adobe?
-tinjaw (January 05, 2007, 09:08 AM)
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I was looking for a good ActionScript editor the other day and mouser pointed me to FlashDevelop, which appears to be freeware/donationware. It comes with (a possibly outdated version of) SWFMill, which, if I understand the description correctly, is an Open Source (GNU) program that can create asset libraries (graphics/fonts) into swf files for importing. It can do more than that but I haven't looked into it beyond the front page description.

As for going from 0 to hero in a month in Flash, I'd tend to agree with mouser. I'm not saying it's impossible. It depends on how much time you can devote to it. As for my own skill level, I can't say that I'm incredibly skilled with the programming side of Flash. You could probably reach my skill level fairly quickly, especially if you're already familiar with coding and even more so if you're already familiar with programming in ECMAScript.

Give it a try on your own or I would be very happy to have some help and collaborate on a game with you. I am just starting to get familiar with OOP so if you know how to write custom classes and things like that, your help would be very... uh, helpful.

sounds very good but i've never played one of these tower games so i'll need a few hints.
-nudone (January 05, 2007, 01:56 AM)
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Well get playing some of them!

Mouser and I have been thinking about a macroscopic garden theme. With plants and cute little bugs and things. And Cody. The simpleness of your artwork on Cody makes me think you'd have no problem coming up with other little bugs in a similar art style. I'll talk with mouser more about it (or maybe he can just talk to you about it) to figure out more specific ideas for what the plants and bugs look like.

Ooh, I just had an idea! The object of the game could be to protect some kind of flower in the center of the screen while bugs attack at it from all angles. The flower in the middle needs time to bloom and when it blooms the petals open up to reveal a big coin. After which time Cody swoops down (he's really, really big compared to the bugs) and snatches the coin away. Level complete. Each level takes the flower longer to bloom and the bugs become stronger and/or come more frequently.

The creatures defending the flower could be something like ants, with army bugs, drone bugs, worker bugs, etc. The creatures attacking the flower will steal nectar from it (maybe the nectar hardens into the coin at the end?) and you have to attack the thief bugs. If the thief bugs start to take away the nectar they have to go back across the screen to get away from you. You can attack them and retrieve the nectar back all the way until they leave the screen, but you need special nectar bugs to retrieve the stolen nectar and return it to the flower. Defending these bugs will be a priority because the thief bugs will go for the closest source of nectar, even if that means attacking your nectar harvester bugs.

So how do some of these ideas sound?

mouser:
Love the latest ideas!
I am a big fan of user-generated levels as puzzles, so i always try to think of ways to make a game level-based.

What if on each level you used a level map which specified where your plant grows, and where some water sources and enemy bases are.

Then your job is to build defenses to protect your flower until it blossoms.

And what if in order to make it blossom your workers had to go fetch watcher and bring it back.

So not only do you have to defend your flower against the hordes trying to attack it, but you have to have like a plan to help your workers bring it water.

tinjaw:
Give it a try on your own or I would be very happy to have some help and collaborate on a game with you. I am just starting to get familiar with OOP so if you know how to write custom classes and things like that, your help would be very... uh, helpful.
-Deozaan (January 05, 2007, 11:23 AM)
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That sounds like a good plan. I can probably get up to speed quick enough to help out with some of the coding. Have you ever done a collaborative development project before? Are you skilled at version control, merging, etc.?

Deozaan:
That sounds like a good plan. I can probably get up to speed quick enough to help out with some of the coding. Have you ever done a collaborative development project before? Are you skilled at version control, merging, etc.?
-tinjaw (January 05, 2007, 11:47 AM)
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Nope, not really. I was just imagining that we'd pick out some basic things that are common in all elements of the game and then work on separate classes. But collaboration and version control stuff sounds good if it doesn't take a month (or a week) to get set up and organized and going properly.

mouser:
If you do a level based thing, then you can use help from all of us in designing levels.

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