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[PompiPompi]

(talking about programming languages only)
The good thing about Java, C# and the likes, is that you don't need to know much about these language to create most of the typical games\applications.
If you want to create a performance intensive program with C# or Java, you need to learn deeper into these languages, for instance how the garbage collector really works.
In other words, avoid if possible C++ as a beginner. You could try to learn that later. You don't need the supposingly better peformance for most things anyway.
I use C++, because I am more profficient with it, and it's convinient for me. But I don't use it because of performance.

[Sato]

Does anyone actually know any good flixel (or AS3 in general) tutorials that aren't outdated and are actually usable with FlashDevelop?

[Fallsburg]

Honestly, I recommend downloading Mode and just messing around with it. It's how I learned Flash/Flixel.

[Geti]

BASIC is hard?
Sample DarkBASIC program which loads and displays a 2d sprite.

Code:

load image "sprite.png",1,1 //Load image & create sprite out of it
sprite 1,240,190,1          //Set it's position.
wait key                    //Wait for user to press key.

Displaying a sprite using C# & XNA?
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb194908.aspx
BASIC is easier than AS3, Java or C#.
I don't know what variations of BASIC did you mean through.

Drawing a sprite in AS3:

Code:

var image:Bitmap = new SomeEmbeddedImage();
image.x = 100; image.y = 50;
addChild(image);

As a bonus you can scale skew rotate whatever that bitmap, and access the underlying data using image.bitmapdata.

I'm not sure if I'd call this harder/easier to read/write than the darkBASIC example you posted, though the AS3 clearly defines a variable of a specific type and shows at face value what parameters you're actually setting.

I wouldn't call this a representative example though, because most games programmers will want something a little more object orientated and extendable than "draw some arbitrary sprite to some arbitrary location on the screen". When it comes down to it when you're writing collision, rendering and game logic code in any language its going to get tricky, which is why many people opt to use a framework like flixel or LOVE or flashpunk or pygame or whateverthefuck to bundle all of that out of site so that they can basically write update functions for their gamestate and their objects.

As for my BASIC experience, I've mostly done blitz stuff and its lower level and more verbose than I'd suggest a newbie dive into unless they have some programming background. It also kinda fucks you over with the syntax shift between BASIC and anything ECMAlike or C-like (my preference is for the latter). Each to their own though.

However: XNA is aids and I'm never going to argue for it.

[Noel Berry]

Depending on the type of games you're looking to create, I would definitely go with AS3 with FlashPunk/Flixel, or Unity. Both have a lot of support and resources, and are generally not too hard to get started with. I read you've tried Flixel, but if that's not really working out for you then FlashPunk is definitely a great alternative (and the FlashPunk forums are very active and there are people always willing to help out).

Unity also has a very large range of tutorials and awesome people who can give you feedback/assistance. I've personally worked way more in AS3, so I don't know a ton about Unity, but from the little bit I've used it's a really great tool.
You can create 2D games in Unity, but it's not ideal. If you want to make 2D games I'd definitely go with AS3 + FlashPunk/Flixel.

I think jumping into anything more complicated than one of these two things (Flash/Unity)  isn't worth your time if you just want to get started making games. Learn those things (C#, C++, etc) later, once you've gotten a better handle of programming in general.

[Sato]

Depending on the type of games you're looking to create, I would definitely go with AS3 with FlashPunk/Flixel, or Unity. Both have a lot of support and resources, and are generally not too hard to get started with. I read you've tried Flixel, but if that's not really working out for you then FlashPunk is definitely a great alternative (and the FlashPunk forums are very active and there are people always willing to help out).

Unity also has a very large range of tutorials and awesome people who can give you feedback/assistance. I've personally worked way more in AS3, so I don't know a ton about Unity, but from the little bit I've used it's a really great tool.
You can create 2D games in Unity, but it's not ideal. If you want to make 2D games I'd definitely go with AS3 + FlashPunk/Flixel.

I think jumping into anything more complicated than one of these two things (Flash/Unity)  isn't worth your time if you just want to get started making games. Learn those things (C#, C++, etc) later, once you've gotten a better handle of programming in general.

Nah, Flixel's working fine, I'm just finding it hard to learn anything from it, hard to find gguides for these things (though I am taking Fallsburg's advice and am gonna play around with the source for Mode)

[Tumetsu]

Well, Flashpunk apparently has advantage over Flixel with Flashdevelop too, since starting tutorials use it instead of Flashbuilder for example. And it has lots of up to date tutorials and easy to understand docs.

And like already someone said, you shouldn't depend too much on tutorials. Personally I usually use tutorials at the very beginning to get things set up and running and to learn the very basic principles of the engine. After that I'll usually move to reading docs and figuring things that way. So even though I haven't used Flixel personally, I think that if you already can manage to use it to get something running, you might get by with docs well enough.

[Moczan]

I don't know Flashpunk, but if you plan to make anything that needs to display more than low-res low-frame count, non-scaled, non-rotated pixelart, don't use Flixel. AS3 is really easy to use, but you should be aware that it's performance is really slow, especially when it comes to graphics (being calculated on CPU not GPU).

[Xardov]

I don't know Flashpunk, but if you plan to make anything that needs to display more than low-res low-frame count, non-scaled, non-rotated pixelart, don't use Flixel. AS3 is really easy to use, but you should be aware that it's performance is really slow, especially when it comes to graphics (being calculated on CPU not GPU).

Actually that's changed with Adobe's new Stage3D technology.  This allows all graphics rendering to be done by the GPU.  Axel is a great new game library that supports Stage3D, and I highly recommend it.

http://axgl.org

[Sato]

I don't know Flashpunk, but if you plan to make anything that needs to display more than low-res low-frame count, non-scaled, non-rotated pixelart, don't use Flixel. AS3 is really easy to use, but you should be aware that it's performance is really slow, especially when it comes to graphics (being calculated on CPU not GPU).

Actually that's changed with Adobe's new Stage3D technology.  This allows all graphics rendering to be done by the GPU.  Axel is a great new game library that supports Stage3D, and I highly recommend it.

http://axgl.org

I was JUST about to bring up Axel. I just saw PhotonStorm post it on Twitter and thought it looked cool so I was going to bring it up.

Beat me to it

Edit~ I've tried it out, and all I've managed to get is about 50 or so errors saying something about the graphics not functioning properly. Just to test, I downloaded the source code that was exactly the same as the code I'd typed and got the same error. Either my computer, or I've not setup the paths properly.

[Fallsburg]

Edit~ I've tried it out, and all I've managed to get is about 50 or so errors saying something about the graphics not functioning properly. Just to test, I downloaded the source code that was exactly the same as the code I'd typed and got the same error. Either my computer, or I've not setup the paths properly.

So, there's a bit of trickery required to get Stage3D stuff working with FlashDevelop.

First you need to Project>Properties>Compiler Options and then add -swf-version=13 in Compiler Options>Compiler Constants.

Then you need to go to the config.xml file and set wmode="direct".

Also, make sure you have most recent Flex compiler and Flash Debug Players.

Edited: for clarity

[Sato]

I don't know Flashpunk, but if you plan to make anything that needs to display more than low-res low-frame count, non-scaled, non-rotated pixelart, don't use Flixel. AS3 is really easy to use, but you should be aware that it's performance is really slow, especially when it comes to graphics (being calculated on CPU not GPU).

Actually that's changed with Adobe's new Stage3D technology.  This allows all graphics rendering to be done by the GPU.  Axel is a great new game library that supports Stage3D, and I highly recommend it.

http://axgl.org

I was JUST about to bring up Axel. I just saw PhotonStorm post it on Twitter and thought it looked cool so I was going to bring it up.

Beat me to it

Edit~ I've tried it out, and all I've managed to get is about 50 or so errors saying something about the graphics not functioning properly. Just to test, I downloaded the source code that was exactly the same as the code I'd typed and got the same error. Either my computer, or I've not setup the paths properly.

So, there's a bit of trickery required to get Stage3D stuff working with FlashDevelop.

First you need to Project>Properties>Compiler Options and then add -swf-version=13 in Compiler Options>Compiler Constants.

Then you need to go to the config.xml file and set wmode="direct".

Also, make sure you have most recent Flex compiler and Flash Debug Players.

Hmmm... Can't seem to find config.xml. Where is it normally located?

[st33d]

Guys, if you're responding to the post directly above yours, there's no need to quote-reply. I've received a complaint on the matter and yeah, more signal less noise.

[Fallsburg]

Sorry about that, config.xml is for something else. 
It's index.html.
Change 'wmode: whatever' to 'wmode: "direct"'.

[Sato]

Ah, thanks Fallsburg.

And sorry st33d, I'll try and cut down on that!

Edit~ Still not working. Here's what I'm getting under results:

Code:

Running process: C:\Program Files (x86)\FlashDevelop\Tools\fdbuild\fdbuild.exe "C:\Users\Ethan\Desktop\Projects\AxPeriment\AxPeriment.as3proj" -ipc 2d4c77fb-64ca-467d-9383-99fd34a869dc -version "4.6.0; 3.1" -compiler "C:\Program Files (x86)\FlashDevelop\Tools\flexsdk" -library "C:\Program Files (x86)\FlashDevelop\Library"
Building AxPeriment
mxmlc -load-config+=obj\AxPerimentConfig.xml -debug=true -incremental=true -swf-version=13 -o obj\AxPeriment634702880057127525
Starting java as: C:\Program Files\Java\jdk1.7.0_04\jre\bin\java.exe
INITIALIZING: Adobe Flex Compiler SHell (fcsh)
Starting new compile.
Loading configuration file C:\Program Files (x86)\FlashDevelop\Tools\flexsdk\frameworks\flex-config.xml
Loading configuration file C:\Users\Ethan\Desktop\Projects\AxPeriment\obj\AxPerimentConfig.xml
C:\Libraries\Flash\Axel\src\org\axgl\render\AxTexture.as(38): col: 37 Error: Type was not found or was not a compile-time constant: Texture.
public function AxTexture(texture:Texture, width:uint, height:uint, rawWidth:uint, rawHeight:uint) {
^
C:\Libraries\Flash\Axel\src\com\adobe\utils\PerspectiveMatrix3D.as(45): col: 7 Error: Call to a possibly undefined method copyFrom through a reference with static type flash.geom:Vector3D.
_z.copyFrom(at);
^
C:\Libraries\Flash\Axel\src\com\adobe\utils\PerspectiveMatrix3D.as(50): col: 7 Error: Call to a possibly undefined method copyFrom through a reference with static type flash.geom:Vector3D.
_x.copyFrom(up);
^
C:\Libraries\Flash\Axel\src\com\adobe\utils\PerspectiveMatrix3D.as(55): col: 7 Error: Call to a possibly undefined method copyFrom through a reference with static type flash.geom:Vector3D.
_y.copyFrom(_z);
^
C:\Libraries\Flash\Axel\src\com\adobe\utils\PerspectiveMatrix3D.as(64): col: 4 Error: Call to a possibly undefined method copyRowFrom.
copyRowFrom(0,_x);
^
C:\Libraries\Flash\Axel\src\com\adobe\utils\PerspectiveMatrix3D.as(65): col: 4 Error: Call to a possibly undefined method copyRowFrom.
copyRowFrom(1,_y);
^
C:\Libraries\Flash\Axel\src\com\adobe\utils\PerspectiveMatrix3D.as(66): col: 4 Error: Call to a possibly undefined method copyRowFrom.
copyRowFrom(2,_z);
^
C:\Libraries\Flash\Axel\src\com\adobe\utils\PerspectiveMatrix3D.as(67): col: 4 Error: Call to a possibly undefined method copyRowFrom.
copyRowFrom(3,_w);
^
C:\Libraries\Flash\Axel\src\com\adobe\utils\PerspectiveMatrix3D.as(71): col: 7 Error: Call to a possibly undefined method copyFrom through a reference with static type flash.geom:Vector3D.
_z.copyFrom(eye);
^
C:\Libraries\Flash\Axel\src\com\adobe\utils\PerspectiveMatrix3D.as(76): col: 7 Error: Call to a possibly undefined method copyFrom through a reference with static type flash.geom:Vector3D.
_x.copyFrom(up);
^
C:\Libraries\Flash\Axel\src\com\adobe\utils\PerspectiveMatrix3D.as(81): col: 7 Error: Call to a possibly undefined method copyFrom through a reference with static type flash.geom:Vector3D.
_y.copyFrom(_z);
^
C:\Libraries\Flash\Axel\src\com\adobe\utils\PerspectiveMatrix3D.as(90): col: 4 Error: Call to a possibly undefined method copyRowFrom.
copyRowFrom(0,_x);
^
C:\Libraries\Flash\Axel\src\com\adobe\utils\PerspectiveMatrix3D.as(91): col: 4 Error: Call to a possibly undefined method copyRowFrom.
copyRowFrom(1,_y);
^
C:\Libraries\Flash\Axel\src\com\adobe\utils\PerspectiveMatrix3D.as(92): col: 4 Error: Call to a possibly undefined method copyRowFrom.
copyRowFrom(2,_z);
^
C:\Libraries\Flash\Axel\src\com\adobe\utils\PerspectiveMatrix3D.as(93): col: 4 Error: Call to a possibly undefined method copyRowFrom.
copyRowFrom(3,_w);
^
C:\Libraries\Flash\Axel\src\com\adobe\utils\PerspectiveMatrix3D.as(100): col: 9 Error: Call to a possibly undefined method copyRawDataFrom through a reference with static type com.adobe.utils:PerspectiveMatrix3D.
this.copyRawDataFrom(Vector.<Number>([
^
C:\Libraries\Flash\Axel\src\com\adobe\utils\PerspectiveMatrix3D.as(112): col: 9 Error: Call to a possibly undefined method copyRawDataFrom through a reference with static type com.adobe.utils:PerspectiveMatrix3D.
this.copyRawDataFrom(Vector.<Number>([
^
C:\Libraries\Flash\Axel\src\com\adobe\utils\PerspectiveMatrix3D.as(126): col: 9 Error: Call to a possibly undefined method copyRawDataFrom through a reference with static type com.adobe.utils:PerspectiveMatrix3D.
this.copyRawDataFrom(Vector.<Number>([
^
C:\Libraries\Flash\Axel\src\com\adobe\utils\PerspectiveMatrix3D.as(140): col: 9 Error: Call to a possibly undefined method copyRawDataFrom through a reference with static type com.adobe.utils:PerspectiveMatrix3D.
this.copyRawDataFrom(Vector.<Number>([
^
C:\Libraries\Flash\Axel\src\com\adobe\utils\PerspectiveMatrix3D.as(154): col: 9 Error: Call to a possibly undefined method copyRawDataFrom through a reference with static type com.adobe.utils:PerspectiveMatrix3D.
this.copyRawDataFrom(Vector.<Number>([
^
C:\Libraries\Flash\Axel\src\com\adobe\utils\PerspectiveMatrix3D.as(168): col: 9 Error: Call to a possibly undefined method copyRawDataFrom through a reference with static type com.adobe.utils:PerspectiveMatrix3D.
this.copyRawDataFrom(Vector.<Number>([
^
C:\Libraries\Flash\Axel\src\com\adobe\utils\PerspectiveMatrix3D.as(180): col: 9 Error: Call to a possibly undefined method copyRawDataFrom through a reference with static type com.adobe.utils:PerspectiveMatrix3D.
this.copyRawDataFrom(Vector.<Number>([
^
C:\Libraries\Flash\Axel\src\com\adobe\utils\PerspectiveMatrix3D.as(192): col: 9 Error: Call to a possibly undefined method copyRawDataFrom through a reference with static type com.adobe.utils:PerspectiveMatrix3D.
this.copyRawDataFrom(Vector.<Number>([
^
C:\Libraries\Flash\Axel\src\com\adobe\utils\PerspectiveMatrix3D.as(206): col: 9 Error: Call to a possibly undefined method copyRawDataFrom through a reference with static type com.adobe.utils:PerspectiveMatrix3D.
this.copyRawDataFrom(Vector.<Number>([
^
C:\Libraries\Flash\Axel\src\com\adobe\utils\PerspectiveMatrix3D.as(220): col: 9 Error: Call to a possibly undefined method copyRawDataFrom through a reference with static type com.adobe.utils:PerspectiveMatrix3D.
this.copyRawDataFrom(Vector.<Number>([
^
C:\Libraries\Flash\Axel\src\com\adobe\utils\PerspectiveMatrix3D.as(239): col: 6 Error: Call to a possibly undefined method copyFrom through a reference with static type flash.geom:Vector3D.
a.copyFrom(_w);
^
C:\Libraries\Flash\Axel\src\org\axgl\Ax.as(74): col: 29 Error: Type was not found or was not a compile-time constant: Stage3D.
public static var stage3D:Stage3D;
^
C:\Libraries\Flash\Axel\src\org\axgl\Ax.as(78): col: 29 Error: Type was not found or was not a compile-time constant: Context3D.
public static var context:Context3D;
^
C:\Libraries\Flash\Axel\src\org\axgl\Ax.as(285): col: 16 Error: Type was not found or was not a compile-time constant: Stage3D.
var stage3D:Stage3D = stage.stage3Ds[0];
^
C:\Libraries\Flash\Axel\src\org\axgl\Ax.as(285): col: 32 Error: Access of possibly undefined property stage3Ds through a reference with static type flash.display:Stage.
var stage3D:Stage3D = stage.stage3Ds[0];
^
C:\Libraries\Flash\Axel\src\org\axgl\Ax.as(286): col: 35 Error: Access of possibly undefined property CONTEXT3D_CREATE through a reference with static type Class.
stage3D.addEventListener(Event.CONTEXT3D_CREATE, onStageCreate);
^
C:\Libraries\Flash\Axel\src\org\axgl\Ax.as(380): col: 30 Error: Access of possibly undefined property CONTEXT3D_CREATE through a reference with static type Class.
removeEventListener(Event.CONTEXT3D_CREATE, onStageCreate);
^
C:\Libraries\Flash\Axel\src\org\axgl\Ax.as(382): col: 30 Error: Access of undefined property Stage3D.
stage3D = event.target as Stage3D;
^
C:\Libraries\Flash\Axel\src\org\axgl\Ax.as(389): col: 30 Error: Access of undefined property Context3DRenderMode.
if (context.driverInfo == Context3DRenderMode.SOFTWARE || context.driverInfo.indexOf('oftware') > -1) {
^
C:\Libraries\Flash\Axel\src\org\axgl\Ax.as(536): col: 23 Error: Access of undefined property Context3DTriangleFace.
context.setCulling(Context3DTriangleFace.NONE);
^
C:\Libraries\Flash\Axel\src\org\axgl\Ax.as(537): col: 32 Error: Access of undefined property Context3DCompareMode.
context.setDepthTest(false, Context3DCompareMode.ALWAYS);
^
C:\Libraries\Flash\Axel\src\org\axgl\Ax.as(4): col: 22 Error: Definition flash.display:Stage3D could not be found.
import flash.display.Stage3D;
^
C:\Libraries\Flash\Axel\src\org\axgl\Ax.as(7): col: 24 Error: Definition flash.display3D:Context3D could not be found.
import flash.display3D.Context3D;
^
C:\Libraries\Flash\Axel\src\org\axgl\Ax.as(8): col: 24 Error: Definition flash.display3D:Context3DCompareMode could not be found.
import flash.display3D.Context3DCompareMode;
^
C:\Libraries\Flash\Axel\src\org\axgl\Ax.as(9): col: 24 Error: Definition flash.display3D:Context3DRenderMode could not be found.
import flash.display3D.Context3DRenderMode;
^
C:\Libraries\Flash\Axel\src\org\axgl\Ax.as(10): col: 24 Error: Definition flash.display3D:Context3DTriangleFace could not be found.
import flash.display3D.Context3DTriangleFace;
^
Build halted with errors (fcsh).
(fcsh)