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[ஒழுக்கின்மை (Paul Eres)]

I figure I should create a topic about this in order to motivate myself to work on the game. If I don't update this thread every day with my progress, you've my permission to kick me (virtually).

The goal of this game is for me to learn Flash (AS3 in FlashDevelop) by making a fairly playable game in it. I already made a Valentine's Day contest game in Flash, but it was fairly basic, unpolished, and didn't take much coding skill. I want this to be more substantial.

The game is a basic 2D top-down shooter involving flying mythologic creatures from the world of my previous game

. Although the "twist" is that you cannot shoot, but instead can only redirect the rain through various spells: you can capture rain particles and then fire them back towards enemies to knock them off the screen. Enemies will eventually do the same to you. Using your spells (which will take time to recharge) will not only redirect the rain, but also redirect any shots fired by the enemies at you, since they too are "firing" the rain. You will also be able to upgrade your spells, to increase their range, etc. -- some spells will repel rain, others attract rain, and other variations are envisioned. There will also be multiple characters.

So it's not terribly innovative or anything, it's just something to learn Flash with. Although I can't keep doing interesting things out completely, so that's why I opted to make it not a shooter but a rain-redirection game.

So far I have basic character movement done, but no enemy behavior or collision detection. I'll be working on that next. I should have finished this game long ago (I started it around February or January) but have been lazy and terrible. So my current goal is to finish it by the end of April at the latest.

UPDATES DAILY, I PROMISE

[increpare]

coolcool; I like the idea behind this; I saw the reallllyrough prototype you did of it ages ago.  looking forward to seeing how this ends up...

(I promise to harass you if you don't post at least once every 24 hours with solid progress to report)

[ChevyRay]

(I promise to harass you if you don't post at least once every 24 hours with solid progress to report)

Mwaha, make that 2 of us.

The concept is really cool, Paul. Good luck with this.

[ஒழுக்கின்மை (Paul Eres)]

My update for the day is that I got nothing done due to being unable to figure out something probably very simple in AS3 (how to assign an embedded image to a new class). I've the feeling that OOP isn't really gelling with me, I don't like it very much and am *very* uncomfortable using it, since I only used procedural programming for around 15 years it's really hard to suddenly make the jump into thinking about objects and classes.

[internationalfish]

My update for the day is that I got nothing done due to being unable to figure out something probably very simple in AS3 (how to assign an embedded image to a new class). I've the feeling that OOP isn't really gelling with me, I don't like it very much and am *very* uncomfortable using it, since I only used procedural programming for around 15 years it's really hard to suddenly make the jump into thinking about objects and classes.

While I fear I've fallen into the "OOP is the only way" chasm, I do think it's about the most accessible thing out there (procedural -- the way I started as well, though for half as many years -- really is just a less useful subset of OO, and functional programming is awesome but... daunting).

I do think it's worthwhile to take the time to get into it.  While I decry their wanton application, reading the GoF patterns book really helped me shift from writing procedural code that had objects in it to actually using object orientation as a paradigm, to help clean up my code and take advantage of some of its features.

[Iamthejuggler]

I'll second the design patterns book. And also doubly second the point that the benefit of the book is not the design patterns themselves (design patterns can make simple code a nightmare when used by beginners, and it's often better not to think about using them at all) but a good way of getting the fundamentals of oop design into your head, in an easy to read way. It does take time though, it can be a tricky concept to grasp. I'm still not fully comfortable with it, and have been doing oop flash programming for a year now.

Persevere and you'll be glad you did. Good luck

"So it's not terribly innovative or anything, it's just something to learn Flash with."

It sounds like a pretty tricky starting project to learn flash if you ask me! Particle interactivity is often kinda confusing. Looking forward to seeing your progress, and the game sounds fun! 

[mirosurabu]

Cool concept. Count on my kicks.

[mirosurabu]

So, who's going to kick him first?

[Hajo]

since I only used procedural programming for around 15 years it's really hard to suddenly make the jump into thinking about objects and classes.

It needs some time, since it's a new way to think. I'm usually slow in taking in new things, but if it's of comfort for you, I can say that I needed 2 or 3 years to really change into OO thinking when coding. So don't expect to get into that withing a few days or weeks. Take your time - and if it really is not your thing, don't worry, OO is not the holy grail of coding, although many claim so.

The design patterns book is good reading in any case for sure. Anyhow you code, the ideas behind the patterns will help you.

[ஒழுக்கின்மை (Paul Eres)]

I haven't worked on the game unfortunately, but at least I've done some more thinking about why working on this game feels unattractive to me, and this is what I came up with:

- the development environment, FlashDevelop, while very great, is extremely slow: very sluggish to do anything in since it's written in Java, and takes ages to "compile" when compared to what I'm used to (Game Maker). I know it's not true compilation and faster than the equivalent would be in a compiled language, but it's still very, very slow. Let's say I change something and want to test it out. Even though the game isn't even quite 2000 lines of code yet, it takes 30 seconds to a minute for it to compile and for me to see the changes in the game. I'm used to a much more rapid (less than 5 seconds) turnover rate for that in Game Maker, even when the game is tens of thousands of lines of code long, and the difference makes working on Flash games physically uncomfortable to me. Perhaps other Flash development environments aren't quite as slow as this one is; perhaps I just need to get used to waiting so long between making a change to the code and seeing it in the game (but it'll take some getting used to). It really slows development down though, since I've nothing to do in those 30 seconds or so except wait in frustration. Often to stave off the frustration I go watch a YouTube video or something. So it feels like the compilation time is where I lose interest in working on the game, since it takes so freaking long. And yes, I know that 30sec-1min isn't that long when compared to compilation time in C++ etc., but it's long relative to what I'm used to.

- the game itself is not yet in a playable, "fun" state, and until a game is fun for me to play, it tends not to be fun for me to make. Immortal Defense's basic mechanics were done in the first few days, and even on the third day of making it or so it was addictive to me, I couldn't stop playing it. This game by contrast isn't fun in that way, all I can do so far is move around and redirect rain particles in a fairly uninteresting way with no variety to the redirection. So perhaps I should focus on making the game more pleasurable to move around in and make the redirection of the rain more fun to do before I work on the enemy behavior (which is the part I've been working on).

[mirosurabu]

I've tried making flash application using AsWing and Flash CS3. The compile time was way too long - too long means more than one or two minutes. Someone told me I should use Flex instead.

30-60sec each time you try to build the game (regardless of how big the change is) is kinda worrying. (in my old C++/Allegro framework, it takes 10-20 seconds to rebuild the game after minor changes).

EDIT: Was curious enough to see how long it will take gcc to rebuild 260K game. Loaded my older game "Uneksians" and clicked rebuild all. 36 seconds.

Does FlashDevelop allow you to adjust compiler settings?

[Iamthejuggler]

Are you using flashDevelop on it's own or with the flash ide? I use the flash ide as the compiler and it rarely takes more than a few seconds. I hadn't realised that flashdevelop alone would take that long, and i can't imagine that that's unavoidable. Try posting on their forums, they are pretty helpful with stuff like this. That kind of wait each time you run it would drive me mad.

[ஒழுக்கின்மை (Paul Eres)]

I'm using it with Flex, I don't own the Flash IDE (too expensive). Interesting that there are differing reports on how fast it is (previously someone said Flex was faster). I'll look into posting on their forums, to ask if this is normal etc.

[Kneecaps]

FlashDevelop takes me around 3-5 seconds to compile and run, while GM7 takes 20-30 seconds. 

[ஒழுக்கின்மை (Paul Eres)]

Hm, well at least now that I know it's not normal I'll hopefully be able to solve the problem. I was assuming everyone had huge compile times in FlashDevelop.

As an aside, GM7's compile time increases the more resources you use, but if you load resources externally, the compile time is as fast as for a blank room -- scripts add a negligible amount of compile time, most of Game Maker's "compiling" is actually uncompressing the embedded compressed resources.

[ஒழுக்கின்மை (Paul Eres)]

Can anyone figure out how to register on these forums?

http://www.flashdevelop.org/community/index.php

I want to ask about compilation time, but can't figure out how to register. There's a log in screen, but no way that I can see to register.

[policedanceclub]

It's there on the login page, below the text field where you are supposed to write your username. 

[policedanceclub]

Oh, and good luck with the game, sounds interesting.

[ஒழுக்கின்மை (Paul Eres)]

It's there on the login page, below the text field where you are supposed to write your username. 

Ah, thanks. That's a weird place to hide it.

[ஒழுக்கின்மை (Paul Eres)]

I did a few searches and found a thread that suggests updating to a newer Flex SDK version to improve speed, I'll try that.