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[skrew]

after playing this chain reaction game I saw this rather interesting article by the author on how you make money off flash games.

Apparently he spent 3 hours making and promoting the game and made about $150 USD

I thought I'd share, especially for anyone interested in making quick cash with simple flash games:

http://www.emanueleferonato.com/2007/10/28/experiment-monetizing-a-flash-game/

its in 3 parts so make sure you read em all.

[ஒழுக்கின்மை (Paul Eres)]

Interesting article, thanks for the link. Though I really doubt Boomshine was made in a single day, it may be simple but there seems to be a lot of work and balancing that went into it.

I would love to make flash games but the development environment costs $700, which I can't really afford. But it's definitely something I want to try one day. I love the idea of someone playing a game from a browser, without having to download anything (a big barrier of entry).

[Terry]

I've been thinking about trying to make a flash game too. Apparently there are free tools out there to create .swf files, so you could do it for free, though I haven't gotten around to doing much more than setting up the compilers.

These seem like good places to start:
http://www.gamedev.net/reference/programming/features/flex/
http://osflash.org/swfmill

[ஒழுக்கின்மை (Paul Eres)]

Interesting, I never heard of this Flex SDK. If it works as well as is described in that tutorial I may well try it out. I'm surprised they're giving something that powerful away for free actually.

[Alex May]

I was surprised about Flex too. AS3, which I'm trying to learn now, is surprisingly nice, so it's pretty cool that Flex is around to make it possible for anyone to create Flash content.

[jankoM]

If you don't want to buy Flash IDE you can also use HaXe which also has some other interesting features.

I made 4 flash games in it and the only problem whatsoever is making an uploader (because you are not working with timeline there).. but I think using AS3 compiler from adobe has the same problem.

[ZombiePixel]

Great article!  I believe the 3 hour timeline if he's already an experienced Flash user.  He admits it's roughly 200 lines of code and the game caps out at level 5.

The Flash IDE is worth the price of admission for me.  Sure it's expensive (really expensive) but it's also very easy to learn.  Basic Flash programming could be picked up in under 2 weeks if you were to dedicate say 2 hours a night to practice.  2 weeks learning followed by 2 weeks developing your game and you can have a finished game within the 30 day trial period of the Flash demo.  Then let your sponsorship / ad income pay for buying a full copy of the software.

But take what I say with a huge grain of salt.  I am a total Flash convert (from Blitz Basic) and will never go back.

[BenH]

Thanks for linking this! I'm thinking about giving this a shot now that I've learnt the important parts of AS3.

[ஒழுக்கின்மை (Paul Eres)]

One thing I wonder is why there aren't that many great indie flash games, considering how many flash games there are and how easy it is to learn. About 95% of the flash games I've seen are extremely small games that can be completed in a few minutes and which I have no reason to go back and replay ever.

There are a few exceptions so I don't think it's impossible to make them: I think N was made in Flash, and Orisinal's games are great (if short), and Dofus (a MMORPG) was made in Flash, and Desktop Tower Defense I spent a lot of time playing, but I've seen far more great games made in Game Maker or AGS or even the Ohrrpgce than I've seen made in Flash.

So I have the feeling that there may be something I don't know about its limits that are keeping it from dominating independent games and being the platform of choice for most indie developers. For those of you who use it, any thoughts on this?

[BenH]

I don't think there's particularly any limitations that are stopping people from making decent games from within flash, bar perhaps some speed issues, but what with Flash 9 and Action Script 3 being so much faster now it shouldn't be as much as a problem.

I think Flash just has a different culture surrounding it. There's this idea that flash games are a "pick up and play for 10 minutes" deal, and I think a lot of developers tend not to stray out of that area. Plus there's the fact that once a few people see how popular a simple game can be, they don't feel the need to make anything more complex since they can rise to stardom on a simple concept made in a few hours.

[ZombiePixel]

If anything I think Flash's ease of use works against it.  The fact that the author of the linked article not only intended to make a 1 day game but to also monetize it kind of reflects that.  Most developers having made something similar would call it a "prototype" and leave it at that.  Rarely would they put it on the web for everyone to see and, further still, try to earn money from it.

So you have a mass of amateur developers (much like youtube) who are neither good programmers nor good artists producing content.  For these people a couple hundred bucks a month (it seems there is a market for 10-second disposable games) is more than enough reward, so why bother improving your output?

Not that I'm complaining.  There is so much crap on the market that the good games really stand out and tend to spread like crazy (DTD being a good example), making the difference in traffic and income exponential. If it were a market where 99% of the games we "kinda good" (like the shareware portal market) then it would be much harder to differentiate from the crowd.

[Farbs]

These seem like good places to start:
http://www.gamedev.net/reference/programming/features/flex/

I just read this, and am now dangerously excited in the bathing suit area.
Thanks!

[ravuya]

From when I used Flash (five or six years ago -- yikes!) it seemed to me that the language was poorly designed and that there wasn't a "culture" in terms of writing proper code but instead hacking out whatever in ActionScript/Lingo would vaguely get the job done.

That might explain it -- a project that gets started with little or no programming experience could very quickly balloon into something unmaintainable when it starts to get "big".

[Farbs]

I couldn't find any decent info on using Flex and AS3, but then I remembered Kenta Cho releases source code.
WIN!

[ninjascience]

when it comes to game dev I'm a noob, but for AS and Flex, it's my day job.  Don't confuse Flex apps and Flash/AS3 apps.  Flex is a code framework for use in AS3, it should NOT be used for making games.  Apps made with the Flex framework tend to be bloated for game use, and there are keybinding problems. 

You can use the free FlexSDK to compile "ActionScript Projects" that don't include the Flex framework though.  I've done some gamedev experiments this way.  No FlashIDE used, just ActionScript code.  I used FlexBuilder, the Eclipse Plugin from Adobe, but I've heard good things about FDT.

[Hideous]

One thing I wonder is why there aren't that many great indie flash games, considering how many flash games there are and how easy it is to learn.

It's easy to learn?


... Where can I learn? 8D

[Skofo]

One thing I wonder is why there aren't that many great indie flash games, considering how many flash games there are and how easy it is to learn.

It's easy to learn?


... Where can I learn? 8D

This is a great tutorial on starting out with the Flex SDK, written by an Adobe employee http://www.senocular.com/flash/tutorials/as3withmxmlc/ but I prefer using it with FlashDevelop (the Finnish people make such nice things..) http://www.flashdevelop.org/community/viewtopic.php?t=2893

Here's a nice reference to AS3 in general, if you ignore all the Flash CS3 stuff http://www.senocular.com/flash/tutorials/as3withflashcs3/#variables

And of course, the official language reference always helps if you need something specific http://livedocs.adobe.com/flex/3/html/Part6_ProgAS_1.html

The community at Kirupa is worth checking out, the guys there are really helpful http://www.kirupa.com/forum/forumdisplay.php?f=141