Last Online: 6/16/08
Flash Game Devs
This group is for all of the flash game developers out there. Whether you are just starting out and want a place to ask questions or you are a seasoned pro looking to show off your latest flash game, this is the place for you.
Flash Dev News
Decisions, Decisions... |June 16, 2008|
These days it seems like the decision isn't "Can I build my game?", it's "How am I going to pick from all of the fantastic tools available to me?"
The OpenSpace Engine is a great looking toolset for developing isometric Flash MMO games. It is still in a pre-release state right now, but everything I can see about it looks great.
It includes the tried and tested SmartFoxServer, customizable aspect ratio, scrolling, avatar management, and advanced pathfinding. There is no word on price yet, but the demo they have online is impressive, as are some of the screenshots of the worlds currently being developed by their partners.
Making Money from Your Games |June 6, 2008|
One question I am often asked by beginning authors is "How do I make money off my game?" There are many traditional ways to do it, and quite a few newer ones popping up all the time. Flash games are a hot commodity right now, and if you can build a good one you deserve to make money off it.
One of the hurdles many developers face is that Flash is relatively easy to pirate, this recently became a fairly big issue when the Beijing Olympics featured pirated games on the official Olympics home page. This really got me thinking about the issue, and for a while I was quite discouraged by it.
Then I was shown the site FlashDen.net and it got me thinking about an approach you could take right from the moment you start building your game. Plan to make money off both your game AND your code. FlashDen allows you to upload and sell code snippets, so if you made certain that while you were building your game you were properly documenting it, you could release version into the wild that has Mochi Ads and at the same time upload the code to FlashDen. This way you have a cheap and legal alternative for the people who are going to rip off your game anyway.
You could use your game as an advertisement for the source code. Include a splash page right in the game that says, "Buy the source for this game for just $5" and link to your page. With the prices being reasonable on FlashDen, someone who might have pirated your game before might be inclined to spend the $5 to legally download the source instead of spending the time to rip it off and figure it out.
These days it seems like the decision isn't "Can I build my game?", it's "How am I going to pick from all of the fantastic tools available to me?"
The OpenSpace Engine is a great looking toolset for developing isometric Flash MMO games. It is still in a pre-release state right now, but everything I can see about it looks great.
It includes the tried and tested SmartFoxServer, customizable aspect ratio, scrolling, avatar management, and advanced pathfinding. There is no word on price yet, but the demo they have online is impressive, as are some of the screenshots of the worlds currently being developed by their partners.
Making Money from Your Games |June 6, 2008|
One question I am often asked by beginning authors is "How do I make money off my game?" There are many traditional ways to do it, and quite a few newer ones popping up all the time. Flash games are a hot commodity right now, and if you can build a good one you deserve to make money off it.
One of the hurdles many developers face is that Flash is relatively easy to pirate, this recently became a fairly big issue when the Beijing Olympics featured pirated games on the official Olympics home page. This really got me thinking about the issue, and for a while I was quite discouraged by it.
Then I was shown the site FlashDen.net and it got me thinking about an approach you could take right from the moment you start building your game. Plan to make money off both your game AND your code. FlashDen allows you to upload and sell code snippets, so if you made certain that while you were building your game you were properly documenting it, you could release version into the wild that has Mochi Ads and at the same time upload the code to FlashDen. This way you have a cheap and legal alternative for the people who are going to rip off your game anyway.
You could use your game as an advertisement for the source code. Include a splash page right in the game that says, "Buy the source for this game for just $5" and link to your page. With the prices being reasonable on FlashDen, someone who might have pirated your game before might be inclined to spend the $5 to legally download the source instead of spending the time to rip it off and figure it out.
Group Discussion
This week I would like to draw everyone's attention to Prism. Jade Tidy, Routine404, Dan Bibby, and Andy Galletly have put together a fun and innovative example of what flash is capable of. The game itself features and interesting mechanic where your character can turn himself into a beam that allows him to bounce off walls and pass through some objects. Give it a go and let us know what you think!
Still in development, but this game by routine404 and his team is shaping up to be fun and addictive.
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