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Macromedia Flash MX 2004 Game Development (Game Development Series) (Game Development...
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by Glen Rhodes
Sales Rank: 534206
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List Price: $49.95
$32.97
At Amazon
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Paperback: 522 pages
Publisher: Charles River Media; 1 edition April 2004
Language: English
ISBN-10: 1584503092
ISBN-13: 978-1584503095
Product Dimensions:
9.1 x 7.3 x 1.1 inches
Shipping Weight: 2.1 pounds
Product Description
Creating games with Macromedia Flash MX 2004 is a rewarding endeavor for aspiring and seasoned programmers alike. With its quick download time, cross-platform deployment, ease of use, and power, Flash is quickly becoming the program of choice for online game development. The use of vector graphics also makes the games scalable for any resolution from full screen to cell phone. Intended for both game and Web developers, Macromedia Flash MX 2004 Game Development teaches developers how to maximize Flash for the creation of online and standalone games. The entire development process is covered, from design, story and character development, to the physics and motion of a game, audio issues, optimization, and deployment. As you work through the book, you'll create eight fun games as you learn and apply the tools of Flash. After completing these projects, you'll be ready to produce your own high-quality games, and you'll have the skills needed to take on more complex games.
About The Author
Glen Rhodes (Toronto, Ontario) has been developing games professionally for 12 years. He has created Flash games for clients like Disney, MTV, and Nickelodeon. He has also written and co-authored a number of successful titles on Flash MX. Glen is the CTO of Toronto-based company, CRASH!MEDIA.
Customer Reviews & Comments
I am an industry professional and have worked with Flash in varying degrees and versions from Flash 5 on up to Flash 8 Pro for the past 10 years. I inquisitively bought this book with the intention of learning game coding (specifically to learn an intro to 3d coding). While the book does contain an extensive amount of code and examples, the author fails to give satisfactory explanations within each tutorial. For instance, the author uses words such as "frame" in a sense not to suggest the frame on the timeline (as every Flash developer and designer would understand it to be), but rather to describe the line portion of a box one draws on the stage (as in a 'picture' frame). It took me a few moments to realize he meant the frame surrounding the box, and not the timeline. I was hopelessly clicking the frame in the timeline attempting to follow the tutorial. This is but one example of the confusing way the author designed his tutorials. If the tutorials contained detailed graphics of each step, they would also be less confusing. One would see, for example, that the frame of the box was at issue, and not the frame on the timeline. The book does not contain enough graphic materials to support the tutorials for someone who is not very VERY familiar with Flash. Also, the code examples when followed exactly fail to produce the expected results. For example, the Sound Hunter game included in this book. While it is an interesting twist on the 'old-school' card game of Match, (utilizing sound instead of imagery), the code given does not work properly. The random function 'shuffle' fails to shuffle the boxes around, and instead produces a box which, if clicked twice, disappears without making a match. And the author in no way discusses HOW to apply the sounds bites to each box - the code simply does not suffice. I spent an hour trying to get the sounds to attach to the random boxes without success. If I use the Flash file contained on the CD it works, but if I attempt to create my own file, it fails. Also, the code is sloppy - not at all the code of a professional (i.e. no documentation). Each tutorial should stress the use of documentation - again, as a professional in the industry, I cannot tell you how important it is to document your code! No one lives forever, and no one stays at one job forever - and only you know what is going on inside your own head. Document! Therefore I can better understand you when I need to make changes to your work 3 months from now.... This book is not worth the price - better to purchase it used and thusly cheap, or to borrow from a friend or the library for free. Better yet, find another book! The Lynda series offers better choices for learning ActionScript.
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Macromedia Flash MX 2004 Game Development (Game Development Series) (Game Development...
List Price: $49.95
Available from Amazon
Price: $32.97
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