A days work from my first Ludum Dare …

I’ve been streaming it all here

Yup, that’s right, chrome won’t accept keyboard inputs from any flash AS2 game, as it would seem.

EDIT 8/22/10: Updating slightly

I’ll likely be using a global leaderboard with my Flash game entry like last Ludum Dare because it can be really fun to encourage competition with fellow LDers on your game. I remember a few Flash devs being curious about the process so I wanted to post a brief step by step tutorial for those of you who want to take the plunge this weekend. If you are using AS3 I’ll also be hanging in the IRC channel and am happy to answer any tech issues you may have if you choose to implement these.

Without further ado — 10 Steps to Global Leaderboards:

1. Login or create a new account over at MochiMedia.
2. Once you are logged into your ‘Dashboard’ click the tab called ‘Add Game’.
3. Fill out the ‘title’ and the ‘dimensions’ of your game. For the purposes of LD15 you don’t have to worry about using ‘Live Updates’ (their distributed version control system) so you can leave it on ‘No’ if you’d like. Click the submit button.
4. At the next screen you can totally skip all these settings and hit the ‘Done’ button at the bottom if you’d like. Why? Well that is because all the settings on this page are related to using advertisements in your game which you probably don’t want to do for the purposes of LD15. Ads aren’t required at all to use their global leaderboards.
5. Once you’ve clicked done you will see your game’s title in the game list on this screen. It should have a little ‘pause’ icon next to it. Don’t worry, this doesn’t matter. Click on the title of your game.
6. Once you’ve clicked on the title of your game click the ‘Scores’ option to setup your highscores.
7. You will see a little info about the leaderboards but the important part is to click the ‘Create Leaderboard’ button at the bottom.
8. On the ‘Create Leaderboard’ screen enter the title for your leaderboard (ex: “Highscores” etc), optional description, and then any scoring format/sort data. Fairly self explanatory. If you are using a traditional ‘high scores = better’ then the defaults will probably be fine for you. One thing you may want to mess with is the color / transparent and formatting options near the bottom as that will let you configure the leaderboard widget to match your game’s color theme. I often do ‘transparent’ so that my game background will show through when this is displayed. You can edit this later as well. Click ‘Create Leaderboard’ again at the bottom to generate yours. (NOTE: I always click transparent and it resets to background.. you have to re-edit again and hit transparent and re-save for that option to stick.)
9. Your leaderboard should be created now and you will be looking at a screen displaying it. The link now that you want to click on is called ‘actionscript code’. A bunch of fields will appear along with 2 radio buttons. One for AS2 and one for AS3. Pick the appropriate technology for your game. Also note your ‘game ID’ and ‘leaderboard ID’ as you will need these later.
10. You can use these provided code snippets in tabs labeled ‘submit score’, ‘submit score and name’ and ‘show leaderboard’ to get the relevant editable code snippets to drop in that will connect your game to your leaderboards.

Can’t wait for the theme!

Hey all.. I realized I had forgotten to post a lib I wanted to ask about using that is related to online high score ability in a flash game.  Would just want to know peoples thoughts about using it for this compo.. or other compos if deemed too late.

Link to mochi leaderboards api docs

Link to mochi api v3.0 (as2/as3)

Basically it’s just a 2 line call someone can drop into their flash project that enables online leaderboards via mochi.  You don’t have to use their ad network or anything but it would easily support the ability for people to see others scores in my game.

Anyway.. thoughts?  Too late for this time perhaps..? but what about future compos?  It isn’t really game code per se.. but it does give a game an advantage in that online leaderboards often lead to more competition with the score motivated players.

I am pretty sure I’m going to make a go of LD14 this weekend.  I will be voting in the theme rounds all week long and take a look Friday to see the theme that is picked.  I will make up my mind then for sure.  Why the hesitation?  Well, I have a lot of things I’m already working on game wise so I have to make sure working on ANOTHER game is the best use of my energy… 😉  I do love the LD compos though.. it’s what got me back into game programming again so it will always have a lot of pull on my heart.  It is just so much fun as many of you know to participate in this event.

As far as programming tech and libraries go I will be making a change for the first time in all my LD experience!  Previously I was rocking the Ruby language and using the excellent Gosu game dev library (which I still highly recommend!)

This time I’ll be using Flash / ActionScript 3.0.  I have spent the past couple months learning ActionScript (first used AS2 for one game) and then another game I did in AS3 to work on my knowledge in that.  Plus I’ve cranked through a couple really great books I picked up that I also highly recommend to anyone looking to make the leap.  Essential ActionScript 3.0 (O’Reilly), ActionScript 3.0 Animation (Keith Peters), and Flash CS4 Professional  (Katherine Ulrich). The Kongregate Shootorials were also a great place to start for AS2 and they have an AS3 version of the finished tutorial to learn from the code (it is well commented.)  I learn good from books so I had to grab a few to help out.  Anyway, I’ve been having a blast with Flash / ActionScript!

I’ve been very impressed by how quickly you can rough out a game prototype using the Flash authoring tool and some simple ActionScript classes.  I used to think that I’d be hard pressed to find as rapid a dev environment than what I was already using with Ruby / Gosu but all I can say is DAMN.. flash is fast. 

Plus, the added benefit of having both rapid playable cross platform versions for compo feedback as well as not worrying about the various builds after the compo and I think it builds a strong case as rapid prototyping tool geared for quick compos like this one.

Tool Set I want to use:

Flash / ActionScript 3.0

Libraries I want to use (if this seems ok par the rules?):

GreenSock’s tweening engine TweenMax / TweenLite

Looking forward to a great theme and a great compo everyone, take care!

This could only bring madness… or terror… or both!

Short Fuse + The Hairy Chestival.

I’m going for it!  This is rough mockup to get the idea down but basically instead of the old miner carrying the leaky powderkeg.. we have our miner taking up a different profession.  That’s right, he’s using the lawnmower (or is that chestmower?) from The Hairy Chestival.. only problem is that the lawnmower is leaking fuel like there’s no peak oil!  You have to mow down the dry grass (or is that… hair?) before the spark ignites your fuel mixture.  Oh yeah, for some reason the field is littered with explosive barrels that you can’t run into but that you have to destroy.  There will also be a fuel meter on the lawnmower that will run out I think as well (like the button to discard the powderkeg in Short Fuse.  I still have to work out exactly what the rewards are (do you really need one in a game so ludicrous?  😉  ) and what the dangers are.  But, I have high hopes for this.. hehe.  I’ll be using Flash.  Either AS2 or AS3.. jury is still out for this mini-LD.

I love the theme of the mash up and am scouring the archive grid looking at old thumbnails.  I’m trying to find a concept that won’t be too ambitious at all.  The reason?  Because this weekend I will make some progress towards learning AS3 I hope.  I have my Essential ActionScript 3.0 book handy.  I have my Flash CS4 Professional book handy.  I have healthy snacks…  I have angry chihuahuas.. (well not really, but my wife and I are picking up a new puppy tomorrow!  Shiba Inu mix, not chihuahua I’m afraid.) 

I have already made 1 Flash AS2 game so far but know nothing about actually using the Flash tool for making animations and such things.  I also “know” AS2 in that sense that I’ve been programming in other languages a long time and can now brute force any kind of ugly code into working but I’m far from the land of knowing best practices so far!  I really want to push on past AS2 though.

I think it would be fun to find a mash-up game that will ideally not be too large in scope that will allow me to get to know the Flash authoring tool and AS3.  It does mean I have to make some more progress in the AS book.

Only time will tell what will happen.  Epic Fail?  We shall see!  😉

Well after an incredible amount of work I have finally released my first Flash / ActionScript 2.0 game! You can play it here if you’d like. I hope it is cool to post here because it is relevant in that the original game play idea came from my Cryptid Puzzle Challenge entry in the Mini-Ludum Dare #7 competition back at the beginning of the month.  I also wanted to really share it all with my buds here at Ludum Dare! 

TurnStyle is a unique visual and memory based puzzle game where each of the 15 puzzles are original illustrations that follow a complete story arc over the duration of the game.

Every puzzle is made up of individual pieces which have been randomly rotated so that they are scrambled each time. You must work quickly and efficiently to rotate the individual pieces into the proper alignment before the timer runs out.

There are easy, medium, and hard difficulty puzzles mainly guided by the amount of individual image pieces that make up each puzzle and the way that I break up the images into pieces.

Personal best records are stored locally for score and rotation count per puzzle. Global high scores may be submitted to the Mochi Leaderboards at any puzzle progress screen. You are able to retry a level if the time runs out.

I haven’t submitted it to any portals or whatnot yet so it is living at it’s mochi-ads home right now.  I’m using their encryption, version control platform, advert api, and leaderboards/facebook api.  Seems pretty easy to setup.

I will try to post more about my adventure in creating this game and learning Flash over at my personal site but for now this is finished!