At 12/13/11 12:58 PM, PSvils wrote: But after you load it in, what if you have a special item in the level, and it needs to do something that isn't generic? Or a special type of interaction?

I played your game! It looks very awesome! But yes, that's the kind of game where you build a database of items, and then lay the out. In my current game, it's my first platformer as well as point'n'click, and so I'm not used to cooking up each level being unique (I have something that works, just feels a bit...clunky...)

P.

Even if your levels are 'unique' you should still be able to represent them all the same. For 'special items it shouldn't really make much difference. I have a entity list defined in the data for each level. Whether the entity is a special item, door, trigger volume, spawn point it is created and spawned all the same!
My level load/save system is very heavily tied into my own framework though so its a bit hard to describe without the rest, so if you dow ant to ake a look I'd be more then happy chucking it over! I'm also curios to see what another pair of eyes think about my code base!

Can I have a look as well? I've been thinking about the same concept lately.

I am doing LD22 this weekend. Anyone else ?

I am thinking about live-streaming my whole dev process. There would be a lot of cursing probably.. 48 hours is not much time to make a game.

At 12/14/11 02:12 PM, PSvils wrote:

At 12/14/11 01:46 PM, PrettyMuchBryce wrote: I am doing LD22 this weekend. Anyone else ?

I am thinking about live-streaming my whole dev process. There would be a lot of cursing probably.. 48 hours is not much time to make a game.

is the theme out yet? I guess not, since voting started a few days ago?

I'll check it out right now...

They announce the theme right as the competition starts. So it starts on Friday at 9pm EST and goes until sunday at 9PM EST. I would highly encourage anyone to participate. It's a little huger than the NG game jams and it's a totally solo competition. You can use game frameworks or your own libraries if you want, as long as you declare them beforehand.. and even if your game isn't great atleast you made a game!

At 12/14/11 04:52 PM, PrettyMuchBryce wrote: and even if your game isn't great atleast you made a game!

Atleast thats what I tell myself.. :)

The Flash Forum Today

Ok guys, it's census time.

Please answer the following:

Name

Age

Preferred Language

Worse Language

Current Career

Ideal Career

How did you get into Flash?

Your opinion of Flash

is Flash a career or a hobby

Harry

24

AS3

Java

Developer

Rock Star

My best friend showed me NG (it had Troma ads!!)

With AIR3.0 and FP11 it's on the up.

Career.

//
//
And that's all there is to it!

Ben

16

AS3

Java

Student

Google Programmer

Played a ton of Flash games in elementary school and in seventh grade I found out I could make awesome internet games too.

Great for learning to program, and great for making quick, fun, profitable games.

Hobby

Nick

18

AS3

C and its variants

Undergrad student

Innovator for some big company

Stumbled upon ClickTeam's TGF2 for NG, wanted a more code-oriented platform

I like how widespread it is

Hobby

name: Bryce

age: 23

best language: AS3 is my most comfortable language. I like python a lot too.

worst language: I don't know.

career: developer at a big tech company

ideal career: not totally sure honestly. I just want to make cool stuff!

how i got into flash: I started making terrible animations that you can still see on my page. I started fooling around with making games when I was around 16 and I decided I was better at that.

what I think of it: It's great!

is it a career or hobby: Both!

hey guys

http://aichallenge.org/

no need to thank me

At 12/14/11 07:59 PM, Kirk-Cocaine wrote: The Flash Forum Today

Ok guys, it's census time.

Please answer the following:

Name

Age

Preferred Language

Worse Language

Current Career

Ideal Career

How did you get into Flash?

Your opinion of Flash

is Flash a career or a hobby

Tom

20

AS2, SORRY.

Any other language at all.

Developer

Developer of better games than I'm puttin out now

I wanted to make stickmen cartoons like Joe Zombie.

Wha-- my opinion on the software? I don't know, who cares? It's good. It makes cartoons and videogames, that's real good.

Both

Sander

18 years

Java

Pascal

Student Software Science

Manger of a large software project

As kid I saw the great things people could do in flash that took me ages to do in Pascal, so I switched.

Flash is a great tool that makes games accessible for everyone.

To me its a hobby

At 12/15/11 01:32 AM, Toast wrote: hey guys

http://aichallenge.org/

yeah thats crazy. Look at the guy whos number 1 (german guy). His ants rule. It seems like they don't ever decide to attack head on.. they always prefer to surround the enemy.

Twan
23
AS3
Everything other than AS3
Student Business Informatics, freelance Flash dev
Owning a surfschool on some exotic island
Playing Flash games on Newgrounds I guess, not quite sure.
Soon to be dead.
Hobby and a career, it pays my bills sometimes.

At 12/15/11 12:22 PM, PSvils wrote:

At 12/15/11 01:32 AM, Toast wrote: hey guys

http://aichallenge.org/

no need to thank me

That looks very cool! Too bad deadline is in 3 days (I think?)

You better get started then. Some people made pretty smart AI's

I gotta say I'm impressed with the feedback. Very impressed. But here's round two:

The future of the Flash Forum

Do you want this forum to become for cereal AS3 problems or for anyone?

How do you feel about the games factory?

Should this forum be renamed ActionScript?

What other forums do you visit?

What's your opinion of the forum right now?

How could we improve?

As always here's my feedback:

Do you want this forum to become for cereal AS3 problems or for anyone?

Semi-cereal; I don't want it to be all "day one" stuff but I don't want it Hawking only.

How do you feel about the games factory?

It's shite.

Should this forum be renamed ActionScript?

potentially

What other forums do you visit?

/2/ /secret/ /secret/ /3/ /1/

What's your opinion of the forum right now?

low :(

How could we improve?

<pass>

At 12/16/11 08:03 PM, Kirk-Cocaine wrote: I gotta say I'm impressed with the feedback. Very impressed. But here's round two:

serious as3 problems or anyone: Should be a developers forum I think although I wouldn't mind if the rules were relaxed a little bit.

games factory: I don't care if people use. I am personally not interested in it. I don't care if people ask questions about it.

renamed actionscript: Maybe. I wouldn't mind but I never come to talk about the flash authoring tool. Maybe some people do? Im not sure.

other forums: SFSC, FGL, Twitter, Stackoverflow

opinion of the forum now: It's pretty flimsy. The people here are great. I just wish we had more of them. I think the problem is that newgrounds isn't really what people think of when they think about flash development anymore. I'm not sure if the flash scene in general is just shrinking. There are more outlets for development now. Kids are much more interested in building for their android or iphone and most of them probably have never even heard of newgrounds. Obviously as people get older they get jobs which is what has happened with a lot of people here. This is all just speculation. I really don't know.

How to improve? I'm not really sure if theres a solution honestly. I will always be hanging around here though. So once the rest of you all leave I'll just sit in here and talk to myself.

I know I'm a bit behind (I've had work to do), don't hate me!

Name

Liam O'Brien

Age

19

Preferred Language

AS3

Worse Language

AS2? Not because I'm bad at it but because last time I had to code in AS2 I cried a little.

Current Career

Programming Student

Ideal Career

Games Developer (likely in a small independent)

How did you get into Flash?

My school computers had Flash MX on them, and I started there. Seeing tutorials on Newgrounds pushed me to learning programming.

Your opinion of Flash

Meh. Its browser dominance makes it a great tool for getting stuff out there, but it's far from the best in its category.

is Flash a career or a hobby

For me at the moment, hobby. But I believe it can be a full career and I certainly wouldn't mind making it such for me.

Round 2

Do you want this forum to become for cereal AS3 problems or for anyone?

Having it accessible for anyone would be nice, but I would certainly like to see more serious problems running around (not that I look much these days anyway). Ideally, you'd have ranks of ActionScript programmers helping here so the 'lower ranks' would sort out everyday problems and the 'higher ranks' would be around to help with the big problems

How do you feel about the games factory?

I haven't looked at it much, but I like the idea. People making games and learning how to make games is always a plus in my book, even if they are limited by the toolset. I reckon that, like people who move from AS2 to AS3 to haXe to Unity to whatever, people's desire to make better games will push them to move to better tools, so getting them interested at the low entry level of Games Factory is something I consider a good thing.

Should this forum be renamed ActionScript?

It would help remove some confusion I suppose. Not that passionate either way.

What other forums do you visit?

On Newgrounds, I often pop into Clubs & Crews, but I rarely post. On other websites, I just lurk.

What's your opinion of the forum right now?

At the moment, I only really care for the conversations going on in the Reg Lounge. The questions seem to pile up endlessly, and I've stopped reading the titles of new threads and have no care for what's being asked inside them. It just seems that a question answered is more trying to shift a pile of rocks than fixing a problem - just boring labour. And one doesn't feel like they're doing much because plenty of other people could have answered those questions - just one person in the workforce.

How could we improve?

I'm not sure. Like many chemical reactions, the negative trends I think are around probably can't be reversed, and working out how to move forward is tough. I'm not even sure if the question askers perceive a problem because I never visit the threads - I don't know how many questions are being answered correctly or anything like that. If they don't perceive a problem, then the forum is doing its job and I can rest easy knowing that I'm not needed, as disheartening as that may be.
P.S. I love puzzles and challenges - even if I don't get involved in many, I would like to see more!

At 12/14/11 07:59 PM, Kirk-Cocaine wrote: The Flash Forum Today

Ok guys, it's census time.

Oops, a little late! D:

Please answer the following:

Okay.

Name

Sanjeev

Age

13

Preferred Language

AS2

Worse Language

Anything but AS3 and AS2

Current Career

Student in HS

Ideal Career

I haven't decided yet D:

How did you get into Flash?

When my brother introduced me to it

Your opinion of Flash

It's good.

is Flash a career or a hobby

Ideally I'd like to have it as a career, but for now it's a hobby.

At 12/16/11 08:03 PM, Kirk-Cocaine wrote: I gotta say I'm impressed with the feedback. Very impressed. But here's round two:

The future of the Flash Forum

Do you want this forum to become for cereal AS3 problems or for anyone?

For anyone. I wouldn't want it to turn to problems for AS3 only.

How do you feel about the games factory?

I don't really like it much.

Should this forum be renamed ActionScript?

Not really.

What other forums do you visit?

General, Clubs and Crews, Where is/How to?, Writing, Collaboration and NG News. But if you're talking about forums not related to NG, then none other.

What's your opinion of the forum right now?

Good.

How could we improve?

Maybe by not saying "AS3 is better" for everything not related to as2? I haven't really had problems, though, so I'm not complaining.

Every week it's the same thing. Someone asking about removeChild problems, audio settings, missing }, etc. Maybe there should be a stickied list of common problems, then more complex problems and discussions as their own threads.

I started out with TGF2, but the free NG version doesn't allow for for loops. I personally don't like the visual programming, but it's prolly very helpful to others.

Depends on what you want the forum to be about. If it's all about coding, then Actionscript/Haxe; but if it also includes working with the IDE, then maybe Flash Pro/ActionScript/Haxe or whatever.

NAPE forums, mainly because I'm playing with it to figure out its possibilities at the moment.

We have some good discussions in the reg lounge, like the whole AI discussion. It'd be cool to have more. I agree with P about everyone posting more about their current projects and whatnot.

Handling the minor questions in one big READMEFIRST sticky. Encourage more higher level discussions.

At 12/17/11 04:25 PM, MSGhero wrote: NAPE forums, mainly because I'm playing with it to figure out its possibilities at the moment.

Nape is awesome.

HEY guys doing ludum dare! cant' talk. heres video update. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y_hWIKHgY hI

goodbye!

Travis

18

AS3 or JAVA

AS2

Student

Programming/ Game Programming

the drive to create games and online tutorials.

Flash is cool, good way to play free games online.

Hobby, but also make money off of it.

At 12/17/11 05:33 PM, Sam wrote: Nape is awesome.

What is something awesome that you've done or seen with Nape? Like, I saw a bridge created in box2d earlier today and destructible terrain earlier this week, and I didn't know boxnape could do cool stuff like that.

At 12/18/11 12:21 AM, MSGhero wrote:

At 12/17/11 05:33 PM, Sam wrote: Nape is awesome.

What is something awesome that you've done or seen with Nape? Like, I saw a bridge created in box2d earlier today and destructible terrain earlier this week, and I didn't know boxnape could do cool stuff like that.

I tinkered with a few physics engines about 4 months back. Box2D - whilst seemed much more powerful than other engines, was much too complex to set up basic scenes (which was what I intended to do at the time). I also used APE, however, it was discontinued and lacked pretty essential methods you'd expect in a physics engine. There were some third party solutions to them, additions to classes and such, but even so, documentation and support was minimal.

I don't remember how I stumbled upon NAPE - perhaps Delta posting here - but the set up was extremely easy and understandable, the documentation is brilliant considering it's a one man development team and the demos Delta posts really surprised me at first in terms of the speed and functionality.

Personally, I haven't done anything great with it and I did it mainly as research but with each revision, Delta shows off new demos:

http://deltaluca.me.uk/docnew/swf/WaterB alls.html

At 12/16/11 08:03 PM, Kirk-Cocaine wrote: I gotta say I'm impressed with the feedback. Very impressed. But here's round two:

The future of the Flash Forum

I don't really see a bright future for this place. While it never has really been a place for "serious" problems, it always used to be a reliable source for getting real help from knowledgeable people, but at a certain point I noticed that it wasn't so helpful anymore... Maybe it was because I had more experience under my belt or because the quality of the users regularly visiting the forum degraded, but there certainly was something keeping me from going back to the Flash forum for help.

It's more of a place for beginners to discuss common problems with each other, not a place to ask for serious help about more in-depth programming issues.

Do you want this forum to become for cereal AS3 problems or for anyone?

I'd love to have a place where anyone could come for help (so the beginners would get help from the more experienced users browsing the same forum), but there'd have to be an even mix of users--a forum dominated by beginner questions and beginner users simply isn't very attractive.

How do you feel about the games factory?

Don't even get me started... I strongly disapprove.

Should this forum be renamed ActionScript?

Yes.

What other forums do you visit?

None.

What's your opinion of the forum right now?

The only useful thread I've seen in a long time is this one.

How could we improve?

Add more sticky help threads and keep a running list of threads in which common problems were addressed.

At 12/18/11 03:17 PM, Archawn wrote:

At 12/16/11 08:03 PM, Kirk-Cocaine wrote: How could we improve?

Add more sticky help threads and keep a running list of threads in which common problems were addressed.

Also, outlaw AS2. :D