FD 4.2 is out, as well as AIR 3.5 and Player 11.5
shiny features!

also, you're all jelly of my connection speed.

I've also just installed Flashdevelop, but only because I can't have FDT on more than one computer and college relies too much on windows based programs to have linux on my laptop (eclipse kind of sucks on Windows in my experience).
It's really easy to have that installer get all the files you need, you can even select what flash player version you want to compile to up to 11.5! I remember this being some hacky solution in FDT where you replace the playerglobal and change an xml file somewhere in the extracted sdk, and you had to manually select the flash player and sdk's as well. It's really a shame that FD is Windows only (and still misses some essential features like debugging as you code), but it'll do for when I'm at school and want to work on flash. Linux + FDT still is superior.

The things that FD is better at hands down are:
1. Ease of installation, it's just a big plus especially for noobs who won't be alienated by the installation. With one click you'll get all the stuff you need to begin coding.
2. Responsiveness, it has decent performance, eclipse on windows just can't top that, Linux is a different beast.
3. Autocompletion, in one way it sucks because with Ctrl + Space it won't search through all classes (like StageQuality), so you have to do Ctrl + Alt + Space which is inconvenient. On the other hand it will get the best match so even if you mistype part of the word you're looking for it will still find it; eclipse will completely break down if you get but one letter wrong.
4. Haxe support, FDT's Haxe support is miserable so yeah +1 for FD.

At 11/12/12 02:49 AM, Sandremss128 wrote: Stuff about FD

I HATE doing my Java hw, mainly because of the code completion in eclipse: that it only works half the time only after typing a "." or ctrl+space, and that mistyping ends it.

And because Java looks tacky, but that's a different issue

Yes, it's that time again. Post/talk about what you're working on (Splyth excluded).

Instead of me looking for artists and failing, I found 2 (separate) artists looking for a programmer. The main problem I'd been having was teammates' motivation, I think: I wanted a project done, and they didn't care either way since it's not their own, per se. One's a shooter with Castle Crashers-like physics and the other is similar to FFVI. And I started a prototype for a color-based bullet hell game, dunno where I'm going with it.

At 11/12/12 02:32 PM, MSGhero wrote: Yes, it's that time again. Post/talk about what you're working on (Splyth excluded).

I'm working on a flash chat for newgrounds, kinda like the old radio chat to offer some features the current one is missing.
Programming the server in Java and the client in flash, most interesting obstacles are networking, databases and text rendering.
I'm hoping to have a working beta at the end of the month, now with that out there's some much needed extra pressure on me to get my arse moving.

At 11/12/12 02:32 PM, MSGhero wrote: Yes, it's that time again. Post/talk about what you're working on (Splyth excluded).

working on Gold of Odin and finishing the Gametack library associated with it. After I finish the lib/toolkit, i'll release it as both the source and a swc file.

to-do:
find a way to make creating a 3D world easier.

that's... Pretty much it as far as the lib goes, unless I think of something else.

Still have to finish a top down tile-based puzzle game that I havent worked on in a while. pretty much done with it, all I need is touch up and and ending cut scene.

I am also working on a android game app that is an avoider where you use your voice as the controls. there will be 3 vertical lanes and objects appearing at the top of the screen in different lanes moving down towards the player. The user must speak left, middle, or right to change lanes to avoid the objects. I have to find a cool and optimize way to recognize the speech. In order to use Anroid's API to voice recognize i need wifi or data plan on device. But with new release of Jelly-bean the Voice to type is now in the Android library and does not need to connect to wifi to interpret voice. Should be fun...

bump because the forum has been really active today.

I got a functional login system with GoO :3
how you people's doin'?

At 11/14/12 11:15 PM, egg82 wrote: bump because the forum has been really active today.

I got a functional login system with GoO :3
how you people's doin'?

Alpha map-based bitmapdata collisions...though it's kinda wonky since the sprites from the spritesheet change dimensions a bit when I use a rotated one (premade rotation sprites).

At 11/14/12 11:40 PM, MSGhero wrote: Alpha map-based bitmapdata collisions...though it's kinda wonky since the sprites from the spritesheet change dimensions a bit when I use a rotated one (premade rotation sprites).

The wonk is coming from certain stuff not being at a y coordinate divisible by 4. I hope.

Meanwhile, school keeps me very busy. Last test for a while today, though :D

At 11/15/12 01:41 AM, MSGhero wrote: The wonk is coming from certain stuff not being at a y coordinate divisible by 4. I hope.

What in the world are you doing? O.o

Meanwhile, school keeps me very busy. Last test for a while today, though :D

mm, I still have homework due by Sunday that I haven't even started yet...

At 11/15/12 08:30 AM, egg82 wrote: What in the world are you doing? O.o

The background and characters are all from spritesheets (blitted), so the only reasonable way to do collisions is with an alpha map, the city map abstracted to colors. Transparent means walkable, red is a wall or something, yellow is a door, etc. Then I test the corners of the sprite's rectangle with alpha map.getPixel32() to see what's going on. It's just glitchy if the y coordinate isn't divisible by 4 because he'll move past the boundary and then check getPixel32, which would cause problems when he turns and is partially stuck in a tree.

I've been thinking on and off about why there is no service to let indie web game developers build games and then sell them online? Do you guys think anyone would pay for high quality content if it was in a web browser ? I think the world as a whole is becoming more comfortable with buying digital content. I am just thinking it would be neat if there was a steam-like service online that showcased quality games, and gave the developers the option of selling them for a small fee. What do you guys think about this ?

I think the idea of a Steam like platform for selling Flash games is a great idea, but it will never work.

The problem is that there is so much competition in terms of free games that it would be really hard to attract people to your pay only game. I think another big problem is that a very large percentage of casual gamers are pre-teens that both don't have jobs and have no concept of having to pay rent and thus they don't care if the dev makes any money or not.

At 11/15/12 02:58 PM, pirateplatypus wrote: I think the idea of a Steam like platform for selling Flash games is a great idea, but it will never work.

The problem is that there is so much competition in terms of free games that it would be really hard to attract people to your pay only game. I think another big problem is that a very large percentage of casual gamers are pre-teens that both don't have jobs and have no concept of having to pay rent and thus they don't care if the dev makes any money or not.

Yeah micro transactions, downloadable content, and crowd funding seem to be the hot ways of making money with games these days. Lure them in with free to play, then ask money from them. Besides if you make a good enough game or series you'll be able to ask money for it.

At 11/15/12 02:58 PM, pirateplatypus wrote: I think the idea of a Steam like platform for selling Flash games is a great idea, but it will never work.

I think having a platform for distributing flash games with Steam being so popular is a little redundant. Generally if your game is high enough quality to be sold for money, it is perfectly capable of getting onto Steam. Of course, some developers who make high quality flash games want them to be free anyway, thus the internet already fills that niche.

It does beat the current model of money through sponsorship, which seems to me to be tapering off, so maybe there is a market for a distribution platform for small-time flash game developers who can no longer, or don't want to, rely on sponsors. I still feel a slight negative reaction towards people who try to charge people for flash games on par with the quality of free online games, but I now realize that the developers are trying to make a buck either way so maybe the players should be the ones paying up?

At 11/16/12 06:44 PM, Josh-B wrote: Generally if your game is high enough quality to be sold for money, it is perfectly capable of getting onto Steam.

steam is extremely overloaded with indies lately and they made greenlight as a result, if you wanna get on steam now you pretty much have to go through greenlight, which is more effort than "just" making a good game, you need to get a good following too (which to be fair, is made easier with flash games since they spread virally)

also, people won't pay for flash games from a flash game portal, hell they whine and complain when flash games show up on steam as it is

At 11/19/12 08:11 AM, PSvils wrote: Anyways, enough blabbing, here are some cool pics. The first is a plant made with L-Systems, and the rules being interpreted like this:
F = draw forward
-/+ = turn left/right 25Ã'°
[/] = push/pop the current position
The 2nd pic is a DLA system with a circular boundary, and the 3rd is with a rectangular boundary.

You know, you're always working on these really cool stuff! And I think about awesome games could be if flash programmers started getting more competent in their programming, because if you look at programmers in like C++ or something, you could see people building these really amazing stuff, like these lighting techniques and smooth 3D animation or whatever, but that's normal cuz what the top end C++ games do blows away all that.

But with flash games, very rarely do you see someone get out of their programming comfort zone, and when they do it usually results in something pretty new and fantastic.

Like that game, e7, that made elastic terrain. And the fact that very little games have good path finding. So it's like there's a lot of room to innovate.

So I just got this idea, what if we make like, these "Code Challenges", where every week or so we announce a challenge, and people try to do it and post their code. This could be really fun but it could also be really useful for the flash community as a whole.

I remember a while ago on the mochi forums, someone posted asking how e7 made elastic terrain, and not many people could answer, but then a few people started coming up with different solutions. So whether people participate or just watch, this could maybe encourage flash programmers to try new/innovative things, and if someone's a really great game designer, but isn't the best programmer (there's a lot of those) he might see a really cool effect another programmer made, but the programmer didn't really know what to do with it. So it would collectively make flash games better!

Thoughts?

At 11/22/12 05:36 AM, 4urentertainment wrote: So I just got this idea, what if we make like, these "Code Challenges", where every week or so we announce a challenge, and people try to do it and post their code. This could be really fun but it could also be really useful for the flash community as a whole.

I discussed this idea with mike a few weeks ago. I can think of at least half a dozen people on here who would be up for that. Are you volunteering to host? :-)

At 11/22/12 05:36 AM, 4urentertainment wrote: Thoughts?

I like the meaning behind the idea, but you should take a look at the idea more closely.

How would it be any more different than the Game Jams or the occasional ASWars?
How would it work? Is there a theme? Time limit? What are the rules?
How would you make it a popular idea? What would you do to make it appeal to enough people to get good participation from the many people who are just starting AS3 to the few AS3 gurus we have here?

At 11/22/12 10:54 AM, egg82 wrote: How would it be any more different than the Game Jams or the occasional ASWars?

Game jams are about prototyping game ideas.

ASWars are (mostly) about artificial intelligence and bots.

These code challenges would focus on programming specific mechanics.

How would it work? Is there a theme? Time limit? What are the rules?

The difference from all the above mentioned events, is that it's not a contest. There's never a clear winner. A mechanic would be announced and described, like "elastic terrain" for example. And then programmers would have say, a week to try and create this effect.

But since there are many different ways to do anything, like someone could make a terrain that's super realistic and hyper-advanced, but someone else does it in a more crude way that turns out to be a lot more fun.

How would you make it a popular idea? What would you do to make it appeal to enough people to get good participation from the many people who are just starting AS3 to the few AS3 gurus we have here?

So it's really all about challenging those people who can, and inspiring those who can't. The beauty is that even if like 3 people join the first event, it'd be just as good as long as you end up with a working prototype.

The most important thing is that people would be heavily encouraged to share their source code. So even a novice programmer could scroll through the competitions and perhaps end up learning something, and maybe making an awesome new kind of game.

This would ideally be a site-independent thing. Like even if it starts on Newgrounds it could have a separate website where you could easily browse the archives.

But I'm getting ahead of myself.

At 11/22/12 10:54 AM, egg82 wrote:

At 11/22/12 05:36 AM, 4urentertainment wrote: Thoughts?

I like the meaning behind the idea, but you should take a look at the idea more closely.

How would it be any more different than the Game Jams or the occasional ASWars?
How would it work? Is there a theme? Time limit? What are the rules?
How would you make it a popular idea? What would you do to make it appeal to enough people to get good participation from the many people who are just starting AS3 to the few AS3 gurus we have here?

I don't know that we need participation from beginners. The point of this is to have people challenged with complicated tasks that would require a lot of thinking and hopefully creative solutions. Watching a beginner to challenge himself with making a ball bounce up and down wouldn't exactly be exciting.

We've had quite a number of such challenge threads on the NG BBS already. We had an optimization battle, and we've had a couple were we just come up with random challenges and selected programmers attempt to solve them. No theme, no rules particularly. Just a generous amount of time for 2 or more people to compete against each other in a challenge.

As for how it's different from AS: Wars, well .. AS: Wars are about constructing a bot that competes against others in an arena (and in almost all past cases it's been a small circle/square that moves/shoots/heals). This is just a challenge thread. The challenges can go as far as your imagination does. It could pertain to immense notions like generating endless galaxies or cities that run themselves, or it could be more physical and precise like simulating unusual matter like fluids and elastic objects. Frankly I'm as excited to find out about challenge ideas as I am to do the challenges themselves. I hope people can come up with really fun subjects.

I absolutely love the idea of these "Code Challenges" or whatever you want to call them. I personally think it would be quite inspirational for anyone, and a great learning/experimenting experience. That's one thing I never get around to doing... just fiddling around with mechanics.

If this actually happens and turns out well, it would be neat to make a game which incorporates several concepts from these challenges :P

At 11/22/12 11:16 AM, 4urentertainment wrote: These code challenges would focus on programming specific mechanics.

ah, making bits of a full engine. I could see a lot of people getting involved if it lasted a little. Less than a week, but more than two days. Maybe four or five days? Four sounds like it would be better, but five's easier to remember.

The difference from all the above mentioned events, is that it's not a contest. There's never a clear winner. A mechanic would be announced and described, like "elastic terrain" for example. And then programmers would have say, a week to try and create this effect.

hmm... So what benefit does, say, a busy programmer gain if they were to enter this? I know one or two programmers who are very good at what they do and have a lot to offer, but if there's nothing in it for them they won't do it.
One of the reasons the Game Jams are successful is because people actually win money. It kills two birds with one stone: The psychological aspect (hey, look what I did!) and the more practical side of things (yay, I has money!)

But since there are many different ways to do anything, like someone could make a terrain that's super realistic and hyper-advanced, but someone else does it in a more crude way that turns out to be a lot more fun.

that'll happen no matter the contest/competition/whatever is made. It's one of the most interesting aspects :P

The most important thing is that people would be heavily encouraged to share their source code. So even a novice programmer could scroll through the competitions and perhaps end up learning something, and maybe making an awesome new kind of game.

I like this! :3

This would ideally be a site-independent thing. Like even if it starts on Newgrounds it could have a separate website where you could easily browse the archives.

I like this, too, but I think until we can see a clear direction, it should go on a newspost.

But I'm getting ahead of myself.

it's fine, man! I like the idea :P
but that does bring up two questions:
1. How are you going to start this, and get enough people in the first challenge to get people to recognize its potential?
2. What are you going to name it? Something easy to remember and at last somewhat self-explanatory, but also sounds cool and/or interesting.

("The Challenge"? - that brings the interest level to a full max, is easy to remember, and is pretty self-explanatory, but i'm not sure how well that would go in regular conversation)

the biggest challenge of making these kinds of things is that nobody ever gets involved.

At 11/22/12 11:30 AM, Toast wrote: I don't know that we need participation from beginners. The point of this is to have people challenged with complicated tasks that would require a lot of thinking and hopefully creative solutions. Watching a beginner to challenge himself with making a ball bounce up and down wouldn't exactly be exciting.

i'd have to disagree with this. What were to happen if we told everyone entering the Game Jams that only experienced people were allowed to enter?
besides, how would you define "experienced"?

The thing is, the more experienced you get, the more you recognize a comfort zone, and the more you want to stay in that zone. A newbie doesn't have a comfort zone, and thus can challenge themselves in ways and think of things we never realized before.
That's pretty much what this challenge is about.

Limiting the number of people limits the number of minds limits the number of ideas.

You're putting too much thought into this. If your super-good AS3 friends want not join, they need not join. Advertising, prize money, and in general attracting people to the challenges is not something I'd be preoccupied about, in my eyes the purpose here is just to stir up a little fun and activity (along with mental challenges) among NG regs. I'd be happy enough with 5-6 people participating. For reference, here's a code battle we had in 2006.

So what do you guys say we fire up a thread with the first couple of challenges this weekend? :-)

At 11/22/12 11:51 AM, egg82 wrote:

At 11/22/12 11:16 AM, 4urentertainment wrote: These code challenges would focus on programming specific mechanics.

ah, making bits of a full engine. I could see a lot of people getting involved if it lasted a little. Less than a week, but more than two days. Maybe four or five days? Four sounds like it would be better, but five's easier to remember.

The difference from all the above mentioned events, is that it's not a contest. There's never a clear winner. A mechanic would be announced and described, like "elastic terrain" for example. And then programmers would have say, a week to try and create this effect.

hmm... So what benefit does, say, a busy programmer gain if they were to enter this? I know one or two programmers who are very good at what they do and have a lot to offer, but if there's nothing in it for them they won't do it.
One of the reasons the Game Jams are successful is because people actually win money. It kills two birds with one stone: The psychological aspect (hey, look what I did!) and the more practical side of things (yay, I has money!)

At 11/22/12 11:57 AM, egg82 wrote: Limiting the number of people limits the number of minds limits the number of ideas.

I don't think Toast meant we wouldn't allow novice programmers as much as he meant that this wouldn't be geared towards them. Like the challenges would naturally be challenging, anyone can enter and although inexperienced programmers may find themselves in over their heads, sometimes the simplest solutions are the best. Occam's razor. As I said, maybe someone makes something super awesome, but someone else makes a dumbed down version that ends up being practical for game designers to use!

As for your ongoing question about how to get people interested, just like you would do for a game jam, you'd just post it, people see it and participate. It doesn't matter if we only have a handful of people first, as it would quickly grow and so on and so forth.

hmm... So what benefit does, say, a busy programmer gain if they were to enter this?

The thing about a monetary prize is that it's usually very arbitrary. The $300 prize of game jams, split between four members, is really peanuts. Or rather, it's more sentimental. These challenges would likely be completed in a few hours to a day. The only reason the deadline is a week is to give people time to see it and come up with something. There should also be no limit as to whether you want to submit something to an old event.

This is not a contest. There are no winners. This is a project to encourage programmers who want to challenge themselves, but more important, to amass a library of these cool open-source mechanics, and inject new ideas into the flash industry.

There seems to be enough support. I'll see if I can kickstart something soon, and we'll see how it goes!

And note that you don't need a monetary prize to entice people to enter. Look at ludum dare, and look at all the awesome things that come out of it.

You guys have all sorts of fun while I'm asleep. As long as we do them somewhat often (like I can skip one and not have to wait 2 months to try another), then this would be great! Comment and asdoc your code heavily so everyone can learn from it.

At 11/22/12 12:24 PM, 4urentertainment wrote: The thing about a monetary prize is that it's usually very arbitrary. The $300 prize of game jams, split between four members, is really peanuts.

though I think you're probably right, i'd just like to point out that you're talking to a guy so broke his money needs money. I personally wouldn't mind getting any cash for something i'm normally doing for free.

and like I said, I know one person who could whip up one of the best platform engines you've ever seen in two days, but there's a very good chance he won't do it for free. I'd just like to see something that he (and others like him) would enter that actually benefits other people instead of just showing off skills.

I started making this game for fuck this jam, but I didn't finish in time. I am going to try to finish it now. It's a farmville style game where you are trying to survive through a summer in the great famine. It might be boring. I'm not sure yet.

At 11/27/12 06:27 PM, PrettyMuchBryce wrote: I started making this game for fuck this jam, but I didn't finish in time. I am going to try to finish it now. It's a farmville style game where you are trying to survive through a summer in the great famine. It might be boring. I'm not sure yet.

ooh, cool! 3D, or 2.5D?
what makes it different from Farmville? Or is it just a clone? :P