Foundation Game Design with ActionScript 3.0, Second Edition

Foundation Game Design with ActionScript 3.0, Second Edition

Released January 2012
Publisher(s): friends of ED
ISBN: 9781430239932

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Book description

In response to the success of the first edition of Foundation Game Design with Flash, Rex van der Spuy has revised and updated all the code to meet current programming best practices, and the focus is now on accurate ActionScript 3.0, regardless of the IDE that you use.

We've all sneaked the odd five minutes here or there playing the latest Flash game that someone sent around the office, but creating those games is trickier than it looks. The aim of Foundation Game Design with ActionScript 3.0 is to take you, even if you've minimal multimedia or programming experience, through a series of step-by-step examples and detailed case studies–to the point where you'll have the skills to independently design any conceivable 2D game using Flash and ActionScript.

Foundation Game Design with ActionScript 3.0 is a non-technical one-stop shop for all the most important skills and techniques a beginning game designer needs to build games with Flash from scratch. Whether you're creating quick blasts of viral amusement, or more in-depth action or adventure titles, this is the book for you.

  • Focused and friendly introduction to designing games with Flash and ActionScript

  • Detailed case studies of Flash games

  • Essential techniques for building games, with each chapter gently building on the skills of preceding chapters

  • Modern best practices and new content on ActionScript 3.0

  • Also covers asset creation in Photoshop and Illustrator

What you'll learn

  • How to build interactive movies and objects with Flash

  • A thorough grounding in ActionScript 3.0 and good programming practices, with minimal prior programming experience required

  • How to build interactive storybooks, space-shooter, adventure and drag-and-drop games

  • To master collision detection, enemy AI systems, player control, managing game data, basic physics and trigonometry

  • To make use of design patterns and object-oriented programming techniques to build robust games

  • Strategies for making games fun to play and easy to build

Who this book is for

This book is for a non-technical, creative person who wants to learn the art of video game design, but has no idea where to start or where to look for help. It is a lucid, friendly and step-by-step guide though all the technical and creative issues involved in game design with Flash and ActionScript. The book treats programming as a creative artistic tool, and will help anyone who may be afraid of programming come to love the subject as much as the author does. The techniques in the book are comprehensive enough to form the basis of career as a game designer, and form a solid foundation for continued study of programming and ActionScript. This book is the missing link that will guide and inspire any curious and creative person turn a good game idea into a reality.

Table of contents

  1. Title
  2. Dedication
  3. Contents
  4. About the Author
  5. About the Technical Reviewer
  6. About the Cover Image Designer
  7. Acknowledgments
  8. Introduction
  9. Chapter 1: Programming Foundations: How To Make A Video Game
    1. Basic requirements
    2. Things you need to know
    3. And the things you don't need to know
    4. It's all about programming
    5. Programming? But I'm terrible at math!
    6. I already know how to program!
    7. Using Flash Builder
    8. Writing your first program
    9. ActionScript files and the .as file extension
    10. I'll take that to go!
    11. What's your directive?
    12. Adding comments to your code
    13. Running your program and compiling the SWF file
    14. It didn't work?
    15. More about Flash Builder
    16. A little more about AS3.0 and the Flash Player
    17. Naming conventions
    18. Summary
  10. Chapter 2: Making Game Graphics
    1. Create a game world background
    2. Making a game character
    3. Making buttons
    4. Checking your work
    5. More about Photoshop
    6. Summary
  11. Chapter 3: Programming Objects
    1. But I'm a bit scared of programming!
    2. Loading and displaying images
    3. Programming buttons
    4. Controlling Sprite objects with properties
    5. Moving incrementally
    6. Centering Sprites
    7. Code summary
  12. Chapter 4: Decision Making
    1. Using text
    2. Building a simple guessing game
    3. Learning more about variables
    4. Making decisions
    5. Using postfix operators to change variable values by one
    6. Polishing up
    7. Making really nice buttons
    8. Adding the button to the number guessing game
    9. Project extensions
    10. A quick guide to embedding fonts
    11. Summary
  13. Chapter 5: Controlling A Player Character
    1. Controlling a player character with the keyboard
    2. Embedding images
    3. Scrolling
    4. Taking it further
    5. Summary
  14. Chapter 6: Bumping Into Things
    1. Triggering a change of state
    2. The bad news about hitTestObject
    3. Working with vector based collision detection
    4. Summary
  15. Chapter 7: Making Games
    1. Making the game graphics
    2. Programming the game
    3. Creating a scrolling game environment
    4. Summary
  16. Chapter 8: Making Bigger Games
    1. Understanding the game structure
    2. Programming the game
    3. Firing stars in four directions in level two
    4. More Monster Mayhem!
    5. A little more about game structure
    6. Summary
  17. Chapter 9: Physics, Loops, Arrays, and Sounds
    1. Natural motion using physics
    2. Adding sounds to games
    3. Working with many objects
    4. Summary
  18. Chapter 10: Advanced Object And Character Control
    1. Moving objects with the mouse
    2. Case study: Firing projectiles in all directions
    3. Advanced player control systems
    4. Enemy AI systems
    5. Case study: Killer Bee Pandemonium!
    6. Summary
  19. Index

Product information

  • Title: Foundation Game Design with ActionScript 3.0, Second Edition
  • Author(s):
  • Release date: January 2012
  • Publisher(s): friends of ED
  • ISBN: 9781430239932