Flash Games Studio

Rating:
Summary: You want to develope a Flash game?
Review: As friends of ED have a positive reputation for their books I didn't have to decide too long to buy this one. And indeed, it lived up to my expectations.

It starts with the very essential questions like which kind of game you would like to develop and all that comes along, like the rules of the game, using 3D or not, actionscripting, interactive sounds etc.

Personally I thought the 3D part was most useful to me but I can assure yoy you will discover and learn more each time you start reading it again.
So even my own journey is far from over yet.

The great thing about the way it is written is the fact it gets you trying and practicing and I believe that's the best way to learn things.

As you might have seen on the ...site, the printed index in the book is incorrect. This made me hesitate a little bit but after downloading it, it isn't that inconvienient and confusing after all.

All in all I believe this book is a must have for all who want to develop a Flash game.

Rating:
Summary: Well Done Advanced Game Book
Review: I like this book alot. I have worked through a slew of books on
flash since Flash 4, and this one makes the most sense to me from the mechanics of game programming POV. Organized, and to the point. Don't make this the first book you read on Flash,
cause you will be in over your head. It focuses just on the advanced engineering of game relating to Flash.

Rating:
Summary: complex but incredible ....
Review: Incredible book. The authors have brought the game classic game development environment on the flash platform.
Os probably the most complex book on flash games, but it' a must to have on your developer shelf!

Rating:
Summary: mediocre at best
Review: Of course there's nothing new or amazing here as flash5 is "old" by this era's definition and this book was made in August 2001, but that doesn't mean having a book on this topic isn't useful in and of itself.

The problem with this type of book is that it skims the "core essentials" of gamemaking, and provides completed games for you to teach yourself... I could go to a dozen sites and teach myself games.

What I need is a book that holds your hand through building the essential widgets in game making. multiple hit tests, function completion, forking the same function with multiple instances, etc. Not something that says "see? here's a game that does all this stuff now look through it."

This book will only be frustrating to someone who loves the friends of ed series. . . but it acts as a great tool to sell the other books for sure, as I learned more about game making in Flash 5 Actionscript Studio & Flash 5 Dynamic Content studio than in this book.

Bottomline: this should have been entitled Flash Games Exhibition

Rating:
Summary: yeh, yeh, yeh, seen it all at Flashkit.com
Review: some of the stuff was interesting, but I have see many similar examples for free at Flashkit.com and other sites. I wanted to see really cool and engaging games that pushed the limits of ActionScript.

Rating:
Summary: Well Done Advanced Game Book
Review: The authors in this book have provided an enormous amount of code to pick through and learn from. If that's your sort of thing this book is great!

Make no mistake the Authors do assume you have a handle on ActionScripting!

Really great detailed chapter on flash optimization!

Rating:
Summary: Great for newbie game developers in flash environment
Review: The authors in this book have provided an enormous amount of code to pick through and learn from. If that's your sort of thing this book is great!

Make no mistake the Authors do assume you have a handle on ActionScripting!

Really great detailed chapter on flash optimization!

Rating:
Summary: Ambitious with a decent scope
Review: There's a fair amount of good content, with a couple of chapters on 3d by Glen Rhodes, who is a good author and inspiring scripter.

Rating:
Summary: Book is OK, not great.
Review: This is a decent book, if you have little or no experience with games. Some of the tips on optimization for Flash are very helpful. However, many of the more complicated issues around building games are left out. For instance, there is a chapter on making "scrolling" games, a la Super Mario Bros. But, the whole chapter is devoted to building a level editor for the game. While very necessary, this is a much much simpler project than building the actual game. The difficult (and critical!) parts of making a game, like the engine architecture, are not explained at all. To find out how to make a working game, you really need to download the source code from the Friends of Ed website. This you can do without purchasing the book.