Macromedia Flash MX 2004 Game Development (Game Development Series)

Rating:
Summary: THE FLASH GAMING BOOK
Review: Flash MX 2004 Game Development is the perfect book for developing games with Flash. It's not too verbose and takes the Flash Developer right to where they want to be, into the meat of the code behind the games.

The chapters follow a natural progression from simple games and concepts, as in Whack A Mole, to very advanced gaming. Mars Racer offers probably the best collision detecting code that I've seen in Flash. And Asteroid Run offers some really good concepts in developing games with 3D in mind.

There is a great deal of Actionscripting covered. The code behind the games, as with the chapters, follows an increasing curve in complexity. I found that as a Developer, I learned a lot from not only WHY the code was written, but HOW it was written. There is a great deal of knowledge to be garnered with good form and syntax in the code as well. And, I found the code was really well written and very easy to understand with good explanations throughout all of the chapters. The algorithm used to make the Word Search game is really well thought out.

The book does make the assumption that the reader is familiar with Flash. If you would consider various "how-to" operations in Flash, such as the creation of movieclip symbols, buttons, and adding layers. These processes are covered in earlier chapters, but are assumed to be understood later on. Focusing most of the writing on the code and developing. I've found that in previous Gaming books, the description of various "how-to" tasks become repetitive, and as a result, make the book unnecessarily longer. Not the case with this book.

Personally, there is a great deal of knowledge to be learned. As mentioned before, the collision detection code is simply some of the best code I've seen. The chapter on Optimization will save the Game Developer hours of troubleshooting to get games to perform fast even on slower machines.

The games themselves are fun. You'll probably play them many times on their own. Each chapter covering a new game starts out with a description of the game. The goals and premise of what is needed. Very important when learning the game development process.

An excellent book and a simple MUST HAVE for your Flash Library.

Rating:
Summary: I learned to program games
Review: I had always wanted to get into game programming but the thought of starting was very daunting to me. I knew how to program in Actionscript, but I didn't know the game concepts.

Then this book came along. I picked this up just to "see" if I could have a go at game programming. What I didn't expect was that this book would make things so easy for me. It starts off simple enough, getting into a bit of history and then goes on to simple games.

It progresses up the difficulty ladder until the last half of the book which is where some serious game wizardry takes place. Glen Rhodes takes us through all the deep dark hallways of Flash game development until we come out on the other side with a new understanding. I could confidently sit and make almost any Flash game now. Glen gives us the tools so that the only remaining limitation is our own imagination.

The physics engine is incredible, especially as it is applied to arbitrary (and randomly generated) terrain, with full motion vehicle physics. It shows that Glen Rhodes comes from the professional game programming world, where he used to make games for Playstation. It's incredible to see this brought into Flash.