Beginning Flash game programming for dummies

You can start game programming in a flash Here's how to create five different cool games - no experience necessary! Ever think you could come up with a better computer game? Then this book is for you! No boring programming theory here, just the stuff you need to know to actually make something happen, and all in plain English. Build a brain-teasing math game, go classic with Pong, create monsters and mayhem, and much more. Discover how to * Build and control basic movie clips * Make text appear and change * Generate random numbers * Add sound effects * Create cars and space vehicles that move realistically * Blow up stuff onscreen About the Author 5 Dedication 7 Table of Contents 11 Introduction 19 What’s Really (Not) Required 19 About This Book 20 How This Book Is Organized 21 Icons Used in This Book 22 Where to Go from Here 23 A Final Word 23 Part I Basic Flash 25 Chapter 1 Why You Want to Write Games in Flash 27 Designing and Writing Games 28 Game Programming in Flash 29 Comparing ActionScript with Animation 30 How You Make a Game 31 Game Programming 101 34 Chapter 2 Cruising and Using the Flash Environment 37 Creating a New Program Project 37 Adding Buttons 47 Part II The Next Steps 61 Chapter 3 Altered States 63 State of Nonconfusion 63 Adding Keyframes 65 Making a Great Adventure 71 Chapter 4 Getting with the Program 79 Different Text for Different Jobs 79 Building the Greeting Program 82 On a Roll: Making Random Numbers 87 Making Decisions with Conditions 91 Responding to False Conditions 96 Making Lots of Decisions 99 Chapter 5 Making an Interactive Game 103 Introducing the Math Game 103 Making an Adder 105 Building the Visual Design 108 Coding the Pages 113 Coping with Bugs and Crashes 124 Part III Sprites, or Movie Clips 129 Chapter 6 Introducing Sprites and Movie Clips 131 Building a Sprite 131 Don’t Object to Objects 138 Making a Well-Behaved Object 141 Overcoming Your Boundaries 146 Making a Cursor 155 Chapter 7 Won’t Be Long ’Til You Write Pong 159 Building the Game Plan 160 Following the Mouse with the Player Paddle 162 Adding the Bouncing Ball 165 Building a Better Bounce 168 Adding a Computer Opponent 174 Building Artificial Stupidity 176 Adding a Scorekeeping Mechanism 179 Part IV Getting Control of the Situation 191 Chapter 8 Keyboard Input and Audio Output 193 Introducing the Monster Traffic Game 193 Responding to the Keyboard 196 Adding Sounds 201 Chapter 9 It’s Alive! Animating Your Sprites 211 Creating Animated Sprites 211 Moving a Sprite under Computer Control 219 Creating a User-Controlled Sprite 230 Chapter 10 Building the Monster Traffic Game 237 Reviewing the Basic Design 237 Adding More Opponents 238 Firing Missiles 241 Testing for Collisions 246 Adding the Sound Effects 252 Completing the Program 254 Part V Phun with Phuzzy Physics 263 Chapter 11 Vectors and Gravity 265 Tower, Give Me a Vector 265 Doing Vector Conversion in Flash 274 Using Vector Projection in Motion 277 Fun with Ballistics 284 Calculating the Vector from dx and dy 290 Following the Mouse 293 Chapter 12 Vehicle Motion 297 Newton without the Figs 297 Newton and Vectors 301 Baby, You Can Drive My Car 305 Getting Lost in Space 319 Captain, We’re Caught in a Gravity Well 324 Building a Better Boat 330 The Secret of Traction 331 Chapter 13 The Life and Death of Sprites 335 Here We Go Loop-de-Loop 335 Making Many Things with Arrays 338 Building Sprites Dynamically 341 Creating Custom Objects 349 Part VI The Part of Tens 359 Chapter 14 Ten Math Concepts for Game Programmers 361 Managing Velocity 361 Accelerating an Object 362 Calculating a Distance 362 Projecting a Vector 363 Generating a Vector 364 Compensating for Gravity 365 Newton’s Second Law 365 Generating a Random Integer 366 Combining Vectors 366 Sophisticated Vehicle Motion 367 Chapter 15 Ten Game Starters 369 Asteroids 370 Lunar Lander 371 Egg Cannon 373 Zelda 375 Platform Scroller Games 380 Breakout 383 Space Invaders 385 Orbit Matcher 387 Tile-Based World Games 389 Whack-an-Author 391 Index 395 Ever think you could come up with a better computer game? Here's how to create five different games - no experience necessary! No boring programming theory here, just the stuff you need to know to actually make something happen, and all in plain English. Build a brain-teasing math game, go classic with Pong, create monsters and mayhem, and much more. Discover how to: build and control basic movie clips; make text appear and change; generate random numbers; add sound effects; create cars and space vehicles that move realistically; and blow up stuff onscreen. Provides techniques for using Flash in creating computer games, covering such topics as generating random numbers, adding sound effects, and creating cars and space vehicles with realistic movement.