reallyfancy.com

I talk Flixel, dragons, puddings, etc.

Posted by Kerry on August 12, 2010 | Permalink
Filed under: General chatter

My Flixel talk is available online now!

Head to live.flashbrighton.org and click the bottom right icon to see the on-demand content. Mine’s the one called “Flixel Game Engine – Kerry Turner”, of course.

This probably goes without saying, but FYI: it’s a bit more sweary and less competent than most online tutorials.

If you’d like the source for the demo game I made and an installation guide for Flixel/Flex/FlashDevelop on Windows, check out this post. Yes, I am kind.

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Experimental EGP post

Posted by Kerry on August 11, 2010 | Permalink
Filed under: Work in progress

Switchbreak blogged about creating a game for this month’s Experimental Gameplay Project. I liked it – in fact, I always like reading about other people’s workflow and creative process. I thought I’d have a go at doing the same.

You join me about a day and a half into the challenge. This month’s theme is “zero buttons” – that is to say, no mouse clicks, no key presses. I don’t have any ideas for theme, tone, etc., upfront, but I’m not worried – I decide to let the interactions suggest all that, in keeping with my current interest in games where the actions performed by the player are somehow analogous to the actions performed by the player-character. (Note to self: there’s got to be a catchier name for those.)

I originally planned to adapt a hover interface that I’ve been thinking about for another game, but I scrapped that idea in favour of using the microphone because I’ve never used the microphone in AS3 before. Holly Golightly, eat your heart out.

It turns out that you can’t analyse microphone input frequency on the fly unless you want to mess around with Flash Media Server, Red5 and the like (which I don’t, obv). This leaves me with timing and volume to play with. I think of a singing game that measures volume rather than pitch – which would be a shouting game, I suppose. Promising enough.

I crack on and knock up a rough and ready microphone input handling class that’s friendly with the Flixel framework. So far it’s just spitting out traces – nothing graphical – but I’m pleased with the responsiveness. I extend it to record average volume over a period of time and to ignore short silences, allowing it to respond to sentences – or, more precisely, noises with gaps in between. I’m still not sure exactly how this game is going to play, but I’m enjoying shouting at my laptop.

With five and a half days to go, that’s where I’m at. I estimate I’ll spend another two and a half days on core dev/design stuff, then three days on polishing. Join me after the weekend to see how poor my time estimates are.

PS: I’ll try to throw together an actual demo – or, at the very least, a picture – by then.

4 comments

Hooray for Hugs

Posted by Kerry on July 12, 2010 | Permalink
Filed under: Games

This game is an extremely silly collaboration with the lovely Alice O’Connor. It came into being at the Game Jam that followed World of Love. The suggested themes for the session were “vegetables” and “hugs”. It was a tough choice, so we went for both.

Play Hooray for Hugs (requires Flash Player 9 or higher)
Download source code (ActionScript 3 and Flixel)

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My Flixel talk: demo, source code and a couple of other bits

Posted by Kerry on July 7, 2010 | Permalink
Filed under: How to

Thanks to everyone who attended or watched the stream of my Flixel talk last night. I think it went pretty well, although I’ve been kicking myself all day about the cool things I meant to mention but completely forgot. You guys, FlxG.debug! Etc.

For anyone who didn’t make it but is desperate to watch me make an arse of very basic physics, I think the video should be up soon. I’ll let you know when it is, of course.

As promised, here’s the source code for the AMAZING example game I made in the second half of the session. I should explain that the purpose of this example wasn’t to wow anyone with my coding prowess – rather to show how quick it is to get a very basic game up and running using Flixel, and to demonstrate some of the really handy helper methods like createGraphic().

Play Flixel demo (God knows why you’d want to, though)
Download source code (ActionScript 3 and Flixel)

Here also is my a quick description of the config I’m using, as a few people seem to have trouble getting Flixel set up – but please note, this is Windows only. I’ve got FlashDevelop 3.2.1 (get it here), Flex SDK 3.5 (get it here), Flash 10.1 debug standalone player (get it here). I’m currently using Flixel 2.23 but I’m about to upgrade to 2.35 once I’ve finished my next project – I’d recommend going with the most stable recent version (get it here).

Finally, here’s a link to the site where I found the royalty-free music for the demo: http://www.pacdv.com/sounds/. You’re welcome.

Oh, and post-finally – here are a couple of links some great resources for help with Flixel: the Flixel documentation, the Flixel forums and the incredible Flixel section of the Flash Games Dojo. These’ll sort you out, no problem.

Now start making games!

2 comments

Hello Facebook API

Posted by Kerry on June 27, 2010 | Permalink
Filed under: Games

Here’s something short and mean-spirited that I made at the Games Jam following World of Love. The theme was “Facebook”.

It uses the Facebook API, and is about how using the Facebook API made me feel. It’s probably best not played at work.

NB: It doesn’t do anything malicious with your login info – just personalises your experience.

Play Hello Facebook API

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You too can make magnificent games with Flixel

Posted by Kerry on June 21, 2010 | Permalink
Filed under: Flash

I’m giving a talk on Flixel at Flash Brighton (here) on July 6th at 7pm. The title will be “Making games with Flixel” (or something that means the same, only pithier) and the session will be in two parts: a quick (but very informative) intro to Flixel, followed by a demonstration during which I’ll attempt to make a short game BEFORE YOUR VERY EYES.

I’ll be aiming my talk at anyone with an interest in making games and a basic grasp of object-oriented programming, so you don’t need to be an ActionScript expert to come along – and Flixel doesn’t need a copy of Flash to run, so no need to worry about that either.

If you’re anywhere nearby, do come along. If not, don’t worry – it’ll be streamed live at http://live.flashbrighton.org/, and you can contribute to the white heat of intellectual debate via the chat box there or on by tweeting @flashbrighton.

UPDATE: The event is now up on upcoming. Sign up! The session description, like all Flash Brighton session descriptions, is a literary pastiche by our resident copywriter. But it also serves as a handy guide to what it’s like sitting next to me in the pub after this sort of thing.

2 comments

Passenger

Posted by Kerry on June 15, 2010 | Permalink
Filed under: Games

Another Flixel game. Did I mention that I ♥ Flixel?

Play Passenger (requires Flash Player 9 or higher)
Download source code (ActionScript 3 and Flixel)

3 comments

And you were there, except it wasn’t really you.

Posted by Kerry on May 27, 2010 | Permalink
Filed under: Writing about games

I don’t usually post links on here – that’s what Twitter’s for, silly – but I’ve been thinking about this post by Laura Michet at the excellent Second Person Shooter for a week now. A whole week!

Michet’s idea of game-work, where she uses the Freudian concept of dream-work to understand and talk about games, instantly clicked with me. Actually, I mean more than that – I want to tell everyone I know to read this, so “clicked with” won’t do at all. It struck me? It delighted me. Anyway.

When you combine all the stuff that is in a game—the obvious stuff, like the art and the script and the mechanics, and then all the ‘latent’ stuff, like “how does this control scheme influence the way I think about the game?” or “what’s special about the actions the game makes me perform?” or “what does this game assume about its audience?” or “how did the game’s creators establish its tone and mood?” and so on, it helps you to get a more complete and holistic idea of what’s actually going on in the game you’re playing—what’s special about it, and what it’s doing to your brain.

This resonates with me for two reasons.

Firstly, it’s a much more eloquent, expansive and well thought out take on something I’ve been thinking about recently. I’ve specifically been interested in the relationship between controls and content for a while now, particularly in games where there’s a strong correspondence between the two. I hand-on-heart believe that the old joystick-wagglers were onto something, even if they didn’t quite hit the mark, and I’m curious to see whether I can follow this idea somewhere interesting. Hearing other people talking about this without recourse to the dreaded “gameplay” makes me feel like I’m not just wasting my life here.

Secondly, it’s a pleasing coincidence. The short project I’m currently working on borrows its narrative from a dream I had (no, wait! Come back!), so I’ve been thinking quite a lot about game-spaces and dream-spaces and how they relate. I want to make the game recognisably dream-like without sacrificing too much of what makes it a game – and the searingly simple point of view that, as the title of the post says, “games are dreams” is quite a freeing take on that dilemma.

Also, props for the mention of Don’t Look Back. If you don’t follow me on Twitter or have to put up with me in real life, you might not know that this game has my heart. My heart.

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Coverlet

Posted by Kerry on May 18, 2010 | Permalink
Filed under: Games

Another short Flixel project, this time inspired by traditional textile crafts. No, really.

Play Coverlet (requires Flash Player 9)
Download source code (ActionScript 3 and Flixel)

5 comments

Enough

Posted by Kerry on May 6, 2010 | Permalink
Filed under: Games

I decided to have a go with Flixel this weekend. Here’s what I made.

Play Enough (requires Flash Player 9)
Download source code (ActionScript 3 and Flixel)

2 comments