Summary of the past year ( some images)
by S2P · 12/15/2008 (6:28 am) · 5 comments
It has been a while since my last blog entry (confession!) - I've been a bit busy working on a multitude of things; here's a small summary of the past year;
Over the past 8 months or so I've been learning Flash CS3 (AS2 and AS3), just to see what it's limitations are, working out solutions for various game types and produced a fair number of games and engines for clients using flash based gaming tools I have created to achieve this. Over the next few months I am migrating together and updating these tools to make a combined games engine suite capable of creating web based games on the fly without any prior knowledge of how to code, later adding in a scripting engine to further enhance these tools - currently the engine is 2D. I've been looking at using Swift 3D to convert some 3D assets as a proof of concept and enable the engine to be capable of 3D flash. At the moment I am not sure on whether the engine suite will be released to the public, or whether I keep the engine to develop games independently. Watch this space and some screenies appearing next year. There is also a bolt on MMORPG engine I've worked on which has been developed in php/mysql and is semi-real time with a flash client, but making it more real-time and interactive is the key. I've developed a unique engine for a client in flash, using php/mysql in the background and database connectivity is quite a nightmare without using Flash Remoting and AMFPHP, which costs $500 for Flash Remoting on a commercial level, and AMFPHP is open source. Anyone use, or know of a persistent based database component for flash without having to write one from scratch?
Some of the flash games I've produced;
Content Packs
City of Stone (Work in Progress - final pack will be quite large) - available in about a week.
The title says it all. A series of structures created in kit form so that you can build your own city. Add paths, steps, bridges, buildings with internals and other structures made of stone to create an additional city for your game. Once finished the pack will be sold for $14 with additional items and some bonus ones for Christmas.
The internal building modules pack as shown in a previous blog will be launching in the New Year with 3 internal textures, (sci-fi, medieval and desert). The whole design has been updated to accomodate these three styles and compliment each other with a series of external structures (starting with desert, then medieval and then sci-fi) to create a whole product range available for you to pick and mix, by using the base pack and add the structures you want as and when, then drop them into your game. A fair bit of time has been put into this pack and hopefully it will save you time in creating your own internal structures, modify your existing buildings to accomodate them or use our external packs. If anyone knows of a free tool that can weld two structures together then please point me to it :) Else any 3d package should enable you to weld them together with a small amount of work.
Survival Strike
The migration from TGE to TGEA was put on the back-burner while I finished off some contract work. Updates to Survival Strike will be going strong over Christmas and New Year with further enhancements being made to the artwork, revisiting some of the code and gui artwork. I should then have a game server up and running for some multi-player testing before 2008 is no more, then adding all of the remaining features that are in need of some bug fixing in Jan 2009. I recently added SSAO (all credit to the guys at Ubiq Visuals) it certainly adds value to the game.
Well... That's it. I like to keep busy, but there's just not enough hours in the day!! Have a great Christmas, if you don't see another blog entry from me until the New Year.
Over the past 8 months or so I've been learning Flash CS3 (AS2 and AS3), just to see what it's limitations are, working out solutions for various game types and produced a fair number of games and engines for clients using flash based gaming tools I have created to achieve this. Over the next few months I am migrating together and updating these tools to make a combined games engine suite capable of creating web based games on the fly without any prior knowledge of how to code, later adding in a scripting engine to further enhance these tools - currently the engine is 2D. I've been looking at using Swift 3D to convert some 3D assets as a proof of concept and enable the engine to be capable of 3D flash. At the moment I am not sure on whether the engine suite will be released to the public, or whether I keep the engine to develop games independently. Watch this space and some screenies appearing next year. There is also a bolt on MMORPG engine I've worked on which has been developed in php/mysql and is semi-real time with a flash client, but making it more real-time and interactive is the key. I've developed a unique engine for a client in flash, using php/mysql in the background and database connectivity is quite a nightmare without using Flash Remoting and AMFPHP, which costs $500 for Flash Remoting on a commercial level, and AMFPHP is open source. Anyone use, or know of a persistent based database component for flash without having to write one from scratch?
Some of the flash games I've produced;
Content Packs
City of Stone (Work in Progress - final pack will be quite large) - available in about a week.
The title says it all. A series of structures created in kit form so that you can build your own city. Add paths, steps, bridges, buildings with internals and other structures made of stone to create an additional city for your game. Once finished the pack will be sold for $14 with additional items and some bonus ones for Christmas.
The internal building modules pack as shown in a previous blog will be launching in the New Year with 3 internal textures, (sci-fi, medieval and desert). The whole design has been updated to accomodate these three styles and compliment each other with a series of external structures (starting with desert, then medieval and then sci-fi) to create a whole product range available for you to pick and mix, by using the base pack and add the structures you want as and when, then drop them into your game. A fair bit of time has been put into this pack and hopefully it will save you time in creating your own internal structures, modify your existing buildings to accomodate them or use our external packs. If anyone knows of a free tool that can weld two structures together then please point me to it :) Else any 3d package should enable you to weld them together with a small amount of work.
Survival Strike
The migration from TGE to TGEA was put on the back-burner while I finished off some contract work. Updates to Survival Strike will be going strong over Christmas and New Year with further enhancements being made to the artwork, revisiting some of the code and gui artwork. I should then have a game server up and running for some multi-player testing before 2008 is no more, then adding all of the remaining features that are in need of some bug fixing in Jan 2009. I recently added SSAO (all credit to the guys at Ubiq Visuals) it certainly adds value to the game.
Well... That's it. I like to keep busy, but there's just not enough hours in the day!! Have a great Christmas, if you don't see another blog entry from me until the New Year.
About the author
Time saving game tools and gameplay developer. http://www.indiegamedevelopertools.com
#2
12/15/2008 (6:34 am)
Thanks David. Having an off day! Updated.. 
#3
One of your other options might be to do some hybrid stuff, like write a Torque Dedicated database server in the back end using TCPObject and sockets to communicate with a swf. This is more along the lines of the 'write from scratch' venue, although a lot of the work is done already for you ;)
Edit: I know you're writing your own backend, but red5 does this kind of thing already too!
www.actionscript.org/resources/articles/617/1/Streaming-and-database-connection-...
12/15/2008 (8:24 am)
If you decide to use AIR you can use SQLite in asynch or synch mode. Deployment changes a bit though, as AIR kinda changes you to be a standalone app.One of your other options might be to do some hybrid stuff, like write a Torque Dedicated database server in the back end using TCPObject and sockets to communicate with a swf. This is more along the lines of the 'write from scratch' venue, although a lot of the work is done already for you ;)
Edit: I know you're writing your own backend, but red5 does this kind of thing already too!
www.actionscript.org/resources/articles/617/1/Streaming-and-database-connection-...
#4
12/15/2008 (8:31 am)
Hi Dave. I did take a look at AIR, only skimming the surface, but will take another look. It's more for the flash game engine than Torque, but could have it's possibilities. Not sure how it would be wrapped up in Torque though without taking out the swf and replacing it with a custom one to get around security if you know what variables it uses. Have you used Flash for Torque Gui's before?
#5
12/16/2008 (6:55 am)
You were looking for database functionality, AIR will let you do it by adding sqlite and many other functionalities to your swf, but its got to be deployed as an AIR app (AIR is kind of a wrapper allowing lots of functionality). The Torque server method I outlined involves using a Torque dedicated server out on the net somewhere talking to a database, and doing socket communications with a swf using TCPObject. So it's using Torque as a socket server basically (kind of what red5 and others offer).
Employee David Montgomery-Blake
David MontgomeryBlake
Looking good, though!