8bitrocket.com Blog

3/18/2010 Ouch My Face Hurts! A Facebook Social Games Deep Dive.

New Flash Game Development Blog Entry : Mochi Game Developer's Fund Chronicles Num. 2: Ouch My Face Hurts! A Facebook Social Games Deep Dive

So I've never really played a 'social' game on Facebook before today. Since those types of games were propped-up by some as the 'second coming' at FGS, and because the Mochi Game Developer Fund is looking for 'social' games, I decided to experience these amazing monetary achievements for myself and see what I've been missing. I'm not talking about successful Flash games with truly addictive game play that have been made to work with Facebook (i.e. Desktop Tower Defense), I'm talking about the holy grail according to the four social games panelists at FGS: ones that have been built with Facebook in-mind from the ground-up.

Taking a cue from that very same Social Games Panel at FGS, I went to visit one of the 'ladder owners', Zynga, to see what games they advertise on their web site. I clicked on a game that I've never heard anyone talk about, Coaster Kingdom (sorry, I refuse to link to it). I'm a huge fan of Roller Coaster Tycoon, and I thought this would be right-up my alley.

However, when I got to the 'game', my 'deep dive' knocked me into reality as my head smacked the very bottom of this wading pool rather quickly and it still hurts from the shock of it all. What I found was really not a game at all, just a fancy disguise on-top of the Facebook friends, awards and payments system

(much more diatribe after the jump)

3/16/2010 New 8bitrocket Game Release: BlasterMines

New Flash Game Development Blog Entry : New 8bitrocket Game Release: BlasterMines

BlasterMines is the second game released as a demonstration of the Essential Flash Games Book. Unlike Tunnel Panic (from 2 weeks ago) very little was changed or added to this game from the book version.

BlasterMines is an update of the game Mine-X 4K that I created for the Game Poetry 4K game contest in 2009. Every line of code was changed and optimized for render speed from the 4K version. Sounds were added, the game loop timer was changed to a time-based step timer, the particles and projectiles were placed in pools for re-use and much more. The control was modified to just use the mouse and the ship auto-fires so no one gets a bad case of 'mouse finger'. Also, this chapter in the book (chapter 11) shows the reader how to create my frame rate profiler, and add pause and mute functionality to the game framework we build throughout the chapters.

...[more]

3/15/2010 Haiku: The Genesis Of The Mochi Game Development Fund

New Flash Game Development Blog Entry :

Haiku: The The Genesis Of The Mochi Game Development Fund

Mochi Media
Their API seeds sprouted
A new business

Game Developers
Flocked to their code empire
Looking for freedom

In-Flash ads promised
Monetized free-to-play games
Indie devs saw green

They soon discovered
The slavery of Flash games
Was e. C. P. M.

As games were launched
Wealth storm dreams turned into
A penny sprinkle

Devs turned then to
Licenses and sponsorships
A market was born

But some still craved
A universal platform
Mochi was not done

The pennies flowed
And Mochi kept on building
Pennies begat Coins

Coins were a gamble
Was gold in the hills named
'Microtransactions'?

Paying customers
Required better game dev
Better meant bigger

Bigger took more time
Time meant cash, and the pennies
Just did not add up

Shanda met Mochi
Social games met Viral games
Love was in the air

Mochi And Shanda
Sitting in a money tree
Ten thousand G's high

Promise to make games
Social in nature? Then they might
Just throw you a branch

They are ready to
Start doling out the goods, are
You ready to answer?

3/14/2010 Our book has already been pirated over 25,000 times in 2 days. Yea for the internet. (Update: Steve's a noob)

New Flash Game Development Blog Entry :

So our book is out, which is cool. You can even 'buy' it now. However, one look at the the 'download' sites shows me how fruitless it is to write anything these days. Here is an image from one of those 'download' aggregation sites:

(Update: This was fake site. See comments below. My relief is only matched by my embarrassment. At least you know I don't pirate stuff myself!)

(see image after the jump)

3/14/2010 Essential Flash Games Book Released!

New Flash Game Development Blog Entry : Essential Flash Games Book Launched

So, the book is finally out. It contains 12 chapters and 13 games to create (some very small, some quite large). We developed our own moderate OOP framework that all of the games use as an outline. Each game can be compiled in both the Flex SDK (we use Flash Develop) and the Flash IDE (CS3 and beyond). There is virtually no time-line based code (except in chapter 1 and in the chapter 12 IDE preloaer). The idea was to teach how to make games with pure AS3, bitmaps, sounds, and the drawing API using an OOP method and our own design-pattern created specifically for games.

It took a long time with many revisions. I hope it is a valuable tool for those who need it.

Now we take a deep breath and hope that more people buy it than pirate it (or at least those that use it will buy a copy).

Note: The page length is wrong on all the sites. We went 250 pages over the 400 page mark they set for us. There just was not enough space for all of our diatribes and what not. The actual page length is 650+

3/13/2010 Mochi Game Developer fund Chronicles Num. 1: Signing Up!

New Flash Game Development Blog Entry :

The Mochi Game Developer Fund (A $10,000,000 fund to help game developers implement Mochi services and make games that will conquer the world) went live this week.

We are going to start Chronicling our experiences with this new opportunity for indie game developers. The story might be short-lived (if we are rejected), or endure (if not), but no matter, it's a very interesting development in the Flash game world that needs to be covered.
(more after the jump)

3/11/2010 Poll: How Long Should The Flash Gaming Summit Be Next Year?

New Flash Game Development Blog Entry : I have to tell you, after going to FGS (Flash Gaming Summit) on Monday, the rest of the week has been a complete drag. I can't 'get over' meeting all the great, serious Flash Game Developers out there, and finding out how much we had in common. I know the GDC follwed FGS, but GDC is hardly focused on Game Development any longer, opting to grow into more of an E3.

My question to you is this: how long do you think FGS should be? How much good content do you think could be collected and shown that would interest serious Flash developers?

Head over here to take our poll and tell us what you think

3/10/2010 Steve Woita: An Original Atari 2600 Game Developer Tackles Flash Games, Speaks-Up About Flash And CGE 2010

New Flash Game Development Blog Entry :

' I feel like I've got more ideas for new types of games to build now then I did back then because there are so many great games to get inspired from now'

- Steve Woita, March 9, 2010

If you know 8bitrocket.com then you know we love Flash games. You also know that we love retro games. You also know that we love retro-evolved games, and that we love to interview and gleen game development knowledge from the masters and creators of the genre, the 8-bit and 16-bit programmers for systems like the Atari 2600, atari 800 and Atari ST. Last week we were please to find out a 'perfect storm' was brewing along these lines, and was visiting our site. Steve Woita, A genuine Atari 2600 programmer not only contacted us, but told us that he was using our tutorials and information to help make his own Flash games. Nothing, and I mean NOTHING could be more exciting to us than to have one of our heroes not only contact us, but treat us like peers in this odd and fascinating journey through the world of Flash games.

(more information and an interview after the jump)

3/9/2010 Flash Gaming Summit Report Num. 1: The Longest Day

New Flash Game Development Blog Entry :

(edit: I was so tired I smiised that the title for this story was 'Flah Gaming Summit:' for the past 7 hours. Duh!)

We just returned from our day in at the UCSF Mission Bay conference Center attending The Flash Gaming Summit 2010.

I left my house at 4:00 A.M. this morning, picked up my brother, drove the airport, parked in the $30 maximum a day lot, received my boarding passes, got scanned my airport security, boarded the plane, flew for 1:30 minutes, disembarked, caught a taxi, rode to UCSF, waited in line for a badge, got my free t-shirt and bag, ate the free breakfast, listened to a key-note by Jameson Hsu, attended 3 more successive panel discussions, ate lunch, got a free Zynga t0shirt (I'm not sure why) attended 4 more panel discussions, rode a bus to after party, had a beer, walked through downtown SF looking for a restaurant, ate at CPK, fooled the Westin concierge that I was guest so she would call taxi, rode in taxi with foul-mouthed driver named Sam to the airport, got scanned by airport security a second time, changed my flight so that I would not be stuck until 10:45 on delayed flight, boarded the plane, flew back home for 1:30, got in my car, paid $30, dropped my brother off at his house, and drove and returned home at 11:00 PM.
(more after the jump)

3/9/2010 Classic Gaming Expo Returns in 2010!

New Atari Nerd Blog Entry : I've been 'off' retro games for the past few months. I gave them up for lent (actually, I gave them up after some ex-classic gaming a-hole personality decided that the well received interview I did with him was not good enough for him). I still like making and playing 'retro inspired' and especially 'retro evolved' games, I'm just not that into actual retro games because there are just too many great developers doing great things right now to waste my time on the past too much any longer)...but I really digress.

Today I received this announcement of the Classic Gaming Expo 2010 in the email. I've never been to one of these, but they are the premier event in the Classic Gaming World. Right now, I would not be a good person to interpret this thing, so instead, I'll just post the press release. It looks like fun.

(larger, thrilling images that you can actually read after the jump)

3/9/2010 Flash Indie Game Interweb Mash-up: March 9, 2010: Flash Gaming Summit Edition

New Flash Game Development Blog Entry :

Flash Indie Game Interweb Mash-up: March 9, 2010: Flash Gaming Summit Edition

The 2010 Flash Gaming Summit was a great day all around (with a few strange exceptions). Today's mash-up will be based on things we saw and people we met during this long day

Who we met:

Untold Entertainment
During a couple of the presentations there was one dude who kept asking some pretty 'hard-hitting' questions. For example, he asked Joel from Addicting Games why his content has adult themes but is targeted at children. Ada Chen also seem to not want to say anything on record to him. He turned out to be Ryan Henson Creighton of Untold Entertainment. Ryan (like everyone else) turned out to by quite a nice dude. He had an iPhone demo app he tried to show us, but somehow we got distracted in any case it was good to meet him. Ryan, let's talk further about that one. I have two new Objective C books that I am going through right now...

The Push Button Engine
Ben Garney (pretty tall dude) was there doing a talk on his amazing Push Button Engine (Flash game development framework/engine). We didn't get to see his panel discussion as we were stuck taking notes on some other presentations (I'll get to those in a minute). We did get to talk to Ben for a few minutes as we waited for the ill-fated ride to the over-crowded after party. I think I will have to take some time and build something with his engine soon and test it out. I feel very late in the game on this one... [more]

3/8/2010 Yes Steve Job, SWF IS An open standard: Click Team's Products Now Export Games in .SWf Format

New Flash Game Development Blog Entry : Click Team, the company that has it's roots in STOS, AMOS and Klik And Play, has recently released a new product that will export applications made in their popular development tools (Multimedia Fusion and The Games Factory) in a .SWF format. The Games Factory is a basic version of their too lset, while Multimedia Fusion is the full blown tool suite. both applications have a large following, and are fairly inexpensive. This is a great move to help open-up Flash to a whole new set of developers.

The train keeps running Apple. HTML 5 is still not here, and Flash is not going away. What to do, what to do?

3/6/2010 Flash Gaming Summit: Role Call?

New Flash Game Development Blog Entry :

The Flash Gaming Summit is now sold-out. Jeff and I were both going to go this year, but Jeff got called back home, so I have to hoof-it alone. Still, it looks to be a fun day. Most people going are also going to the GDC, but that is not possible for me this year. I'll be making it the 'longest day ever', flying in staying as long as possible, and flying out the same day.

Is anyone else who frequents this site going? If so, please tell me so I can look out for some friendly faces (that I have never met or seen in real life..oops)

-Steve

3/4/2010 Poll: Which Platform Have You Had The most 'Success' Developing On?

New Flash Game Development Blog Entry : Another Thursday Poll over at our Ning Community. Here is the question:

Which Platform Have You Had The most 'Success' Developing On?

Tell us your answer!

3/4/2010 Video: An Adobe Employee (somewhat awkwardly) Discusses Flash/HTML 5/Apple with Mashable

New Flash Game Development Blog Entry : In an interesting video with surprisingly 'marble-mouthed' audio (rivaling only our own terrible productions) and very nervous looking participants, an Adobe employee discusses Apple/Flash/HTML 5/Mobile/etc. with Mashable.

3/3/2010 Tutorial: AS3: How to Blit an animation from a tile sheet embedded at compile time

New Tutorials Blog Entry :

Tutorial: AS3: How to Blit an animation from a tile sheet embedded at compile time

Today we are going to look at how to use a tile sheet embedded into an AS3 project at compile time.We will cover the embedding, instantiation, and actual usage of the tile sheet to do a simple blit canvas animation. I am currently working on a scrolling re-make of the classic Atari 2600 game, Sky Diver. I have started to create my own simple 8-bit styled tile sheet for the game. I only have the first three preliminary tiles created for the player sprite's free-fall animation. Here is the tile sheet so far:

The sheet is actually 10 tiles wide (320 pixels) by 2 tiles high (64 pixels). The tiles are 32x32 in size. We are only using three tiles so far, but there is room for many more if we need them. We will start to build a simple class that will demonstrate using this sheet for animating the character using a classic blit technique...[more]

3/3/2010 Some Troubling Tidbits On Flash And HTML 5...But Maybe Not For Flash Game Developers

New Flash Game Development Blog Entry :

Today a couple stories arose that, on the surface seem to point to some troubles for Flash, but maybe not yet for flash game developers.

The first comes via PC World: Virgin America Ditches Flash on Its Site . It looks like the Virgin Airline site has decided to remove Flash content so that the site is better suited for iPhone users. It's a bit frustrating to hear about this, but at the same time it makes sense. Why did they use Flash in the first place? For UI or animations of planes flying? For an airline wen site, you'd expect to get information as fast and easily as possible, so HTML should be standard.

I can see this as troubling trend...(more after the jump)

3/1/2010 Still don't Think Using someone Elses I.P., Even For a 'Fan' Project, Is Not A Problem?

New Game Design And Theory Blog Entry : So, do you still think that using the intellectual property that belongs to someone else is not a problem? Do you think that if you are creating a 'tribute' or 'fan project' that you will be left alone?

Think again.

The guys over at The Silver Lining had been working for EIGHT years on a fan-made game using the old Sierra I.P., 'King's Quest'. They even got the tentative 'OK' from the old owner of the I.P., Vivendi. Now that Activision owns it, they have been told to shut-down:

'Recently, however, ownership of the Sierra IP changed hands and becamethe property of Activision. After talks and negotiations in the lastfew months between ourselves and Activision, they have reached thedecision that they are not interested in granting a non-commerciallicense to The Silver Lining, and have asked that we cease production and take down all related materials on our website.'

Eight years eh? These look like a bunch of smart people. I wonder how many games of their own they could have created in that time (maybe they did create some games, who knows?)

Anyway, again, we say: use your own stuff.

3/1/2010 Flash Indie Game Interweb-Mash-Up: March 1, 2010

New Flash Game Development Blog Entry :

Flash Indie Game Interweb-Mash-Up: March 1, 2010

First off, Steve and I will be at the Flash Gaming Summit next Monday, so I hope to put a few faces to names, etc.

Ning Community
8bitrocket is now part of the Ning community social platform. We did this to help create a community to support the upcoming book release and also give us something else to keep us from interacting socially with our families..

Gaming Your Way's iPhone/CS5 hints
Check out the incredible list of iPhone / CS5 hints that Squize has posted from his experience creating 'Zap' for the platform using the beta tools. The cool thing (for me) is that our book covers much of this ground work even though it doesn't have anything really to do with iPhone development. Its just the way I make my games anyway (for the most part).

By the way, if you have not tried the incredible, Ionic, please do yourself a favor. You are in for a treat.

Also, check out the enlightening interview with Barry White of GamesChart.

How to Save a Movie Clip as a PNG
Richard Davey has the goods...[more]

2/27/2010 Hey You Kids, Off My Lawn Num. 2: More Fun With Possible Flash Game I.P. Issues

New Podcasts Blog Entry :

We're not saying these games have barrowed other people's intellectual property, we are just saying it's possible. No matter what, we have fun looking at them anyway.

2/25/2010 New 8bitrocket Game Release: Tunnel Panic

New Flash Game Development Blog Entry :

New 8bitrocket Game Release: Tunnel Panic

Tunnel Panic is the first game from the Essential Flash Games book to be released into the wild in a viral fashion. It's self sponsored (by the book of all things). The original version of this game is featured in chapter 12 of the EFG Book as a way to demonstrate viral Flash games. In this chapter we build a simple game in a few hours and then explain how to add Mochi ads and leader boards to the game. We also go into detail on sponsorships and discuss our friends at FlashGameLicense.com and their offerings in detail.

...[more]

2/25/2010 Poll: How Irritated Are You Tech Pundits Who don't Understand Flash?

New Flash Game Development Blog Entry :

Poll: Poll: How Irritated Are You Tech Pundits Who don't Understand Flash?

Here is a good example of a popular tech pundit who talks about Flash, but doesn't seem to understand it. Bob Cringely, I guyI have respected and followed for more than decade, has weighed in on the Flash/HTML 5 topic with some boneheaded statements:

'Flash always picked up where the browser left off, but it can't talk to your webcam, store local files, or draw pixels directly to your screen.'

WTF? Flash can do all those things (if you include Air for storing local files...something you DO NOT want your browser doing anyway).

Cringely is well respected, but it looks like he doesn't do any %,amp;$*! research before he blows his tech wad into his blog. After 10 years of blogs, I'm done with him.

Anyway, please take this poll now: (did I sway your vote?)

How Irritated Are You Tech Pundits Who don't Understand Flash?

2/24/2010 Game Storm Video Podcast Num. 1

New Podcasts Blog Entry : Game Storm Video Podcast Num. 1

Bonus Content: [more]

2/23/2010 HTML 5 Canvas For Flash Developers Num. 1: What The Num. @*! Is The HTML 5 Canvas?

New Tutorials Blog Entry :

In this set of tutorials, we will explore how the HTML Canvas relates to Flash developers.

So, the first question to answer about the HTML 5 Canvas appears to be this:

'What The Num. @*! Is The HTML 5 Canvas?'

The short answer is this:

It is an area on a web page set-aside to display and manipulate bit-mapped pixels in 'immediate' mode. 'Immediate' mode is a way to draw pixels that gives a programmer ultimate control, but requires the screen objects to be tracked and be redrawn entirely in code. You create it with the ,lt;canvas,gt;,lt;/canvas,gt; HTML tag, and you manipulate it with JavaScript. The Canvas is a window into a bitmapped world that, until recently, only existed with plug-ins like Silverlight , Java ,and of course Flash. The Canvas is currently supported (in part) in the latest versions of Firefox, Opera, and Chrome, but not Internet Explorer

(much more after the jump including a Hello World HTML 5 Canvas demo)

2/21/2010 Hey You Kids, Off My Lawn! We Whine About Flash Games And Intellectual Property

New Podcasts Blog Entry : Here is the first (and maybe last, who knows) episode of 'You kids, Off My Lawn!', a short podcast/music video in which we complain about (possible) intellectual property issues with flash games.

We did this a week ago. I prompted us to create the 'World's Worst Jigsaw Puzzle Collection'. Why? Because we wanted to make some jigsaw puzzles that used totally original IP...
(note, read a long-winded explanation after the jump)

8bitrocket.com Blog

3/18/2010 Ouch My Face Hurts! A Facebook Social Games Deep Dive.

3/16/2010 New 8bitrocket Game Release: BlasterMines

3/15/2010 Haiku: The Genesis Of The Mochi Game Development Fund

3/14/2010 Our book has already been pirated over 25,000 times in 2 days. Yea for the internet. (Update: Steve's a noob)

3/14/2010 Essential Flash Games Book Released!

3/13/2010 Mochi Game Developer fund Chronicles Num. 1: Signing Up!

3/11/2010 Poll: How Long Should The Flash Gaming Summit Be Next Year?

3/10/2010 Steve Woita: An Original Atari 2600 Game Developer Tackles Flash Games, Speaks-Up About Flash And CGE 2010

3/9/2010 Flash Gaming Summit Report Num. 1: The Longest Day

3/9/2010 Classic Gaming Expo Returns in 2010!

3/9/2010 Flash Indie Game Interweb Mash-up: March 9, 2010: Flash Gaming Summit Edition

3/8/2010 Yes Steve Job, SWF *IS* An open standard: Click Team's Products Now Export Games in .SWf Format

3/6/2010 Flash Gaming Summit: Role Call?

3/4/2010 Poll: Which Platform Have You Had The most 'Success' Developing On?

3/4/2010 Video: An Adobe Employee (somewhat awkwardly) Discusses Flash/HTML 5/Apple with Mashable

3/3/2010 Tutorial: AS3: How to Blit an animation from a tile sheet embedded at compile time

3/3/2010 Some Troubling Tidbits On Flash And HTML 5...But Maybe Not For Flash Game Developers

3/1/2010 Still don't Think Using someone Elses I.P., Even For a 'Fan' Project, Is Not A Problem?

3/1/2010 Flash Indie Game Interweb-Mash-Up: March 1, 2010

2/27/2010 Hey You Kids, Off My Lawn Num. 2: More Fun With Possible Flash Game I.P. Issues

2/25/2010 New 8bitrocket Game Release: Tunnel Panic

2/25/2010 Poll: How Irritated Are You Tech Pundits Who don't Understand Flash?

2/24/2010 Game Storm Video Podcast Num. 1

2/23/2010 HTML 5 Canvas For Flash Developers Num. 1: What The Num. @*! Is The HTML 5 Canvas?

2/21/2010 Hey You Kids, Off My Lawn! We Whine About Flash Games And Intellectual Property

3/8/2010 Yes Steve Job, SWF IS An open standard: Click Team's Products Now Export Games in .SWf Format