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Initiated by our Christmas Devjam I am currently developing a small game engine in ActionScript 3 in my spare time. The aim is to create a setup that allows quick and easy development of casual games in Flash. The animation system, that I just successfully debugged, is based on the idea of checking the current frame label of the animated MovieClip as described by Jens Franke in this post (make sure to read the comments, too).

This technique completely separates code from design, allowing the designer to delimit animations without writing a single line of code, but by simply placing one label (e.g. “jump”) at the beginning of the animation and one at the end of it ( e.g. “done_jump” ).

So on each frame that starts with “done_”, the engine triggers a method that decides what to do next: play another animation? Loop this animation a certain amount of times? Jump to another animation? Destroy the object? … So, all the programmer has to do is override the function that makes these decisions and implement the coherent animation functions. Easy, isn’t it?

Right now, I’m planning to somewhat opensource the engine, once it’s done - and it doesn’t turn out to be a heap of useless code. As soon as I make progress in this, I’ll let you know.

As announced, Wolli and I sat together on Thursday for our personal Christmas devjam 2007:

At 10am the first coffee was brewed on my tiny stove and we exchanged ideas on the concept and the implementation of our little Christmas game. Then Wolli picked up his artpad pen, I started up my most beloved Eclipse and soon the room was filled with scratching sounds, the clicking and clacking of keys on the keyboard and the smell of RECK’s Moka Yrgacheffé coffee beans (anyone can pronounce that?).

We worked about 11 hours spread over the day interrupted by several coffee breaks and a major present shopping spree. After a lot of drawing, coding and even a broken Eclipse, we finally stopped the session at one o’clock in the morning stuck somewhere about half way through. So, sadly, all we have to show at this point is this nice little screenshot giving an idea of the game graphics:

Although we did not achieve the high aim to develop a complete game that day, we enjoyed the motivation and fun that came from sitting together, tossing ideas around and looking at the first results shortly after. So, we figured that this will have to be repeated!

But what about the game itself? Well, I might find some more time to code, but, still, we probably wouldn’t make it on time until Christmas eve :( But since we want to see this game on screen as much as you do, you needn’t worry: we will finish it sooner or later. Whatever we achieve, I’ll post it right here. Stay tuned!

Christmas time is game dev time - at least that’s going to be this year’s motto since I’m already on vacation. The plan is as follows:

Wolli and I will sit together, think up and implement a christmassy flash game within a day. The aim is to create something challenging and entertaining to shorten the unbearable time till Santa rumbles down your chimney.

Actually, we’ll have to cheat a little: Since this will be our first AS3 game, we’ll reserve some additional time to take care of the very basics such as evaluating a workflow, coding a bunch of classes that consider collision detection and animation treatment, buying a proper amount of coffee and stuff like that.

Now, the dev jam will take place on Thursday. That will be the day when we actually put our heads together and create most of the game code and graphics. However, things are already in motion: a basic concept has been sketched out and today I will start to pull up some classes so we’re ready to go when dev-day comes. Thus, we’ll be able to focus all our Thursday-energy on the game itself and hopefully we’ll have something presentable by the end of the week - watch out for news and updates!

But enough of the talking - let the coding begin! 8)

In case you’ve been wondering why not even a single post has appeared since the (not very) exiting setup of this blog, take a look at iconomix.ch and you’ll know what I’ve been working on during the last months:

Iconomix is a rather big platform issued by the Swiss National Bank (SNB) that’s supposed to be used for educational purposes. Several interactive modules introduce the user into the magical world of economy.

As leading flash developer, I’ve been deeply involved into the development of flash-clients for two Red5 driven multi-player games and the production of dozens of custom flash components since I started working for Liip in October 2007. These in turn where used to build flash-driven multimedia courses and single-player games. So far, the biggest project I’ve been involved in.

For those of you who know German or French, check out the Liip page for more information.