Dev Journal 01: Intro and Tools

First off, Welcome to my first Dev Journal Entry Number Ún. I’ll be documenting the process and my experience in developing my first Mobile Game. I’m planning on having one entry per week starting from this one, but, we’ll see how it goes from here.

I have two objectives with this Dev Journal: (1) To keep everyone updated with the progress of our game, and (2) teach anyone who is interested in making a game using Flash. I’ll be writing this Journal with a style of Tutorial, so you’ll see links to resources and references to where you can get more information about the subject I write about. With that said, let’s hop in!

First I’m going to tell you what our game is going to be about. I do not want to give away our game yet, but, I’ll give you an idea. We’re making a puzzle game. The player will be faced with multiple puzzles that he/she must solve before the timer runs out. These puzzles will be randomly selected and some will be randomly generated.

Now that we have the idea for the game, now comes our tools for making it, which are: Adobe Flash CS6, FlashDevelop and Axel the ActionScript 3 Framework for Games.

FlashDevelop: This is the program we’ll be using to do the programming of the game. This is an amazing code editor for AS 3 as it offers Code Completion, Project Management, easy integration with Flash, it’s in constant improvement and it’s supported by a great community. It’s also up to date with the latest version of Flex and Adobe AIR, which is what we need if since we want to make a mobile game with better compatibility. This is an Open Source program so, it’s free to use.

Check out Flash Develop here: http://www.flashdevelop.org/

Adobe Flash Professional CS6: We’ll be using Flash CS6 to create the assets for the game. Flash CS6 features tools that allow easy creation of animated graphics and it can a generate sprite sheet as well. Additionally, FlashDevelop offers great integration between Flash, so it makes it easier.

This is a commercial program, I’m not sure if you could still find Flash CS6 in the Adobe website, but, they do offer their latest version called Adobe Flash CC (Creative Cloud). You can acquire this program for a monthly subscription of $19.99.

More Information here: http://www.adobe.com/products/flash.html?promoid=KFOHS

Axel (AS3 Framework): The Axel framework is what we’ll be using as the game engine. If you’re looking to make a games in flash whether platformer or shooters, this is a good framework to use. It’s easy to integrate into your project, it’s easy to understand and it’s well documented. It also has an active community, so, any questions in using the Framework, you’ll get an answer for sure. This is a free library to use for both commercial and personal projects.

Check out Axel here: http://axel.io/

It is possible to just use Flash CS6 and Axel to make the game, but, Flash CS6 only supports Adobe AIR 3.4. The latest version of Adobe AIR is 18 (as of writing this entry). This will limit you with features with Google Play (for Android) and the App Store (for Apple Devices). So, to use the latest version of Adobe AIR you have to compile the game in FlashDevelop.

So, this pretty much covers the tools we’re using to make the game. In my next Journal Entry, we’ll go into details about setting up the Programs listed here as well as setting up the Library for use and more!

If you have any questions, leave a comment.

You can always follow us on Facebook and Twitter for updates on the Dev Journal.

Thanks for reading! We’ll see you next time!

-GerLuNiMa

Pentoon's BOOM Control Medals Walkthrough

Hello, a while ago we've uploaded a game where you take control of the time line of an animation. The game had secrets to unlock that alters the way the scene looks. (The explosion scene is from one of our previous animations called "Pentoon's Birthday Blowout".)

Anyways, here's the guide to unlock all Medals and be a Pro. I do suggest to give them game a go without the list, if you did but still need the guide, read along.

Click here to play "Pentoons BOOM Control" on Newgrounds.

Starting off from left to right (As shown on the Picture above):

• Medal Name: "His World" (Green Star):
  How to Unlock: Between frames 130 and 146, Click the green book that flies off one of the front windows of the house.
  Effects: This will color the scene like the neighborhood of the cartoon "Eddsworld", one of our favorite animations.
  Note: You can toggle the effect by clicking the Book.

• Medal Name: "Avifors" (Brown Star):
  How to Unlock: Pause the time line and Click the butterfly that flies across the screen.
  Effects: This will change the butterfly into a bird.
  Note: You can toggle the effect by clicking the bird/butterfly. Avifors is a spell from the Harry Potter world that transform targets into Birds.

• Medal Name: "Wreck it Rudolpho" (Grey Star):
  How to Unlock: Place the play head on frame 226 (Last Frame) and wait for a few seconds until a chain falls down, then click the chain.
  Effects: This will activate a wrecking ball to come down and smash the house.
  Note: You can toggle the effect by clicking the Chains.The naming of this Medal is obvious, we couldn't think of a better name for this one, we used it because it had "Wreck" in it and we enjoyed the movie "Wreck it Ralph".
• Medal Name: "XRay Gadget" (Blue Star):
  How to Unlock: Place the play head on frame 1 (First Frame) and wait for a few seconds until a box gets dropped in front of the house, then click the box.
  Effects: This will activate an X-Ray Circle allowing you to see inside the house and witness the adverse effects on the characters clearly.
  Note: You can toggle the effect by clicking the Box with the xRay Glasses.
• Medal Name: "Known as 117" (Dark Green Star):
  How to Unlock: Place the play head on frame 117 and wait for a few seconds.
  Effects: This will display the ring of Halo in the background.
  Note: The description of the Medal is based on the release of the game Halo 3.. so yeah :/
• Medal Name: "Rated "M" for Mature" (Red Star):
  How to Unlock: Click the Medium quality button 5 times (Which is the total number of Upper Case M's in the Medal's description). The quality controls are found under the Time Line controls.
  Effects: This will display gore version of the explosion and the wrecking ball. Having xRay enabled while this Medal Activated you can see the gore effects happen to the characters inside.
  Note: You can toggle the gore effects by clicking on the body part that flies off from the explosion (Between frames 129 - 226).
• Medal Name: "Looking for Something?" (Purple Star):
  How to Unlock: Spend 5 minutes on the Game.
  Effects: No visual effects on the Scene other than the big purple star on the star collection bar.
  Note: This Medal was added after we averaged the time it takes for one to unlock all medals and experiment with the additions unlocked from the medals.
• Medal Name: "Gold Star!":
  How to Unlock: Unlock the previous 7 Medals to Unlock this one.
  Effects: No visual effects on the Scene.
  Note: This Medal is awarded for unlocking all Medals, so, Congrats! This is also Bonus points for the users at Newgrounds who unlocks all Medals.

So there you have it, have fun finding all secrets and experimenting with the different effects!

- GerLuNiMa