11 replies to this topic

[rosedragon]

Not intend to brag, but I got $300-1000 per game with development time ranged from a day to two months. Several people who pick more promising genres got $2000-4000 per game, though getting an amount above $2000 is quiet catchy. The biggest amount usually came from sponsorship, which is you going to put a company's logos and stuffs on your game and they will pay you for those.

The good side of flash games is they are easy to make, since action script (flash language) is easy to learn (also buggy and break a lot of coding rules). Like I would define myself as artist that can code. As what you need to start:

• A program to code action script. You can use adobe flash (pay, also called Flash IDE) or flash develop (free, programmer friendly but no stage which is useful for artists).
• Some graphics or nice particle effects. You can use stock images, hire artists, or any other options.
• some musics and sounds (can get free from newgrounds.com and freesound.org ).
• A handful of tutorials. I start from flash-foundation.com but it happens that tutorials have to match 'your style' to make you understand them.
• flashgamelicense.com . A way to sell flash games without emailing 1001 sponsors that got 1001 emails everyday!
• mochimedia.com . The most popular and widely avaiable ads service for flash games.
• jayisgames.com . Theirs casual game reviews are high quality, you can learn from their analysis.
• game idea. Either make 'another clone' or make your own ideas.

Some advices:

• Do not start from making rpg. Although their codes are simple to write, they took a lot of months to make.
• Avoid using propietary / copyrighted materials! Big sponsors won't sponsor another mario game and you might caught into troubles!
• Do not hesitate to ask.
• Only games that are not widely available on the internet can sell.

And if you are interested, I could talk more about indie casual game design :) .

[Stars]

You mean that ActionScript class I took could actually be useful? =o

*starts brainstorming game ideas*

[lazlo falconi]

=[

This makes me sad because I know all about making Flash movies but very little about actionscript.

[rosedragon]

falconi, actually some games are simple to make and would have use of your movie making ability. For example are point and click games. For example: http://www.newground...tal/view/522028
I'm sure that game can be done with something as simple as these lines (as3):
something.addEventListener(MouseEvent.CLICK, somefunction);

function somefunction(e:MouseEvent) {
something.gotoAndPlay(2);

}
First line do is to assign an event listener when players clicking the object something. Second line is what will be executed by previous event listener. Third line is the action, which is the object something will animate.

The trick of game making is not about how complex is your code, or how good is your graphic. It is more about how polished is your game that it give a good experience to players.

[Stars]

ActionScript really isn't that hard to learn if you're already familiar with Flash.
There's even a Dummies book specifically for making games with it (and one of the sample games it comes with involves an alligator...smashing up cars, I think).

[lazlo falconi]

Wait a minute, I just reread your first post and... how in the world does one make a flash game without the stage?

[Hyperlisk]

YEah, ActionScript is really easy. I like it. I should reinstall Flash...

[rosedragon]

you can use
addChild(yourgraphic);
yourgraphic.x = 10;
yourgraphic.y = 10;

having no stage doesn't means you don't have library. It is more difficult for artists but more convenient for programmers.

[lazlo falconi]

Ahh, I see... I've been looking into tutorials about this but most of them seem to be "Do this in your .as file, then this in Flash", but this might be fun. I've been kicking a few ideas for a game around, and this might be the opportunity to see them out.

[rosedragon]

There are two known action script at the moment: action script 2 and action script 3. The last one is more powerful and faster but in drawback of more confusing than action script 2. It might took a month or two learning action script 3 from zero programming knowledge but only two weeks to learn action script 2 from the same situation. Regardless of that, I say, stick it out and keep learning, soon later you will be start producing 'three days development games'.

A lot of time you will see action script 3 tutorial is written for 'OOP programming' which basically means you won't have anything on the stage (the white canvas where you usually draw your animations) while action script 2 tutorials naturally tells you to code in timeline.

Actually, you can also code in timeline for action script 3, it is faster and easier for small games, but it is hard to keeping reusable codes. In my opinion, it doesn't matter as long as we made the games, players don't play the codes!

[rosedragon]

here is statistic of 2009 flash game sales from flashgamelicense.com
http://www.flashgame...and-statistics/

Article around one person's income regarding flash games:
http://joshblog.net/...-retrospective/

[lazlo falconi]

Jeez, I gotta do this. That guy made more money just from Flash games than I made last year.