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The game is now officially a game. It’s far from complete but it does at least function as a game. There have been a large number of changes, some easy and some incredibly difficult and I had to combat my tendency to keep tweaking bits and pieces and start aiming for the end product.

I’ve made a project page to house the latest version of the game. Visit it now to see the game and more information on its development. There’s a buglist, a todo list and more in there. If you do find a bug that’s not listed … Continue Reading

The latest version of the game can be found at the bottom of this post.

Unfortunately I had to stop developing the game for a couple of weeks as I had real work to do. I’ve been doing bits and pieces here and there but nothing much until today. I’ve finally managed to get enough improvements into one place to make it worth creating and uploading another swf file of the work so far.

There’s been lots of code improvements, as usual, and a lot of major changes.

I decided having the aiming arrow move back and forth of its own accord wasn’t … Continue Reading

There’s been a lot of changes to the game since my last post. Hopefully I can remember them all!

I managed to work out how to add animation to objects depending on what’s happening to it so I thought I’d add some eyes to the little ball and then make them blink when he bounces (there’s a bonus triple blink when you finish a level). It took a while to crack how to use Flash frames to load the correct animation but it’s fairly logical and makes sense now.

The sound effect have already started to annoy me (mainly because I’m testing … Continue Reading

More changes and general refinement of the existing code and graphics. Also added some sound effects and graphic events. There’s even a hint of gameplay in the example below. Can you get to the exit?

Small improvement all round to the ActionScript and different graphics this time. Again nothing special but testing the possible theme for the game.

Changes to the game include:

• Slowed down the pointer so that aiming is easier
• Aimer is only visible and working when the ball is not in motion
• Feedback to show previous shot power and angle
• Objects to get in the way. The ball will bounce off walls and blocks
• A “home” area that ends what will be the level
• Size of game area increased to 650px x 500px

All in all, it’s starting to look like a game. We’ve got an objective (get home) and … Continue Reading

It begins. So far it’s going pretty well, although I realise that this is only early days. I found a great tutorial from Emanuele Feronato which explains a neat method of moving the ball around using the mouse and a range/angle gizmo. With a few very simple graphics there is the beginning of a simple game on the stage (that’s a new term for me!).

Here’s a list of what’s been added in the order it was done:

• Ball can be fired upwards only
• Gravity causes the ball to fall
• Ball can bounce off the floor
• Ball can’t leave the edge of the

… Continue Reading

I figure that as there’s millions of Flash games out there on the Internet they can’t be all that hard to make, right? I don’t mean to say that good flash games are easy to make and I fully appreciate how much time and effort go into making them, but an average game can’t be too hard.

I’ve never touched Flash before so I thought my first ever Flash project should be a game. It should teach me plenty about how to use the software and if I end up with even a half playable game I’ll be happy.

If you’re reading … Continue Reading

With all this hype about CERN’s LHC and the nonsensical hypothesis that it’s possible that it may destroy the universe I thought the world needed a Universal Destruction Test to check on our current status. Check back whenever you’re worried about whether you, and everything around you, actually exists.