Review: Flash MX 2004 Games Most Wanted

Flash is fun. It's actually one of the most fun jobs you can get paid to do. It's up there with rollercoaster designers and video game creators in the 'I can't believe I get paid for this' category. These days though it's all become a bit serious. All the talk is about RIAs, web services and n-tiered applications. The push is on to make Flash a legitimate business tool. While this is all well and good, it's also soul-crushingly dull.

Mar 2004 - review by John Dalziel TITLE: Flash MX 2004 Games Most Wanted
PUBLISHER: Friends of Ed
ISBN: 1-59059-236-0
PAGES: 266 colour
CD: No
AUTHORS: Kristian Besley, Sham Bhangal, Anthony Eden, Brad Ferguson, Brian Monnone, Keith Peters, Glen Rhodes, Steve Young
RRP: $39.99 USA

If you've ever built an RIA (Rich Internet Application) then you'll know how complicated it can be. They take a lot of thought and a lot of planning. Now, games are complicated to, and they also take a lot of thought and a lot of planning. The difference is, if you meet someone at a party and you write games for a living, you're more likely to get laid.

Games are cool, and writing a good one is a black art - in fact it is several black arts. That's where this book comes in. This is a book for Flash developers who want to write games but don't know their A* from your elbow. It's a solid primer in all the skills required to design and build your own games in Flash MX2004.

In fact, that's my one and only grumble with this book. It has the words 'Flash MX 2004' on the cover. Only one contributor (Brian Monnone) has made any attempt to work with AS2. Looking through the code you'll see a lot of clipEvents going on and even some MX style AS1 prototype inheritance. Although this doesn't make it a bad book, it does make the title a tad cheeky. If you pulled Brian's chapter this could be an MX book.

That aside, it's still a cracking read. You get a broad range of artistic and technical material with chapters on subjects as diverse as AI programming, game physics and character animation. It is this mix that makes it interesting.

All the chapters are informative and there is no throwaway filler. Sham Bhangal's chapter on retro gaming is particularly good. Full of informative insights from old school game design. You'll discover ways of turning your limitations into design features.

If you can forgive the 'Flash MX 2004' in the title you'll find 'Games Most Wanted' a rewarding read. Most importantly it's a refreshing antidote to RIAs and a reminder that if you're going to do something complicated then it might as well be fun.
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About John Dalziel

John Dalziel is a founding member of FlashMagazine and regularly reports from community events in the UK. He has also written for Macromedia, New Riders, Actionscript.com and Ultrashock.com.

 

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