Macromedia Flash Professional 8 Game Development 
asked by advisor on November 14, 2006 3:09 AM
If you want to take your Flash Professional 8 skills to a new level while learning how to produce games that rival anything available on the web, this is the book for you. Macromedia Flash Professional 8 Game Development is written by a professional game developer. Using the power of Flash and the most recent advancements in ActionScript, the book progresses through the entire development process to teach programmers and Web developers how to create professional quality games quickly. It teaches techniques for producing fast 3D effects that can be used with ?cheat? techniques to produce powerful, high-performance results. It details the actual science of game development, including design, character development, the physics and motion of a game, and audio issues. And in this new edition, all of the latest features of Flash Professional 8 are covered, including the new sound channels, bitmap caching, texture pages, and more. The book covers many advanced topics in a simple, easy to understand way. It emphasizes the incredible power of the new BitmapData class and teaches how it can be used to take the performance of Flash games to a whole new level. It has never been easier to get right down to the pixel level and manipulate things at blazing speeds, making previously impossible games a breeze to make. So get to your computer, insert the CD-ROM, and prepare to begin your journey into the world of Flash Professional 8 game development.
Reviews
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Glen Rhodes' Macromedia Flash Professional 8 Game Development is for those who have the basics down and want to learn to produce professional-quality games. The latest enhancements to Flash are taught to programmers and web developers who want to get up and running quickly. From producing fast 3D effects to the hidden powers of Flash Pro 8, this book provides methods for understanding advanced techniques and getting up to speed: indispensable for game developers.
reviewed by waltersmith on November 19, 2006 6:27 PM
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With Flash 8 Game Development by Glen Rhodes I expected to get a step by step process on how to develop games in Flash in the form of Actionscript examples and tutorials. I didn't expect much in terms of the other processes of game design, but was pleasantly surprised when Glen related the importance of all game components. While the book doesn't go into as much detail with other processes as it does the code (and as it is a game development book it shouldn't), it describes the importance of each part, and gives several extra items beyond what I expected. There is a section on sound, optimization, game physics, portable games and 3D simulation as well as a section by Chris Hildenbrand about game graphics. And you make some fun games as well as explore more complicated versions which are included on the CD that comes with the book.
You should have at least an intermediate understanding of scripting. The basics of Actionscript are not described here - if you need an introduction to Actionscript read another book first. If you are confident with your ability to pick up Actionscript you will do fine, especially given the Actionscript for games primer at the end of the book.
This book gives a lot of helpful information on how Flash works and how to make games with this software. If you're interested in Flash 8 in particular, it details the creation of a tile-based side-scrolling game using the new bitmap class. I learned several methods of number manipulation and Actionscript methodology that will help me save time and processing power on future games. I learned ways of creating games that I hadn't thought of before, and he broke the physics down very simply and made it easy to understand. The tutorials and examples were thorough and easy to follow, with explanations of what each part of the code was doing.
The only qualms I had were a few typos in the code (which are easily fixed), the order of presentation of some topics (I would have liked to read about the physics first before some early examples), a few spots where "why the math works" was not completely explained (but can be found through experimentation) and the process of planning the code/outlining functionality wasn't as prevalent as I would have liked.
Overall though, this book has been extremely helpful in understanding how to implement different types of games. I was making my own version of the popular "Breakout" by Atari in no time. If you are interested in making games with Flash, this book is loaded with ideas and information on how to go about creating them.
You should have at least an intermediate understanding of scripting. The basics of Actionscript are not described here - if you need an introduction to Actionscript read another book first. If you are confident with your ability to pick up Actionscript you will do fine, especially given the Actionscript for games primer at the end of the book.
This book gives a lot of helpful information on how Flash works and how to make games with this software. If you're interested in Flash 8 in particular, it details the creation of a tile-based side-scrolling game using the new bitmap class. I learned several methods of number manipulation and Actionscript methodology that will help me save time and processing power on future games. I learned ways of creating games that I hadn't thought of before, and he broke the physics down very simply and made it easy to understand. The tutorials and examples were thorough and easy to follow, with explanations of what each part of the code was doing.
The only qualms I had were a few typos in the code (which are easily fixed), the order of presentation of some topics (I would have liked to read about the physics first before some early examples), a few spots where "why the math works" was not completely explained (but can be found through experimentation) and the process of planning the code/outlining functionality wasn't as prevalent as I would have liked.
Overall though, this book has been extremely helpful in understanding how to implement different types of games. I was making my own version of the popular "Breakout" by Atari in no time. If you are interested in making games with Flash, this book is loaded with ideas and information on how to go about creating them.
reviewed by artdealer on November 23, 2006 3:41 PM
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Don't believe the negative reviews of those who don't understand what a second, or revised edition is.
This book is a superb, tutorial-style introduction to programming games with Flash 8 that quickly gives the reader a basis for learning Actionscript. Within one hour, I had my first game tutorial running and was analyzing the actionscript driving it.
Nice work Glen, thanks!
This book is a superb, tutorial-style introduction to programming games with Flash 8 that quickly gives the reader a basis for learning Actionscript. Within one hour, I had my first game tutorial running and was analyzing the actionscript driving it.
Nice work Glen, thanks!
reviewed by jan1975 on November 29, 2006 9:55 AM
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I having been waiting since 2005 for the release of this book and I am very disappointed because so very little was added to this revision and certainly not enough to justify the cost of the book if you purchased the previous edition, Flash MX 2004 Game Development, which I own. The first edition was outstanding. Because I followed the GlenRhodes.com blog and viewed the really cool stuff he is doing like the LightSaber Configurator and the WolfenFlash Game featuring the "Flash Ray Engine", I expected to get more insight into how he is pushing Flash 8 to create such outstanding work! The book would have been much more valuable to me if 4+ games added to the revision and more insight into his current Flash 8 work.
reviewed by spiderman on November 29, 2006 11:32 AM