Customer Reviews

ActionScript 3.0 Game Programming University

5 star:		(18)
4 star:		(7)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

Here's the deal,
I am not a programmer...not even a great flash designer.
My previous knowledge of ActionScript was stop(); and gotoAndStop();
Don't know any other computer language.

I got this book and 2 weeks later I got my very own Flash game.
(two weeks of sitting with a yellow highlighter, and studying like I am back in collage).

I don't mean a customized version of one of the book examples, but a completely new game.
Gary helps you understand the logic behind games and game play, and how to break it down to tasks even a novice can accomplish.
With a bit of help from the flash help menu, you can explore even deeper and very quickly accomplish some amazing things.

If you are a quick learner and are not afraid to jump into the text, this book is for you. (it gets overwhelming for about 5 minutes before it all clicks in and you can see clearly the path between your vision and the execution).

WARNING: if you have never programed before; It is extremely gratifying, and seems to be addictive.

Thanks you Gary, for this great book.

Lets face it. There are a lot of Actionscript game books out there. This one is good because 1) It is entertaining and readable & 2) It's the first game book I have found that works for the new actionscript 3.0.

The code itself isn't exactly as object oriented as I would like, but thats true of all the other game books out there too. It does have enough object oriented content to show some amazingly different, and simple methods for making game characters, detecting collisions, and managing objects that are possible with actionscript 3.0. I value this book as a 'how to upgrade' from 2.0 to 3.0.

The games themselves are pretty good and there is a nice variety of game styles to appeal to a wide audience. For a basic game programming book, it omits or glosses over a few important topics such as caching vector objects as bitmaps, pseudo 3-D and optimization in general.

All in all, I suggest this book if you are upgrading skills to actionscript 3.0 or want to write flash games. If you get this book, I also recommend Foundation Actionscript 3.0 Animation: Making Things Move! to round out your collection.

I got interested in this book after discovering Gary Rosenzweig's AS3 tutorials on his Flash Game University Website. I was impressed by his ability to explain things clearly and simply. As other reviews have already stated "AS3 Game Programming University" is an excellent and highly readable book for learning AS3. In practice I find it much more helpful than Colin Moock's book "Essential ActionScript 3.0", which is a little too academic for me (although I'm glad I have it!). I'm also finding that code snippets in Gary's book are just as useful to me as those in Joey Lott's "ActionScript 3.0 Cookbook" (which covers more topics). It's helpful to me that Gary writes from a Flash authoring perspective rather than Flex. He doesn't hesitate to include timeline based assets and code when it makes sense to do so, rather than use the Flex style of generating everything in code.

The actual games are surprisingly varied and complete, but not so complex that they become difficult to understand. The code that I downloaded from the website works well. It is written in a practical concise manner with proper use of classes and other object-oriented techniques as required by AS3. However, as other reviews have noted, this book is not for advanced programmers that prefer a pure object-oriented style.

I recommend this book if you are moving from AS2 to AS3, even if you are not interested in writing games. Gary does not claim it is suitable for beginners without any programming experience but it is more suitable than Moock's "Essential ActionScript 3.0" (which does make such a claim). However it is not for web designers that don't want to learn programming and it is not for advanced programmers that appreciate Moock's AS3 book.

I'm currently taking a Flash game development course at our community college and I thought this book would be a great supplement. I didn't really know what to look for in an Actionscript app development book (I have other reference-style books for both Flash and Actionscript). The reviews seemed great, so I bought AS3 Game University.

I worked through the first three chapters and really did learn quite a few useful things. I hit chapter four and continued to dutifully type out all the code and carefully read the narrative as I went. At the end of the second game in that chapter, I realized that we're not learning *how* to make games anymore. There is exactly *one* game tutorial in the whole book that goes through the game making process--creating elements, testing, making things work, testing, adjusting and changing things, more testing...

Literally the rest of the book is a section-by-section examination of Rosenzweig's *completed* games. This really has little value toward learning to *make* games. Games (I've learned) are made in small steps that build upon and advance earlier steps until the completed game is realized.

Unfortunately, Rosenzweig's readers are left out of the loop. Rosenzweig no doubt went through the create, test, add, test, tweak, test process while making the games in the book, but he doesn't really teach any of that through the vast majority of the book. Nobody bypasses the development cycle and simply codes an entire game beginning to end.

Sure, there are some things to be learned by examining these games, but you're not going to learn the game-making *process* by poring over finished code. Without knowing the process, you can't take the next step into the realm of truly creating games of your own.

I'm not sure for whom this book is appropriate. Beginners can learn some things from the first one-third of the book, but they will quickly be abandoned. More advanced users may be able to use the rest for an odd reference, I suppose. Either way, this isn't sold as a reference book, it's sold as a how-to-make-Actionscript-games book. For an excellent book that teaches Actionscript as well as the game building process, look into Foundation Game Design with Flash (Foundations).

I really wanted to like AS3 Game University, but it let me down.

Sadly, this book was a disappointment. I am new to ActionScript, and was assured in the first chapter of the book that it would not be a problem, but it was. I do have experience with Object Oriented programming, and in those respects, it was easy to understand, and that is not the problem.

The problem with the book is the pace of delivery. I was QUICKLY overwhelmed (couldn't make it all the way through chapter two) with the book, and gave up before I could get very far. Inconsistencies with explanations, lack of explanations, overall poor delivery. Case in point can be found when describing how to hard-code curved lines. There was no explanation of what parameters the function took (all that was mentioned was "It took me a while to get this right"). Yet right after throwing that at me, I learned (thoroughly) how to hard-code squares and squares with rounded corners (thoroughly, and well done). Another example would be with event handlers. I thought I had it down upon the initial explanation, but quickly found myself far overwhelmed with so many event:* occurrences that went un-explained, and I'd never seen before. It seemed that as soon as I finally learned how to x, I'd get y and z shoved in my face and I'd have to spend another hour trying to grasp how to use y and z.

I read in a comment posted by Gary on this book that he prefers to go through piece by piece and explain everything, unfortunately I don't see it. What I did see was ten or so lines of code, but only a third of these ever got explained. He would cover the main points, but I don't ever recall reading how or why he would use the rest. It grew tiring trying to spend an hour flipping back in the pages to try and see if he ever did explain the parts he breezed through, only to never find a solid explanation.

Overall, if you have a solid grasp of ActionScript, this shouldn't be a hard book to get into, but if you are looking to start developing with ActionScript, this book is not for you, many parts will leave you sitting there questioning how he came upon what he did, and you'll find yourself playing the matching game of trying to see if you stand a chance at having your source code even similar in layout to the FLA files provided, without looking at it first.

I'm not new to Flash development but I AM new to ActionScript 3.0. Even for the games I may have coded in AS 2.0, there is tremendous value in seeing them revised for Flash's new language. As for the others - wow. So many opportunities to grow as a developer from these examples. Bonus - I love Gary's conversational style of writing. I feel like he's right there mentoring me while I'm working through the code and the logic behind it. Thank you so very much - this is exactly what I was looking for.

Just got the book and discovered the website. I like the 'horse-sense' attitude of the author. My goal is not to write tons of perfectly formatted code, for code's sake, but to get a job done. Even in AS2, purist coders tsk tsk the coders that take what I call 'common-sense short cuts', instead of writing many more lines of code in the 'accepted practice' way. Organization is essential, but you don't need the blueprint for a skyscraper to build a tree-house. I am just a couple chapters into the book, and have now looked at a couple of tutes and podcasts on the web site, and am very excited. When I get a mook book or many other books, I learn, but it is work and hard study. When I am reading your book, it is like you are sitting next to me and talking my language. I can't even really identify the difference in language or communication, but in my head it is enormous. I'm constantly saying, 'kewl, so THAT'S how that works.'

I picked up this book because I had a project to do and I got it into my head that I was going to design a game -- not knowing Flash or Actionscript 3 at all (had some rudimentary Java.) I had started with Colin Moock's Essential ActionScript 3.0 (Essential) but found it too theoretical, too abstract.

Gary gives you examples (great way to learn) and when you get it working -- you get the "look mom! I did this!" feeling (it helps to enter the scripts yourself rather than using his downloadable code.) Modifying the scripts to customize it is a bit more challenging -- Gary doesn't always explain his design assumptions. And as another reviewer pointed out -- it's not the best example of Object Oriented Programming.

But by sharing his games, he gives you great ideas. I then picked up Russell Chun's Flash CS4 Professional Advanced for Windows and Macintosh: Visual QuickPro Guide which does smaller interactions and explains the thinking behind the code better.

Gary's book made me feel I could it, Russell's book made me understand what I was doing *and* also made me feel like I could do it. I still recommend FlashU book for ideas and approaches to games -- plus he has a great website and discussion boards that are not intimidating. You can also download code examples.

Good examples, not the greatest explanations. Worth it.

This book is a fun way to learn AS3. If you've worked with AS2, you may have been shocked by the sweeping changes from AS2 to AS3. Gary's experience as a long-time, professional, web-based game developer is reflected in his efficient coding. He understands problem domain of the more than a dozen types of games he presents. He delivers explanations based on concisely written functioning examples.

A valuable chapter for AS2 developers moving to AS3 is Chapter 2 where he presents a variety of techniques used not only in games, but in Flash in general.This book is a great resource whether you know how to develop Flash AS3 games or not, as he has given functional examples to start with. The website which accompanies the book, flashgameu.com, has video tutorials, a forum, and a blog.

After many years' experience developing software, I decided to look into Flash to do some casual games and presentation code for the Web. I bought three books -- this is the best.
All books covered much of the same ground, but 'University' covered a bit more. In addition to timeline-based animation, the author shows how he uses timers to allow games to operate at the correct speed regardless of the kind of computer or connection they are running on. All books had examples, but 'University' does more, showing the best approach and configuration for programming Flash games. Only 'University', I feel, was sufficiently complete to stand alone. Plus it is fun, easy to read, and succinct, using only a fraction of the space to explain common concepts. The examples are complete games in themselves, and the author grants permission to use them as a basis for your own games.
In addition, this book is supported by a Web site, http://www.flashgameu.com/, with source code, active forums, and frequent participation by the author. The author clearly has a committment to this material and the Flash community.
Pitched at beginning programmers (if you understand variables, conditionals, and functions, you can understand this book), I recommend this as your first book for Flash game programming. You probably won't need another.