Beginning Game Programming with Flash [Paperback]

Hamsa Suri (Author), Lakshmi Prayaga (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 1598633988 | ISBN-13: 978-1598633986 | Publication Date: December 17, 2007 | Edition: 1

If you are new to game programming and want to learn how to create dynamic, robust, and fun 2D games, "Beginning Game Programming with Flash" is the book for you! Written for introductory game programming students and other enthusiasts, the book begins with an overview of the Flash graphical user interface (GUI), explaining the four main components of the Flash authoring environment: the stage, timeline, tools and panels, and symbols. Once you are comfortable working with the GUI, you'll dive into using ActionScript, the language used to write code in Flash, which controls the graphics, sound files, and interactivity between the player and the game assets. As you work through the book you'll discover how to create a storyboard for a game, add animation and visual effects, insert movie clips and sound files, apply math and physics concepts to make game objects move, and develop and test a Flash game. Easy-to-follow, step-by-step instructions walk you through each step of the game-building process, and end-of-chapter exercises, tutorials, and games-based projects help you reinforce and apply the concepts you have learned. "Beginning Game Programming with Flash" covers all the essential elements of game programming, making it a comprehensive and fun guide for beginning game programmers.

Product Details

• Paperback: 272 pages
• Publisher: Course Technology PTR; 1 edition (December 17, 2007)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1598633988
• ISBN-13: 978-1598633986
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 7.5 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 2.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (7 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #656,011 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Discover books, learn about writers, read author blogs, and more.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

17 of 18 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Great approach -- critical mistakes, January 14, 2008

By 

L. Dailey "ld99x" - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Beginning Game Programming with Flash (Paperback)

This book offers a wonderful approach. It does a great job of explaining how ActionScript (yes, ActionScript 3.0) works.

HOWEVER ...

This book also sports some critical typographical errors. And those typographical errors sometimes occur in tutorials' Flash ActionScript code (yes, the very code that folks buy the book to learn).

Simply put, if you follow the instructions carefully, some of the tutorials will not work. (At least they didn't for me!)

Here's an example:

One of the book's tutorials (p. 32) tells readers to create something and name it "mc_ball1."

After that, the tutorial does not mention "mc_ball1" again. Instead, the tutorial tells readers to type code for something named "mc_ball" (note the missing "1").

Okay, a missing "1" might seem like a little thing. But, if a programmer follows the book's written instructions, her project will not work. The code is designed to make to "mc_ball" do something. But there is no "mc_ball." There is an "mc_ball1" -- and it never receives any instructions from the code.

This book's title states that it is for beginners. Beginners probably do not have the skill to troubleshoot typographical nuances in ActionScript.

And, unfortunately, there are several of these types of errors in this book.

So, I'm afraid that the current edition may be of limited value to most beginning Flash programmers. The next -- carefully edited -- version of this book might be great for beginners.

In the meantime, I'm afraid that this version might frustrate them.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Do not buy this book, July 3, 2009

By 

D. Eckhart (USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Beginning Game Programming with Flash (Paperback)

I'm rarely extremely negative about a book, but this one was terrible. It's title is "Beginning Game Programming with Flash", however it does almost nothing to teach you how to program games using flash.

Besides the obvious omission of the 'game' part, the code examples often do not match up with text. There was very little editing or quality control work done to make sure the text was done right. In a case sensitive language like ActionScript you cannot allow automatic text capitalization. 'void' is not the same as 'Void'. For an experienced programmer, you might be able to sort out the places where variables don't match up because of letter case or outright misspelling, but for a beginner guide, even a simple thing like a case sensitive error can cause you to spend hours trying to figure out why the example you copied out of the book doesn't work.

Furthermore the authors didn't pay attention to the units associated with various variables. One example is the 'rotation' property of movie clips. When they demonstrate this, they provide a button to rotate a movie clip, however they seem to think the number should be in the form of a percentage like '0.30' for 30 percent, however the proper units for rotation is degrees. So the button assigned '0.30' rotation rotates the object .3 of 1 degree, ie. it is not visible. Of course the text is inconsistent and the example code doesn't match with the code they tell you to type in using their step by step instructions.

I could go on and on here listing inaccuracies, bad editing practices, and omissions. But, please just don't buy this book. Buy 'Action Script Game Programming University' instead. It might be a bit more advanced book, but at least the examples in it work and the information is accurate.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars flawed, September 11, 2008

By 

... "!+=-" - See all my reviews

This review is from: Beginning Game Programming with Flash (Paperback)

I also became frustrated with the typos and found many examples from the book not working. A little more explanation of the code shown would have been welcome as well.