Customer Reviews

Beginning Game Programming with Flash

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

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.

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.

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.

I thought this book was not that great. If you want to learn beginning flash programming I would buy "Real World Flash Game Development", or Gary Rosenzweig's book. I didn't like the games in this book and it was difficult to pick much up for me anyway.

I think it could be good... I just made a hentai flash game really long and with good art (not bad pointing in newgrounds and games of desire) that's why i tried to buy this book of programming in flash... but... ufff... mother of hell... This is imposible for me! even in the lowest level of all is too complicated for me. So i can't review really well because i did not understand anything (and ei... i did not want too... i'm an artist, not a programmer XD).

sorry for this review, but is the truth...

P.D. i put 4 stars, because i think that the book is not bad, it's just not understandable for me xD.

This book has several typos throughout its contents. The directions listed are unclear and inconsistent. All around a horrible book for any beginner.

This book is an incredible guide to learning ActionScript 3.0! So far I have only noted one MINOR typo in the code. The rest of the code appears to work flawlessly.

AS3 is a great new flavor of ActionScript but it can be tricky for those who are new to Flash or just new to 3.0. The projects are a lot of fun! By the time I made it through the book, I understood all the basic piece required to make my own Flash Game.

I think that this book would be a useful reference for anyone who wants to learn more about using Adobe Flash such as beginning Web designers and animators because it teaches you, in very easy terms, how to control your Flash creations!

To recap: This book is an excellent source for beginners because it leaves you feeling confident and ready to expand your skills.