Flash Tactics #4: The Joy of Flash Game Libraries

Flash is a fast and easy tool for making games. Plain and simple. There are very few tools where it’s easier to get something on-screen and moving.

So what happens when you add a set of Flash libraries for that makes is even FASTER to make Flash games?

Six months ago, in Dec 2009, I had never programmed a game, ever. The closest I came was a non-functioning bowling score app I wrote in BASIC on a Mac in grade 12 (which was back in 1992…) Since then, I haven’t programmed anything. Nothing, zip, nada.

Today, Ray Ardent is a 12+ level platformer with 10 power-ups, parallax scrolling, multiple dinosaurs with their own AI (who explode into chunks when they die), cut scenes, music and fx, motion blur, pick-ups and double jumps (because double jumps are awesome!).

Not bad for a guy who’s never programmed a game before.

There’s absolutely no way making Ray Ardent would have been possible without Flixel, the awesome Flash library from Adam Saltsman (aka:Adam Atomic) of Canabalt fame.

Without Flixel, my first game probably would have been something signifigantly smaller, simpler and I know for a fact that the code would have been a gigantic mess.

Flixel gave me a structure to follow and set the framework which allowed me to have a basic prototype up and running in a couple of days (knowing what I know now, making the original Ray Ardent Prototype would take a couple of hours, as opposed to a week).

As Ray Ardent grew in scope and complexity, the Flixel framework let me get new features up and running quickly and if I needed to build something from scratch, it was easy to extend and build upon Flixel. When problems came up, the Flixel Community was fantastic, with helpful responses and code samples.

As a bonus, I met a couple of other local developers using Flixel through the community and we’ve gotten together a couple of times to talk games, Flash and life.

Flash game libraries take the pain out of a lot of elements of game development that are boring, repetitive and time consuming, letting you focus on making the game. It is a solid foundation upon which you can build a game.

For any developer looking at Flash and making Flash games, I cannot recommend libraries enough. Yes, you’ll have to learn to use Flex/FlashDevelop and yes, you’ll have to learn some new commands, but the amount of time you save in the long run is more than worth it.

All of the libraries below have everything you need to get started:
– Great Tutorials
– Great Community
– Regular Updates
– They Are Free

Game Libraries:

Flixel
Flash Punk
Push Button Engine

Physics Library:

Box2DFlash