Product Description

∗ Designed for both professionals and hobbyists, this is the most complete book on creating sophisticated games with Macromedia Flash MX
∗ Shows readers how to harness the full potential of Flash MX and Flash ActionScript
∗ Provides hands–on advice for creating commercial games, as well as games to boost a Web site′s "stickiness," perk up presentations, or enhance educational materials
∗ Explains the tools, scripts, and other building blocks of Flash games tools and then shows how to put them together
∗ Companion Web site includes all source code and game artwork from the book as well as links to free game development tools and product trials

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #784570 in Books
• Published on: 2002-12-06
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 352 pages

Review
"...good, practical information...shows it strength when you start to build the sample games for yourself..." (Image Technology)

“…a detailed and interesting read…good value…”(Computer Arts, April 2003)

“…easy–to–understand…one of the rare occasions when a book truly does cater for professionals and amateurs alike…” (Practical Web Projects, August 2003)

Review
"...good, practical information...shows it strength when you start to build the sample games for yourself..." (Image Technology)

“…a detailed and interesting read…good value…”(Computer Arts, April 2003)

“…easy–to–understand…one of the rare occasions when a book truly does cater for professionals and amateurs alike…” (Practical Web Projects, August 2003)

Practical Web Projects, August 2003
"...;easy-to-understand…one of the rare occasions when a book truly does cater for professionals and amateurs alike.."

Customer Reviews

it's a great introduction to FlashMX and game design
Learning about collison detection was the best concept to learn from the book but it seems to end there. There's little talk about more interesting concepts like physics or A.I but I guess it's the nature of this book to stay on an introductory or beginner level. After reading this book, those kind of new concepts are what gets me in the mood to go out and buy another book to increase my conceptual knowledge of game design.

I think that's why I could label this book as a "good introduction to FlashMX as a gaming platform". It's great for the ActionScript novice but the real fun starts when you understand enough newly learnt concepts to make your own game.

As I'm no longer the novice I think I am, I can't simply copy and paste code blindly from the book as that's what sets a novice apart from an intermediate/advanced coder who wants to know explicitly what each variable, method and event etc. is doing within the code. It makes the code more personal to the programmer which is essential to learning in your own unique way.

Therefore, a valuable thing the book has taught me is that i'm now ready for the next programming level of book that does explicity explain everything. I'm ready to learn the fundamental concepts in order to build my own game from scratch which is probably the best and only way to become a flash game's developer.

All in all, it's a great book for the beginner albeit a few code printing errors in some of the code examples given, an unfortunate fault of the publishers not the author which is why the book gets 4 stars and not 5. This book assumes basic/intermediate knowledge of Flash(MX) and basic knowledge of ActionScript whereby gaming specific code has not already been explored by the user.

not for the begginers
I brought this book on reviews i had read about it as i had never touched flash before it sounded like a good place to start, WRONG. There are 150 pages you have to read before you even go to start a game then the first game you do go to do it says i need fireworks, that i don't have so i jumped to the next game, only to find that the resources i need are not on the chapter folder like it should be on the internet. It is not an easy step by step 90% is in black and white with very few images that were taken at the wrong time in the process that it should be talking you through it. I have to teach this for a saturday class and it has not helped, Stay WELL CLEAR.

awfull :(
definately not for beginners, most of the information at the start is irellevant, u have to sift through all the waffle to get the few usuful bits of info, the 1st exercise diddn't work when i followed the instructions exactly, im not new to simple programming, and have had no trouble with books on xhtml or css. Some instructions seemed to be missing and diddn't match up with the images, this book should not have been published yet, there is sooo much wrong with it, it needs to be re-edited. finnished examples are not available to download from the website as it says in the book. Actionscript does not look like a difficult language, but this guy makes it look impossible. I will learn the language from another book :P