Macromedia Flash Professional 8 Game Development

Flash 8 ist ja schon in die Jahre gekommen, damals war das Buch jedoch der Top Titel in meinem Regal.Auch wenn Flash heute fast tot ist und die neuen Flash Versionen wesentlich bessere Möglichkeiten bieten:Rhodes zeigte hier, wie kleine Spiele programmiert werden, effektiv und ohne Objektorientierung.Nach der Lektüre kann man Titel wie Super Mario Brothers ohne grössere Probleme selbst erstellen.

I bought this book hoping to take steps from mid-level ActionScripter to a more advanced coder. In a world of how-to books that just regurgitate the same ol' techniques this one not only met, but it exceeded my expectations. I was hoping to improve my techniques for interactivity and thought a book on ActionScript gaming would be the quickest, most thorough and most fun way to do it and this book came through big time. Great examples, and good explanations of every step taken. Sometimes I needed more of an explanation but I think that's a trade-off of having more examples. So not really a complaint since I can find explanations online, but good examples are far more scarce. An absolute must-have...as someone said even if you are not into gaming. I'll also add that its still a must-have despite ActionScript 3 being out...but hopefully they put out a new edition covering that.To respond to the negative reviews: 1. Want to see classes and OOP...that would be an issue if this book claimed to be an AS3 book, but considering it is AS2, when OOP and classes weren't as en vogue, I don't think that is a valid complaint. 99% of Flash CS2 books hardly mentioned classes and didnt code that way. 2. Bad habits/naming conventions...I didn't think so but I think that is a preference and if you don't like his "style" no one is forcing you to continue coding that way after you finish the book. Every author has their own style, and I didn't think his coding broke any conventions. 3. Nothing you can't learn yourself...just not true. I've found a lot of great stuff online, but it was a big help and hugely time-saving to have this wealth of info in one place AND with great instruction...and a bonus general ActionScript chapter that is better than many Flash books out there!

very good book and very well paced. It is for the novice and I'd say intermediate Flasher. What I find good is (and that makes it imminently useable for more knowledgable users) are the little explanatory boxes thrown in ever so often about little details that would otherwise not come up (e.g. difference bwtween function, method; naming conventions, etc)

If you've worked with strongly type languages like Java/C++/etc then this book might make you cringe a bit. First, the code is very terse with clever tricks to shorten the number of lines. Eventually it makes sense but methods like makeFader() don't really make a fader, they do other things like remove a game object from the scene.So along with softreferences ( for i to 10, make a variable box_i=i ) - ew, and bad naming conventions, it plays out more like an Oreilly Cookbook that encourages bad habits. Granted, I ordered it and I'll keep it as a book full of complete examples. But I think any of the examples that I copy/type/study, I'll refactor later to be more clear and well-coded.It's a fast ramp-up to ActionScript 2.0. If you're looking for smarter and more mid-level code then maybe wait for a book on AS3.0 that is more class oriented and less procedural like this book. Else, if you just want to see end-to-end examples as fast as possible the author does a good job of explaining code blocks as he goes even if he's encouraging bad habits.

This book has several inconsistencies, broken code, and an outdated website. Within the second game I quickly noticed that the author cited a section of code two different ways (j%4)+1 and (j)%4+1, that is a pretty big mistake considering that the simple swap in parenthesis causes the code to run entirely different.I also noticed that game #3 doesn't even work right. The author obviously didn't even test his own code. When you click the start button it needs to reset the fadercnt variable, or the game won't register multiple wins/losses correctly.On to the website, there is a contact us link that requires a captcha before it will send. I've tried 3 different browsers and 4 computers and there is no captcha, therefore making it impossible to send an email to the author.I am highly opposed to wasting money on this book.