Flash In The Pan

[Omloflump]

I use Mac OS X, so there is not much chance of me ever making an adventure game without Flash. Flash MX to be exact. I have tried unsuccessfully to seek out a tutorial on how to do this and now I'm wondering if anyone here can help me, at least point me in the right direction. This is very wishful thinking but it would be incredibly great if someone could give me a pre-made engine for me to modify Anyway, I'm pretty hopeless at Actionscript and I doubt I'll ever be good, so a tutorial on how to do things is really a must. With virtually no knowledge of Actionscript, I managed to make a Text Adventure with a good tutorial. Also, I would like to know if Flash is a good adventure game vehicle, can you make something worthwhile with it? I have seen a couple of Flash adventure games and I wasn't too impressed with their production values. Oh yes, and one more thing: Has anyone used that text adventure tutorial that was on one of the flash websites? (I only found one) If so, how do you make it not skip past text all the time if a screen's only user action is enter, so when they press enter after typing a command they get a little description of what they did then they press enter again and they are back where they were, but it keeps skipping past the middle description and I have no idea how to stop this. I doubt anyone will understand what I just said, heck even I'm confused. Help would be much appreciated, thanks alot.  

[FrairPhil]

Im afraid I cant set you up with either a tutorial or a full engine, but I am always willing to help in any Specific aspects in building a game in Flash.  If you havent played either of my Flash adventure games (Case of the Crabs or Brain Hotel) I suggest you head over to www.pinheadgames.com to get a glimpse of the games Ive made and what Flash is capable of.

There is far too much scripting involved for me to provide any sort of tutorial, so my best advice is to get to a bookstore and buy yourself a good actionscript book.  I suggest the Flash MX Bible.

Good luck!    

[Omloflump]

Okay, thanks. Just as long as it's possible.

[Omloflump]

The text based game I made was using this tutorial: http://www.flashkit.com/tutorials/Games/Bu...m-974/index.php. Has anyone else used it? What I really want is to learn how to save games using this sort of engine, I think I tried to use someone's tutorial on saving but it didn't work with my game. Help would be much appreciated. Oh, and this is probably one of the most basic features, but can someone tell me how to make a working clock that is displayed on the games interface? Possibly with date as well. I want to use it for some puzzles that only start at a certain time of day and I also want to make it so certain events make it tick over faster, such as sleeping which could take you to the next day etc. This bit should be pretty easy, as I already worked out how to do a sierra style points system. Thanks.

[Courthold]

Take a look at Virtual PC too, if you are serious about it.

[Omloflump]

Can someone tell me exactly how to save a game? I've found some tutorials but I don't know how to make them work. What do you do for a text-based game?

[bigmac]

I have something on the way for you... Rock on with OSX man, nothing says that we can't build adventures too!

 I have been developing a Shockwave engine for two years now. It's called "LASSIE" for Lingo Adventure Scripting System and Interactivity Engine. The engine is built using Macromedia Director for the program platform and Flash for media and animation.

Yes, flash could make a full adventure game... However, as a professional Flash developer and I am holding off for a while. It has some very desirable assets, but it's data support is not yet up to par with Director (for supporting a full dynamic engine system). Flash MX is a big step up with the introduction of DataSets, but even those need some refining. I have considered persuing a Flash player for LASSIE save games, but it will not be until at least Flash 8.

 I am currently in the process of packaging a stable build of LASSIE and getting documentation together. I hope to have it all posted on my project site Monday. Check it out at http://www.gmacwill.com/lassie. Don't despair Mac developers, help is on the way.

[Candle]

Looks good BigMac , is the download page have 404s ?
http://www.gmacwill.com/lassie/download.html

[bigmac]

The media won't be up until Monday (20th)... I have to package and zip them. I'll update the links as "coming soon" for the weekend.

[Erwin_Br]

Sounds good! Flash is getting more and more popular with independent developers lately. An engine like LASSIE could lower the threshold (Using director with Lingo can look intimidating for unexperienced developers) and push things forward even more.

--Erwin

[bigmac]

Ok, application files are posted. Feel free to try it out. I am still in the process of compiling documentation, as well as trying to stay ontop of testing and bug fixes. I also need to post flash template files to show how to configure flash animation sprites, but for the time being you can play around with the sample graphics I included. Or just adventure around in the demo environment!

http://www.gmacwill.com/lassie

[Omloflump]

Wow. I haven't checked up on the adventure game engine situation in a while, and I was very surprised to find a Mac OSX one. Thank you very much, BigMac, that looks terrific. I'm downloading it now. You may just be the saviour for us poor Mac users.

Thanks again.