Earlier this week, Google announced a new IDE for Android development: Android Studio. They released an early build that developers can download and start using today. Based on IntelliJ, Android Studio aims to simplify the standard development process for Android which currently is rather convoluted and utilizes Eclipse. I've never been particularly fond of the Eclipse IDE, so this was definitely good news for me. I was excited to try out Android Studio, but found it was a bit frustrating to get up and running. I decided to collect all the issues I faced and the solutions and post them here in a mini-guide in hopes that it may save others a few headaches. (more...)

It's been a while since I've posted anything regarding the game I'm currently working on, Crash Planet. A lot of work has gone into it since the last screenshot was posted and there's still much more to be done, but here's a more recent shot featuring aliens, bullets and our protagonist.

A couple weeks before the Flash Gaming Summit I found an interesting blog post from Colin Northway about managing texture memory in Starling applications. In this post he describes how he forces an error in ActionScript to receive an object's memory address which he then uses as a unique id. I thought this was a pretty cool trick and was discussing it with our engine developer at the office when we suddenly had a thought: if you can get the memory address of an object in ActionScript, what's to stop you from passing that address into native code and doing whatever you want with it? (more...)

I've written before about how to create your own native extensions for Adobe AIR, but what if you need to debug your extension? If you're doing anything but the simplest of projects, you're going to want to be able to debug the code on the native side, in addition to your AS3 code. The ActionScript side is (hopefully!) already taken care of by your IDE so this tutorial will focus on the native code. It's a pretty short tutorial, but also incredibly useful! (more...)

I know FGS5 has been behind us for a while now and I've been slow with any updates since. The summit was a blast as usual. It's so great to be among inspiring individuals and people who are passionate about making great Flash games. I especially enjoyed John Cooney's presentation, as well as the panel at the end of the day. If you weren't able to attend the event or watch the live stream, don't worry! All the presentation recordings are available from the FGS5 website! I have noticed some audio issues on a few that make them hard to hear, but overall its pretty good.

You can view my presentation here.

My slides can be downloaded here.

I recently picked up a Nook HD+, primarily for app development. Typically, I use the excellent FlashDevelop for my projects, but after running through the set up on the Nook developer site, I was still unable to get the ADB (Android Debug Bridge) to recognize the device. As such, my Android project in FD wasn't able to deploy to the Nook. It's taken me several hours to figure this out so I thought I'd post some helpful links in case anyone else is having issues getting their Nook device recognized by ADB. I can't say that this will help in all situations, but this solved the issue for me with the Nook HD+ on Windows 8 (64 bit). (more...)

I decided I'd go ahead and post a screenshot from the new game I've been working for Screenshot Saturday. As mentioned before, the new game will draw heavily from the NES classic The Guardian Legend. So without further delay, behold: the first screenshot from Crash Planet!

Full disclaimer: nearly all of this art is placeholder. I have been doing a lot of work on the game's tilesets, but first I just used placeholder stuff to build out the world and get a character moving. If you've played through Night of the Loving Dead, you may recognize the strapping lad in this particular shot.

If you can't make it to FGS next weekend, perhaps you can make it to this very unique gamejam in Los Angeles. The Game for Cats Hackathon is a weekend gamejam where the point is to create a game that cats will play. Naturally, this concept lends itself towards a tablet-based game.

I love this idea and almost want to go buy a tablet just to make an unofficial entry. If you've got one and some spare time, why not make a game our furry, four-legged friends can enjoy?

Update 3/16: Ok, I really did go buy a tablet to make cat games. I went with a Nook HD+.

The program schedule for the upcoming Flash Gaming Summit 5 was posted recently. My session begins at 2:15 Pacific time, but the entire day looks like it will be filled with some great talks! I've had nothing but good things to say about this event after attending last year and highly recommend you go if you're able. It's a great place to learn about the industry, meet fellow developers and get inspired to create new projects.

Check out the schedule and then register for the event if you haven't already! I hope to see you there!

It's been a while since my last post so I just figured I'd let everyone know what's been going on lately. Of course, I've been very busy over the past month and have really been focusing on my presentation for FGS! I've gotten it to a point that I'm happy with and am excited to share it with the Flash gaming community! I really can't wait for the big day!

In addition to the FGS presentation; I've been spending a lot of time working on a new game. I'm excited about this because since Night of the Loving Dead, I really haven't done a serious game project. There was Snow Day, but that was basically a weekend project for a contest. For the new game, I've drawn a lot of inspiration from the NES classic The Guardian Legend. Easily one of my favorite games of all time. So far I've got a good amount of artwork done and the basic code structure in place for moving about the world, but there is much more to do!

As for the site, I have several tutorials in mind that could be released relatively soon. However, I'm trying out video capture software because I'd like to perhaps do some video tutorials now and then. I feel that they are easier to follow along with than written ones. Below are the tutorial topics currently being looked into:

1) Introduction to Away3D
2) Data packing using bit-wise operations
3) C++ Native Extension video tutorial (may or may not do this one as the FGS presentation may cover it well enough)