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...)

A couple months ago I created a simple demo using the AS3 Multiuser Library. The post has generated very positive feedback and I've also received a few requests for a tutorial so here it is! In this tutorial you will learn how to build a basic multiplayer, p2p application. (more...)

If you've played many online games, you've probably seen the puzzle simulations where an image is cut up into pieces and randomly arranged. The goal is to click pieces and move them to reform the original image. In this tutorial you will learn the basics of how to create this type of game. If you want to take a sneak peek at the finished product, you can do so here. (more...)

In this tutorial you will learn how to implement a more advanced style of terrain following using Flash and ActionScript 3. Terrain following is a pretty simple concept in a flat or boxy world, but what if you want a more dynamic world with hills and slopes? Things become a little trickier. Luckily, Flash and AS 3 have some handy built-in functionality that take a lot of the grunt work out of the process. Let's check it out! (more...)

Last week I decided to look into building a native extension for AIR and was very surprised by the lack of quality resources and tutorials for doing so. I was able to find examples for Android using Java and for iOS using Objective-C, but pretty much nothing for a standard Windows C++ project. I was eventually able to get things up and running by piecing together bits of information from various sources, but I thought I'd take the time to write a step-by-step tutorial on how to do this so that perhaps others will have an easier time. In this tutorial you will create a native extension that simply adds two numbers together and returns the sum. (more...)

Updated: 7/24/2012

WebRTC is a new technology that brings real-time communication capabilities to your browser without the need for plugins. In this tutorial you'll learn how to set up a webcam stream and copy images from it to an HTML5 canvas element. (more...)

Welcome to part 3 of the HTML 5 Space Shooter tutorial series. If you haven't already, I'd recommend checking out parts 1 and 2 before jumping in here. We're going to pick up where we left at the end of the last tutorial and implement enemies and collision detection. Let's get right to it! (more...)

In part 2 of this series we're going to be adding a player ship and the ability to control that ship. If you're just joining us, you'll first want to check out part 1 where we set up a scrolling starfield which serves as the background for the game. (more...)

Happy new year! 2011 was a fantastic year for me and I hope it was for you as well; hard to believe 2012 is here already! I figured a new tutorial would be a great way to start off the year so here you go: part 1 in a series on creating an HTML 5 shooter using EaselJS! (more...)

One of the most common tasks in Flash game development is calculating angles. This becomes important in even simple 2D games such as shooters where the player can fire bullets in all directions. If you're anything like me, you're probably not very good with math. I typically will find other ways to get the job done, and indeed I had my own way for figuring bullet paths, but eventually I decided to use real angles and I'm pleased to say it really isn't that bad. (more...)