Let me first tell you about the actual game itself. It is a rhythm-based game where all 8 of he home row keys are used (A S D F J K L . It sounds hard, but once you get used to it, it gets a lot easier. However, many of the users did not get used to it, and thought that even the easiest songs were too hard. Perhaps I didn’t follow my own advice.

Xylophone Master was the first game in which I used XML data, which was made a much easier process thanks to ActionScript 3.0. I used an XML document for all of the 50+ songs, and it helped ease the game-making process. The only other way I could have done it was with arrays, which could have gotten out of hand with all of the attributes that I needed. Xylophone Master was also the first game in which I really used sounds. Of course, it was a music/rhythm game, and I had to use a lot of sounds. I didn’t use pre-made music, like all of the other similar rhythm-based games, but I made it so a certain sound clip would dynamically play every time the user hit the right key. This made my game unique, but also made it run very unsmoothly on slower systems. Unfortunately, neither I nor my sponsor found out about this.

Xylophone Master had a bunch of other bugs too, all of which didn’t occur on my speedy development Mac. For some reason, the game would not load a second time for some people, but worked well the first time it loaded. I suspect that it had something to do with the Shared Objects that I implemented (it was the first time I’d ever used those). Another problem with it was that I created a background beat that would act as a sort of metronome for the user. However, this was dynamically created too, and with substantially larger files, causing the game to become even more choppy on slow systems. I discovered this earlier and made it an option to turn it off, but it obviously wasn’t visible enough.

The programming for this game really drove me nuts. I often found myself trying to fix either non-existent bugs or terribly confusing ones. Those issues really cost me a lot of development time, but ultimately I think they’ve made me a better programmer. I don’t have any of these issues in my current project which has a lot more complicated concepts ( and is being kept secret unless you have an account on Flash Game License).

The final point in my ramblings about my latest creation is probably what made all of my hardships worthwhile. This was my first sponsored game, and what a sponsorship it was… It was a primary license, my favorite, which put a hefty price tag on my game (see spotlight statistics below). Joel from Addicting Games really liked my game even in its very early stages of development, and put up the bid you see below very early. He, in fact, was the only one who offered to sponsor my game, so it was natural that I would accept his offer, and accept it I did. The 10 page contract and W9 form was well worth the money that I earned. I can thank Flash Game License for getting me the opportunity to get all of this money. Without that site, I would have gotten near as much, if any at all. I feel terrible however that I might not be able to pay their 10% optional commission fee. I’m getting paid by check while they accept only Paypal.

Well, that’s all I have to say about my experience making Xylophone Master. I hope it’s been interesting for you.

This was my first game in which I didn’t use a glow theme for all of the graphics, so I didn’t really have any idea how to make good art in this game. So, I chose to use a gradient/monochrome theme. Now that I reflect on it, this was a pretty bad decision. The art is probably what kept most of the sponsors away from my game. A more colorful scheme and perhaps more “cartoonish” art would have been a better choice. But, just because the graphic art wasn’t the best didn’t mean it wasn’t a good game.

The programming for The Alphabet Eater was quite simple, but really introduced a few new concepts to me. The main skill that I honed from developing this game was randomization. Almost every part of this game was totally randomized: the color scheme of the main page, the place and direction that the letters came at the player, the actual letter that they were, their speed, and possibly a few more variables. As you can see, I had to use Math.random quite a bit.

The Alphabet Eater was also the first game that I seriously tried to get a sponsor. I must have emailed at least 10 different sponsors about my game, but only one of them responded. I don’t blame them, my game wasn’t what I would call sponsorship material. Anyway, after weeks of trying to get a sponsor, I decided simply to release it to the public, and release it I did. I submitted it to a bunch of sites and got useful feedback on it. Also, quite a few other game sites somehow were able to get my game and put it on their sites without my permission. However, I still gained a lot of traffic from them, so it was a win-win situation.

I had a great time programming The Alphabet Eater, which helped build my base knowledge for further game development.

I decided to make an easy brick breaker game because I didn’t believe that I had the experience to program the games that I wanted to create. Creating a clone of a simple game was in my opinion the best decision for me. The learning experience that I had from making it really developed what I needed for my future games.

The development of Glowbricks is really what taught me how to reuse code with functions. It also showed me of the versatility of arrays, and why ActionScript classes are so great. I basically turned all of my ActionScript code into functions, and from that ease swept over me. I didn’t have to copy and paste code anymore. For me, that was quite a large step. Arrays really helped me in this game, they are how I was able to create all of my levels:

lvl1Code:Array = new Array();
lvl1Code = [
0,0,1,1,1,0,0,
0,0,1,1,1,0,0,
0,0,1,1,1,0,0,
];

Each number would count for a certain block. With this and other bits of code, I was able to easily create all 20 levels in the game in a very quick manner. The game was finished in less than a week.

The first game that I ever made using Flash was Glowsticks, a simple platformer with interesting graphics. This was created at a time when I had no idea how to program anything. I only vaguely knew the principles of game development. I was only able to make this game by using a Cartoonsmart tutorial. Just as a side note, those tutorials are great if you want to get into programming, but not if you want to be a good programmer. Anyway, I didn’t really do any of the coding myself, but let the tutorial show me how to do it. I had a lot of fun making this one, and it was a great learning experience

But, the game turned out to be a mess. Once I finished it, I wasn’t able to easily go back and add levels or make changes. It took much effort to update it into Glowsticks v1.5, and to be honest I only did it to get more traffic to my site. Back then, I didn’t know much about reusable code, so in many instances, I copied and pasted the same code in many different frames so if I wanted to change one small detail, I’d have to change all of them. That part wasn’t so fun.

Another problem that the game had was that it was way too hard. Many of the people who played it weren’t able to get to the boss, who I made extremely hard. This lesson taught me to make my games easier, therefore more fun to play.

To conclude, Glowsticks wasn’t my best work, but it was the best game at teaching me about code. It was the basis for my learning of all the scripting and programming languages I know, including PHP and AS3.