Key components required to develop a Flash Game

Online gaming industry has been growing exponentially since the 90s when it became very popular. As of 2011 the worldwide online gaming revenue was around $11-12 billion dollars, which shows how serious a business it is. Lot of companies is into developing online games and the easiest and preferred technology used for building games is Flash. We at Mindfire have been involved in games development for a long time now. The online game development team at Mindfire has developed a wide variety of Flash based games – the following link Flash game development @ Mindfire shows some of the games built by us.

Given below is a small write up on 2 basic areas of game development – Key components required in a game AND basic game development workflow. 

Key components required in a game

The following are a few key components required in a game:

Input: Input refers to how the game is controlled by the user. Typically simpler games are controlled with the mouse, the keyboard arrow keys, or both. For mobile device based games, touch gestures are the most common input method, and the Flash Platform has robust touch support.

Sprites: Sprites are the visual elements on screen, such as a MovieClip of a spaceship or a biplane in a flying game.

Sounds: Good sounds for specific events in a game are a very vital part of any game. They just add tremendous value in terms of user engagement in the game.

Collision detection: This is the code that senses when any two sprites touch on screen, which is crucial for most action-oriented games.

Game loop: This is a term sometimes used by game developers to describe the programming logic that controls the game experience. ActionScript is the programming language used to execute the game loop in Flash games. In ActionScript 3.0, there are two ways of calling a function at specific intervals. The first approach is to use the Event. ENTER_FRAME event dispatched by interactive objects (InteractiveObject). The second approach is to use a timer. The ENTER_FRAME event approach is more common, and is best used for very frequently updates such as animation, other rendering updates, and artificial intelligence (AI) routines. A timer can behave in a similar way to an ENTER_FRAME event, but an event can be dispatched without being tied to the frame rate. Timer is best for periods of time that are several seconds or more in duration. Like other programming languages, ActionScript also provides numerous other techniques to accomplish the game loop, such as for and while loops.

Game development workflow

Given below are the simple basic steps that every game developer adheres to when developing a new game:

• Brainstorm. Ideate, discuss and debate till a final conclusive idea for the game is developed. 
• Develop. This is the phase when the actual game is developed. The major chunk of the time is spent in this phase. 
• Test and optimize. Continuous testing is required to ensure that the game is bug-free and fun to play. Performance improvement is one thing that is taken care of in this phase.
• Distribute and monetize. After the game is finally developed it needs to be marketed properly, so that real players (users) get to know and play the demo version and finally buy it. 
• Use analytics. Analysis of user feedback and metrics such as game plays, duration of game play, and more needs to be done regularly to improve the game further. 
• Update. All the above steps except step 4 needs to be done regularly to ensure the game quality keeps improving and more and more users start playing and enjoying it. 

At Mindfire we follow the above mentioned approach to build games, have a look at the projects page to see some of the games developed by us. The flash application development team at Mindfire is a group of enthusiastic programmers who are crazy about games and don’t lose an opportunity to grab one to play with or get started to build one. 

To know more about our expertise in flash application development and to hire flash developers, please contact us at sales [at] mindfiresolutions [dot] com or call 1-248-686-1424. We will be glad to help you.

Flash Application Development

Applications in Flash find their usage in various industries and very few IT solutions company provide the complete range of specialized services in Flash application development. Services can range from Flash Application Development, Flash Internet Application Development, Flash Website Development, Flash Template Design, Multimedia Flash Presentation, Flash Banner Design, Flash Animations & Elements, Flash Web Intro, Flash Game Development and much more! 

At Mindfire we have developed a lot of interesting applications using Flash. Our team of highly experienced & certified programmers is capable of delivering a wide range of customized Flash application development projects as per the client requirements. Our Flash game development skills are second to none. We have built Flash based games to run in Facebook, games for Gaming industry, apps for industries like publishing, education etc. We have build Flash based apps for iOS. With the release of Flash Media server 4.5 apps build in Flash can be used for iOS, since it has the inbuilt feature to convert it to HTML5 which is supported by iOS. This is one area where a lot of our clients benefited because of our understanding of iOS and Flash. 

Our experience and expertise, not only in Flash but also in areas related to it, has helped our clients reap the maximum benefit by working with us. Recently one of our clients, who is into selling medical products, wanted to build a product which would help it increase its sales. They had a marketing budget and wanted us to build something to help in advertisement. What we suggested was using Gamification to build the application, where the whole message is conveyed in the form of a game. So it’s exciting and engaging for the user and by playing it, very subtly, he is made aware of our client’s products. We also did the social media integration so that it can be shared easily among users. Once the product was developed and delivered to client there was a wonderful impact in sales for our client – this proved to be the solution they were in need of. At the end of it all we felt happy that we could help our client realize the true benefit of technology and get a good return on their investment in it. 

Similarly one of our clients who is into building E-Learning application for kids wanted to develop an app for smart phones. Since we have Flash development teams working exclusively in building apps for iOS, android based phones – we leveraged that and build the app as thought of by client. Having a dedicated smart phone testing team helped improve the quality and usability of the app built. Real testing in the smart phones helped in improving finer aspects of the app and this in turn benefited our client in getting a totally market ready app. Since at Mindfire we do the testing and development in parallel and handle the testing in house (as part of our own focus and commitment to deliver best quality product to our clients) - client got the whole app developed within time and with no extra overhead cost. In the end another happy customer and a good day at office for us.