Developing downloadable casual game with Flash.

[AmbitiousK]

I've read the "Flash vs PC Downloadables" thread, but what I want to discuss is quite different, about developing Downloadable casual game with Flash.



I'm developing a downloadable casual game with Flash8 (ActionScript2) and MDM Zinc v2.5 for commercial release. I've been developing the game for 6 months so far, and it's 80% done now. But, recently I'm facing some fundamental problems of flash, like cpu performance, limitation of art or overall graphic looks.

I think the performance problem and limitation of art can be overcome by optimizing, but the "flash-like" graphic seems hard to find solution.
I'm not sure how to express "flash-like graphic", but when I play any downloadable casual games, the graphic looks much softer than my flash-developed game.
I feel the difference but I don't know what makes it looks different. Is it because of DirectX's anti-aliasing or blur effect? or fps rate? (My game is 30fps.) If so, is there any way to make flash-made game graphic so?


In addition, how do you think about developing downloadable commercial 19.99$ casual game with Flash and Zinc?
Is there any commercially successful casual download game which is developed with Flash?

[ragdollsoft]

I noticed that 35 fps games look quite a bit smoother than 30, try upping that a bit.

[AmbitiousK]

I noticed that 35 fps games look quite a bit smoother than 30, try upping that a bit.

Oh, I mean the graphic itself looks softer. I don't know what technology do they use for it.

[Bmc]

I believe "The Scruffs" may have been done with Flash. I know there have been others. Solitaire Pop and Poker Pop (published by PlayFirst) come to mind.

[Spore Man]

"softer" ? What does that mean? If you're using bitmaps with Flash dev, or bitmaps with C++ and 2D DirectX, bitmaps are bitmaps.

Maybe you are SCALING your bitmaps and don't have SMOOTHING turned on?

[Twitchfactor]

Yeah, you'll have to define "softer", because that could mean a ton of things. There's nothing inherently "harsh" about Flash. If you want "soft" art, run blur filter on them in Photoshop. Unless someone's doing a full-screen anti-alias, DX[whatever] is not going auto-magically make your games look "softer".

I noticed that 35 fps games look quite a bit smoother than 30, try upping that a bit.

Umm... realistically, there's no perceptible difference between a solid 30fps and 35fps. As a matter of fact, anything other than 30fps or 60fps will look "uneven" .

[Reinhardius]

there may be several reasons for your smoothing problem.

-you are scaling your graphics in flash above the original resolution
-your project is for example 800x600, but you scale it up with zinc to go full screen.
- you havent checked the "allow smoothing " box at the image properties in flash.

When i created "I AM JESUS" i also had a lot of performance issues, but i could solve most of them by using flashjester's jugglor. My game didn't start at all when i tried to use zinc.

[Olivier]

As a matter of fact, anything other than 30fps or 60fps will look "uneven" .

Wouldn't you mind explaining this particular point a bit further please? What's wrong with 50 FPS for example?

[joshg]

Umm... realistically, there's no perceptible difference between a solid 30fps and 35fps. As a matter of fact, anything other than 30fps or 60fps will look "uneven" .

Are you thinking of console development there, where you want your fps to match up to the scan rate of a TV? That's the only reason I can think of that things other than 30fps or 60fps would look weird. And PC monitors aren't tied to that problem since they can be set to whatever Hz refresh rate the monitor supports. (In fact I can't stand it when CRT monitors are left at 60Hz, it always looks like crap to me.)

- josh g.

[KNau]

I seem to recall Coffee Tycoon did well back in the day and it was developed in Flash.

[AmbitiousK]

I never known that flash supports bitmap smoothing.
Now it works great, and I feel so confident

Thank you all~!

[Spore Man]

I never known that flash supports bitmap smoothing.
Now it works great, and I feel so confident

Thank you all~!

Imported bitmaps used to have Smoothing (known as "bi-linear filtering" in the non-Flash development worlds) turned on by default, but as of Flash 8, in the interests of performance, bitmaps have Smoothing turned off by default.

[paulhuxt]

Hi,
Some tips about Flash performances:

- Flash in an embedded activeX loses automatically 20% performances (whatever initial fps).

- the only exeption is IE: almost no performance loss. However, on IE some FPS are "bad" (eg. 30 fps loses perf. => 25 fps... whereas 33 fps is ok). Contact microsoft for further explanation .

- Regarding performances in EXE projectors, Jugglor (SWF2EXE tool NOT using activeX) does a (much) better job than Zinc (using activeX)... provided you embed a Flash projector (exe) and NOT a SWF file.

Hope it helps,

[Spore Man]

Hi,
Some tips about Flash performances:

- Flash in an embedded activeX loses automatically 20% performances (whatever initial fps).

- the only exeption is IE: almost no performance loss. However, on IE some FPS are "bad" (eg. 30 fps loses perf. => 25 fps... whereas 33 fps is ok). Contact microsoft for further explanation .

- Regarding performances in EXE projectors, Jugglor (SWF2EXE tool NOT using activeX) does a (much) better job than Zinc (using activeX)... provided you embed a Flash projector (exe) and NOT a SWF file.

Hope it helps,

However, word of caution: If you intend to wrap the final game with a DRM (such as those most Portals use for 1-hr trial / click to buy sales) not all Flash wrappers will play nicely with those.

[joshg]

However, word of caution: If you intend to wrap the final game with a DRM (such as those most Portals use for 1-hr trial / click to buy sales) not all Flash wrappers will play nicely with those.

Which ones will? (In your own experience with whichever APIs you were using, that is.)

[paulhuxt]

I tested only Trymedia's ActiveMark:

- SWFKit is compatible, provided you check "no compression" in export settings (it was the case 2 years ago, perhaps now it's not needed).

- Jugglor is compatible too (in version >= 3.0). But I did'nt test it in a commercial project.

[Bmc]

I believe Zinc is compatible, but you need to request a patch once you have bought your license. (according to http://www.abductionstudios.com/tutorial-Zinc.php) who has had a couple of Flash dev'd games (packaged with Zinc) on the portals

[joshg]

Thanks for the info.

I keep waffling on what I should start using to develop my click-management game. But since I've already got Flash and I'm starting to like working with the animation timeline, it'd be nice to just get working on it in Flash and figure out web deployed vs downloadable later.

[Twitchfactor]

Are you thinking of console development there, where you want your fps to match up to the scan rate of a TV? That's the only reason I can think of that things other than 30fps or 60fps would look weird. And PC monitors aren't tied to that problem since they can be set to whatever Hz refresh rate the monitor supports. (In fact I can't stand it when CRT monitors are left at 60Hz, it always looks like crap to me.)

- josh g.

Yeah, sorry, my bad...

I come from the "console world" and prior to that, all my "PC's" hooked up to TV's. (C-64's, Atari's, Vic-20's, etc).

[Spore Man]

Bumping this one again.
Just wanted to let those interested Flash as an option know that they should check out "Puzzle City". It's made in Flash. Runs at 30 fps. I don't know know what player they are using though.