About using Flash ActionScript to develop Flash games

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With the inclusion of ActionScript, Flash Development work and especially, Flash game development has leased with a new dimension. What requires in this field is a logical and creative mind with lots patience and inclinations towards minute details. The ease of deployment, zero installation requirements and cross-platform compatibility immensely helped in popularizing Flash games.Flash ActionScript is a proprietary scripting language (similar to JavaScript) developed by Adobe. The latest version of ActionScript 3.0 is now shipped with Flash CS3 where the Object-Oriented programming concept is extensively used.Flash game development (though sounds exciting!) is comparatively complicated and intensive of all ActionScript developments. Before starting the actual game development the Flash designer should create the story-line covering the scenes, characters, scoring, play mechanism and the required graphics (the character motions and other objects). With the Flash Player and Flex SDK (supplied by Adobe), one can easily start game design in Flash. The Flex SDK is a free tool which can be downloaded from Adobe’s website. Flex is a combination of the GUI and the ActionScript code. The GUI is contained in an MXML file (a XML file with user interface elements nested in HTML-like tags) which can also contain the ActionScript in a mx:Script tag.The mx:Application tag is the top level tag of an MXML file. This Application object is the entry point for the Flex application where width, height, framerate, function to notify the creation of Application, function to notify the screen redrawing action are set.Once the Application is initiated the mx:Script tag is used to write the ActionScript code for the actual game processing. Here, the GUI part is connected with each phase of the game. The game loop, user’s inputs and program parameters are set as per the game storyline and also the related audio files are attached. Once the program is complete, it is complied and finally sent for testing.