One of the best things about game development is the plethora of great resources on the web at your disposal. From free sound and sprite libraries to tutorials on almost every subject, the internet is a great place to start your search when you need a new idea, are stuck on a problem, or just want something interesting to read. Blogs or or blog like deviices have been in use by developers well before others jumped on the band wagon. Unix developers created .plan files for years that could be read by anyone interested in reading about their progress. Today there any millions of blogs out there. Here are a few that I read as often as I can. Also, running your own site and blog will inevitably introduce yourself to many like-minded folks who are also happy to share ideas, code, and answers.
Jobe Makar’s Blog
Jobe has been doing this for a LOOOONG time. His blog is relatively new, but he is an “old hand” at Flash game programming. Is is the author of 2 Macromedia Press books that were and still are the literal gospel to many Flash game developers. One of Jobe’s latest entries deals with The ELO rating system for player matching. It is an ingenious way to match, rank, and “level up” players in a multiplayer gaming universe.
Mike Grundvig’s Blog o’ Stuff
If you have read any of my blog entries on Bitmap Animation caching and want further examples in AS3, look no further than Mike’s blog. His latest deals with using the copyPixels method of the bitMap data object and a sprite map sheet (very similar to an AS2 approach I have here, but his is much more fleshed out and in AS3). Mike works with Jobe at ElectroTank. Together, they encompass one of the best Flash Game programming teams working today.
Interactive Crap
This is a relatively new blog, written by another extraordinary individual who wants to share his game programming experience and knowledge with others. He has many cool entries on this site, some for beginners and some for much more advanced developers. His latest also deals with Bitmap animation caching. He has taken some code ideas I presented to a new level by implementing three helper classes that do much of the work for the developer.
Make It Big In Games
This is not necessarily a Flash game programming site, but if you have any desire to make money from your games, this is the blog for you. It is chockfull of insight from Jeff Tunnel, who has been making games for ages. You can read his bio here . He is nothing short of a visionary in the field and we are lucky to have his thoughts to read on a daily basis.
The Flash Game Programming Wiki!
This is a great resource that needs all of our help to thrive. It already contains great tutorials on development, graphic techniques, story telling, tools and more.
Actionscript game developer
This one seems pretty promising. I haven’t had time to read all of it, but he is yet another independent Flash game developer who wants to share his views and ideas with others. Guys like this need our support so they will continue to write good games and come up with unique ideas.
There are many other great blogs if you are interested in Flash Development. They don’t cover games exclusively, but obviously much of the code and many of the ideas can be applied to game development:
Grant Skinner’s Blog – One of the original Flash Bloggers, still going strong.
Keith Peters’ blog – Author of many of the great math based books on Flash
Andre Michelle’s Blog – A legend in the Flash game programming world
Colin Moock’s Blog – The definitive source on everything Actionscript. If you have a favorite, drop us a line and we’ll check it out.