Category: 8bitrocket
-
Undercooked: The Origins And Evolution Of 8bitrocket.com
In The summer of 1996 we started a site named WheatMedia.com, dedicated to web design. This was our first domain name, and first real foray into tackling the World Wide Web.
-
The Essential Guide To Flash Games Conspiracy?
Over at GamingYouWay.com, they might have found some sort of odd conspiracy from the pages of the Essential Guide To Flash Games Book, and all over the web. Here is a quote:
-
8bitrocket Discovers WordPress! Move Will Occur Within The Next 2 Weeks
We have decided to move 8bitrocket.com to Word Press. We have experimented with it in the past couple days, and it appears that it will help us solve a lot of problems (and of course, add new ones). We are moving all the content right now, creating 303 redirects, and…
-
Flash Not Even Close To Dead: 5 Reasons Why Flash Still Lives At The Top And May Never Be Defeated
5 Good reasons why Flash is here to stay (and most involve Google). 1. YouTube.com : Even though youtube.com added some HTML 5 video support, it’s still Flash that makes youtube.com tick. Embedding, full-screen video, standard codecs, interactive elements, variable streams, protected streams, HTTP streaming, web cam and microphone support,…
-
Flash/Adobe/HTML5/Apple Wars Bring Opportunity To Developers: 721% Rise In HTML5 Job Postings
The Apple/Flash wars have had a nice side-affect for freelance job seekers: Opportunity. According to freelancer.com, there was a 721% rise in HTML5 related job posting in Q2 2010. This made HTML5 the #2 ranked technology in the “Freelancer.com Fast 50”. Here is a quote from Freelancer.com: “The Apple Effect:…
-
Customizable Full-Screen Flash Fireworks Show
Here is a link to our customizable, Flash Fireworks show. This is a link to the .swf so you can view it in full-screen mode. Enjoy!
-
8bitrocket.com: The End Is Nye? We Need Ideas On Where To Move.
Today our hosting company emailed us to tell that our site uses too many resources. They want to move us to a much more expensive plan. One that simply does not justify the cost. We have collected almost 1000 stories and tutorials in the past 4 years, plus almost 100…
-
USA v. England : A No Win Situation For 8bitrocket.com
Today the USA plays against England in their first game of the FIFA 2010 World Cup. Whenever the USA plays England, it becomes an uncomfortable situation for 8bitrocket.com. We have many friends who live all over the world, and usually we get along famously. However, when we play each other…
-
Huw Collingbourne Of bitwise Magazine Really Likes The Essential Guide To Flash Games
Huw Collingbourne Of bitwise Magazine just posted his review of The Essential Guide To Flash Games. He really liked it! Here is my favorite quote: “What a great book this is! Don’t be deceived into thinking that, since it is a book about games programming, it must necessarily be trivial.…
-
Yes, We Still Work On Flash Games: Introducing Zombie Alien Zero Flak Defender!
With all of this talk of HTML 5, I wanted to show some on-going progress on an AS3 game that I’m working on. Yes, it is an iteration on one of the games from The Essential Guide To Flash Games, and yes it will be used to promote the book,…
-
Can I survive HTML5? Yes, and so can you
Can I survive HTML5? Yes, and so can you. It took me a few months to finally crack open the beast, but while on a little holiday vacation in California Wine country, I finally took the leap. Steve has been dabbling in HTML 5 for the last couple months but…
-
Is The HTML 5 Canvas A Gateway Drug For Flash?
When I was 13 years old I wanted an Atari 800 computer. I wanted it to play all the great computer games I saw on the shelves at the local computer store, HW Computers, and because it came with the BASIC programming language. Not only could you play games, but…
-
Would A Basic Book on HTML 5 Canvas Games Interest You?
While we are in early talks with some publishers about a book on building games the HTML 5 Canvas, I’d like to know: Would this interest you? Unlike “The Essential Guide To Flash Games”, this book would take a more ground-up approach, and include all the information you need to…
-
Geometry Attack: First Found Game Made From The Essential Guide To Flash Games Book?
Yesterday we were alerted to this game, Geometry Attack. It appears to be the first game made from the games from our book: The Essential Guide To Flash Games. However, this is not a complaint. The whole point of the book is to get people to make games. We want…
-
Essential Guide To Flash Games Chapter 13 Part 1. Modified BasicScreen and new ImageButton class
Essential Guide To Flash Games Chapter 13 Part 1. Modified BasicScreen and new ImageButton class The Essential Guide To Flash Games only contains 12 chapters, so what is chapter 13? Chapter 13 and beyond will be additions to the book and efg framework that build on what has been created…
-
HTML 5 Canvas: Using Processing.js To Develop Canvas Apps
This weekend, a friend of mine named Mike Foti noticed my pained expressions when I was talking about the HTML 5 Canvas, and he decided to help salve some of my injuries from my first few tests by pointing me towards a project named processing,js. processing.js is an MIT Media…
-
GameDev.net Gives The Essential Guide To Flash Games 4 Gs!
GameDev.net has reviewed The Essential Guide To Flash games, and has given it 4 Gs! Here is a good quote: “The level of the book starts off quite simply. While it might help to know a bit of computer programming, knowledge of ActionScript or the “Flash way of doing things”…
-
HTML 5 Canvas: Creating Gaudy Text Animations…Just Like Flash! (sort of)
Since I have not posted anything about the Canvas in a few weeks I wanted to show some of the experiments I’ve been working on. Everyone knows that animating text in Flash is very easy and has been around since the technology began. It seems to me, that if the…
-
The Essential Guide To Flash Games: The Infomerical
I believe this speaks for itself.
-
Essential Guide To Flash Games Errata F.A.Q.
Unfortunately when you write a book, some things get lost in the translation from manuscript to the final product. This is a running list of things that need changing or clarification for the book “The Essential guide To Flash Games”. Even though we did everything possible to avoid these errors,…
-
Flash And Flex Developer Magazine Gives “The Essential Guide To Flash Games” a Gobsmackingly Great Review!!
The current issue of Flash and Flex Developer Magazine (free download) has two articles about “The Essential Guide To Flash Games” book. The first is part one of “Creating An AS3 Game Framework” which is Chapter 2 of our book. It will be continued in the next issue. The second…
-
Tutorial: Exploring the AS3 Bitmap Class Lesson 3 – Scale from the center with a Matrix.
Tutorial: Exploring the AS3 Bitmap Class Lesson 3 – Scale from the center with a Matrix. In this third lesson we will explore a method of scaling the object from Lesson 1 and Lesson 2 using a Matrix operation. Like rotation, we could simple apply the scaleX and scaleY properties…
-
The Essential guide To Flash Games: Facebook Page: Please “Like It”
OK, there is nothing really special to note here, except that we have created a “Facebook” page for the “Essential Guide To Flash Games“. We would really appreciate it if you could go over there and “like” it so it can get a bit of promotion. We might actually buy…
-
Terry Paton Gives Our book A Nice Review!
One man Flash Game factory Terry Paton has reviewed our book on his site, and he had some very nice things to say: “The examples give a great understanding for how game engines work. Once you’ve gone through the various chapters and the game tutorials you should come out the…
-
Steve Jobs Vomits His Own Useless Drivel About Flash. Yawn
Today “Steve Jobs” published a blog/article/story called “Thoughts On Flash” at Apple.com. It’s a painfully boring read, mostly because we’ve read it all before. He adds nothing new, and in fact, continues to spread lies and 1/2 truths about Adobe and Flash. His points are so easily debunked, I’m not…
-
No Flash On The iPad Problem: Current Popular Social Games
No Flash On The iPad Problem: Current Popular Social Games One large potential problem (or opportunity) Apple might face in the near future, because of the lack of a Flash player on the iPod/iPad platform, is compatibility with the current set of popular social games. It is no secret that…
-
Game Engine Re-Use: Jeff Vogel Is My Hero
Here at 8bitrocket.com we love game engines and engine reuse. Damn, we even wrote a book about it! It seems that we are not alone. In a post published today, Spiderweb Software’s Jeff Vogel does a fantastic job defending his use of a game engine he has re-sued and nursed…
-
For Flash Games Developers, Working With the HTML 5 Canvas Is A Lot Of “Roll Your Own”
I’ve been working with the HTML 5 Canvas for the past couple weeks (in my spare moments) trying to implement one of the simplest games from CH.1 of our book, The Essential Guide To Flash Games with it. The game is a very simple shooter (Pixel Shooter). It’s maybe, the…
-
Spectacularly Nerdy 8bitrocket Computer Desk Circa 1992
My sister just found this photo. It’s Spectacularly nerdy. It’s a photo of me (Steve) sitting at the “8bitrocket.com” computer desk (the desk Jeff and I shared in the bedroom we shared until we graduated from college). I think the photo speaks for itself: Above you will notice the following:…
-
Tutorial: Exploring the AS3 Bitmap Class Lesson 2 – Rotation with and without a Matrix
Tutorial: Exploring the AS3 Bitmap Class Lesson 2 – Rotation and with and without a Matrix. In this second lesson we will explore a couple different methods for rotating the Bitmap object from Lesson 1. We will first try simply using Bitmap.rotation property. Next we will do the same operation…
-
Try Out The 10 Games From Our book
Here are links to the 10 Games we Create in Our Book. Some are rudimentary, some are very complex.
-
Tutorial: Exploring the AS3 Bitmap Class Lesson 1 – Creating a basic dynamic tile sheet.
Tutorial: Exploring the AS3 Bitmap Class Lesson 1 – Creating a basic dynamic tile sheet. We talk a lot about Blitting and BitmapData on this site, but we rarely take a step back and look at the container class for BitmapData, the Bitmap. In this series we will explore using…
-
Exploring The HTML 5 Canvas For Flash Developers #2: Tracking The Mouse To Draw On The Screen
After a week where confusion about the future of the Flash platform has been piled on to developers by moves outside their control, we present the second in our series of HTML 5 Canvas for Flash Developers. We call these tutorials, but really they are more like explorations. We are…
-
Top 10 Positive Things (for me) About The Apple iPhone Developer Clampdown
We have had a lot of debate about the how evil (or not) Apple has become, and how they have closed their platform to developers, etc. etc. etc. All that very well may be true, but it’s time to look on the bright side of the situation. Here are the…
-
Apple Hates Developers, And We Feel Hated
While we are trying to digest the news today that Apple has decided to reject any iXxx apps developed with tools other than their own, we have been using Twitter a lot. Our favorite Twitter “channel” is #fuckapple, but others we now enjoy are #teamandroid and our very own #fuckappleincode…
-
10 Things Developers Can Do To Help Fight Apple’s Grip On the Future Of Software Development
10 Things Developers Can Do To Help Fight Apple’s Grip On the Future Of Software Development Developers can get mad and call names (we are VERY guilty of this) at Apple for their Orwellian moves with the iPhone OS 4.0, but the best way to to “fight” them is to…
-
8bitrocket Interviews with Jameson Hsu from Mochi Media
“Many people ask why we put GAME in all caps (in the name Mochi GAME Development fund -ed)and it’s because the fund is ajoint effort between our parent company Shanda Games (stock tickerNASDAQ:GAME) and Mochi Media.” -Jameson Hsu We’ve heard back from a lot of developers about their experiences…
-
Apple Announces iAd, Game Center For iPhone/iTouch/iPad Apps: Flash Game Developers Should Take Notice
Today Apple announced a bunch of new features for their mobile OS4, but the most intriguing ones fall very close to the Flash developer tree: iAd and Game Center. Here are Apple’s own words about these two features: iAd: “Apple’s new mobile advertising platform, combines the emotion of TV ads…
-
Don’t Trash Flash Just Yet: iPad Backlash Includes Realization That Flash Web Games Won’t Work (well duh!)
While, admittedly , it was difficult to find bad news about the iPad last Friday (for the first story in this series) , it is much easier today. Now lots of people have them (but not nearly as many as Apple wanted) and the buyers (plus the media, thank the…
-
Using the Essential Flash Games Framework Hint #1: The mochi package
We have a had a few emails from people who are having some trouble publishing the games from the framework. One of these was an actual problem and it was fixed with a new code update yesterday. While the text in the book is correct, the files on the download…
intotheverticalblank.com 