The building blocks of Flash games tools are explained in this guide for developing high-quality games with Web programming. It demonstrates the construction of these tools, the methods for importing graphics in GIF/PNG and JPEG formats, and the creation of clips, buttons, and animation effects. Motion Tween and Shape Tween animations are presented, and instructions for changing ActionScript code for working with the program shell, integrating the Shockwave Flash component into the Delphi environment, and writing a C program for working with a Flash movie are provided. Practical information on an ActionScript, coding the game scenario, game interaction with the server, and preparing game graphics will help the shareware developer and game programmer utilize Flash tools effectively.

Serge Melnikov is a game programmer, animator, and Web developer.

Introduction	p. 1
Vector Graphics, Flash Animation, and ActionScript	p. 1
Interaction of a Flash Game with the Web Server or a Windows Application	p. 2
A Brief Description of the Book	p. 3
Starting Implementation	p. 5
Importing and Creating Graphics in Flash	p. 9
Setting the Application	p. 9
Importing Graphics to Flash	p. 11
Graphics for Squares	p. 12
Graphics for the Background	p. 16
Creating Clips Using Flash Tools	p. 16
Creating the Background for the Game Pits	p. 16
Creating Pit Borders	p. 18
Creating Guidelines for the Pieces	p. 20
Creating Button Clips	p. 21
Creating Text	p. 26
Creating Buttons	p. 29
Creating Animation	p. 33
Flash Timeline	p. 33
Layers and Key Frames	p. 34
Creating Animation Effects	p. 35
The Motion Tween Animation	p. 35
The Shape Tween Animation	p. 39
Introduction to ActionScript	p. 45
An Example of Displaying Text and Clips	p. 45
Variables	p. 48
Creating Variables with Dynamically-Calculated Names	p. 49
Type Casting	p. 49
Scope of a Function	p. 50
Data Types	p. 55
The number Type	p. 55
The string Type	p. 56
The Boolean Type	p. 58
The underfined Type	p. 58
The null Type	p. 59
Operator Precedence and Associativity	p. 59
Types of Statements	p. 61
Conditional Statements	p. 62
Loop Statements	p. 64
The break Statement	p. 65
The continue Statement	p. 65
Functions	p. 66
The arguments Object	p. 66
Passing Parameters to Functions	p. 67
Global Functions	p. 67
Built-in Classes	p. 69
The Array Class	p. 69
The MovieClip Class	p. 71
The Sound Class	p. 73
Built-in Objects	p. 73
The Key Object	p. 73
The Mouse Object	p. 74
The Selection Object	p. 75
Event Handling	p. 75
User Events	p. 75
An Example: Creating Customized Mouse Pointer	p. 80
Clip Events Related to the Movie	p. 84
Scopes of Event Handlers	p. 85
Coding the Script of the Game	p. 87
Final Preparations	p. 87
Writing the Data Section of the Game Script	p. 91
Specifying Depths for Clips	p. 91
Creating Arrays for Pits and Filled Lines	p. 92
Coding Pieces, Check Arrays, and Piece Rotation Arrays	p. 93
Coding the Splash Screen	p. 105
Coding Score Display and Auxiliary Functions	p. 116
Coding the Moving down of Pieces	p. 129
Coding Motion and Rotation of the Pieces	p. 149
Continuation of the Theme	p. 155
Interaction between the Game and the Web Server	p. 157
Installing and Setting PHP	p. 157
Installing and Setting the Apache Web Server	p. 158
Receiving Game Parameters from the Web Server	p. 160
Sending the Result of the Game to the Web Server	p. 166
Integrating the Flash Project into a Program Shell	p. 177
Adding New Clips	p. 177
Updating the ActionScript Code for Work with the Shell	p. 187
Adding New Functions and Code to the Main Program	p. 197
Creating a Key Generator	p. 209
The Key-Generating Algorithm	p. 210
A Perl Key Generator	p. 211
A Delphi Key Generator	p. 214
A C++ Key Generator	p. 217
Integrating a Flash Movie into a Delphi Program	p. 219
Installing the Shockwave Flash Component in Delphi	p. 219
Writing the Program Shell in Delphi	p. 222
The Type and Global Data Section of the Program	p. 223
Integrating Flash Movie into a C++ Program	p. 237
Getting Started with the Project	p. 238
Precompiled Headers	p. 238
Registering the Main Window Style	p. 239
Creating the Main Window of the Program	p. 241
A Message Loop	p. 243
The Window Function	p. 244
Working with ActiveX Using ATL	p. 246
Linking ATL	p. 246
Loading the Shockwave Flash ActiveX Control	p. 247
ActiveX and COM Interfaces	p. 249
Finding Information about an Interface	p. 253
Loading the Flash Movie	p. 254
Handling the ActiveX Component's Events	p. 255
Sending Events from the Flash Control to Your Program Shell	p. 256
Creating a Handler Class	p. 257
Creating a Shell for Tet-a-Tetris	p. 261
Nim: Programming a Logical Game	p. 265
A Description of Nim	p. 265
Preparing Game Graphics	p. 267
A Game Board Square	p. 267
A Piece	p. 268
Buttons	p. 269
An Empty Clip for Event Handling	p. 271
Clips for Messages	p. 271
A Clip for Marking Pieces	p. 272
Writing Auxiliary Functions	p. 273
The Data Section of the Program	p. 273
The Code of the Main Program (without Functions)	p. 274
Functions of the Main Program	p. 276
Computing and Making Moves	p. 284
Recursive Functions	p. 285
The computerMove and isWin Functions	p. 288
Limiting the Depth of Skimming through Moves	p. 292
Adding Some Heuristic	p. 297
Continuation of the Theme	p. 301
CD Contents	p. 303
Index	p. 305
Table of Contents provided by Ingram. All Rights Reserved.

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