Sneak peek: RAVE AI - artificial intelligence for Flash/AS3
May 10th, 2012
RAVE AI is an upcoming artificial intelligence framework for Flash/AS3 by Tomas Vymazal from Brno, Czech Republic. The main purpose of this framework are 2D/3D first person shooter games and other sort of games that require agent simulation. It supports JSON finite state machine definition, so you can predefine the behavior of agents. Next to that it supports 2D/3D terrain, bridges, very optimized pathfinding, sight/raycasting/shooting and there is a very impressive yet internal roadmap as well.
You can look forward to it later this year, the performance is amazing and Tomas is also planning to add support for ActionScript Workers for background processing later when available.
See it in action / rendering via Minko engine:
Get in touch with Tomas at twitter @myownclone.
Stay tuned for more.
Download Flash Player 11.2 and AIR 3.2 SDK FINAL
March 29th, 2012
Flash Player 11.2 with playerglobal.swc and AIR 3.2 SDK final versions are now available for download at the official release pages.
Adobe Flash Player - downloads: http://www.adobe.com/support/flashplayer/downloads.html
Download Adobe AIR SDK: http://www.adobe.com/devnet/air/air-sdk-download.html
There are lot of new significant features like mouseLock, middle click, right click, silent auto-update and Stage3D on mobile.
Go and get it.
Alternativa 3D is now opensource
March 29th, 2012
Popular 3D framework from Russia Alternativa Platform is now opensource. The source code has been published to github and is available here:
https://github.com/AlternativaPlatform/Alternativa3D
You can read more here on Alternativa’s blog.
http://blog.alternativaplatform.com/en/2012/03/29/alternativa3d-8-is-out-in-open-source/
See Alternativa’s showcase including MAX Racer, Tanki Online, Ostrova Online and more…
Geometry Arena in Stage3D launched on iOS and Android
March 14th, 2012
Geometry Arena is a retro game for iOS, Android, Facebook and desktop built on top of Genome2D Stage3D framework by its author Peter Štefček (sHTiF) from Slovakia.
The game is available for FREE! So go and get it 
Download for iPad and iPhone / Universal
Download for Android
+
Play on Facebook
Play on Newgrounds
The game also supports iOS Game Center via AIR Native Extension. Let’s see who is going to lead the board.
I’ve asked Peter several questions:
Peter: Around 2000 particles per frame on the MED level of detail, way more if you shoot more enemies at once. All of the stars are actually particles as well where each of them has its own alpha animation and camera offset for parallax effect.
Me: How long did it take to build this game?
Peter: Couple of days, its hard to say exactly as I was working on Genome2D at the same time as well. It started as a demo project for Genome2D just to show that its ready and people can start building games on top of it. It opened my eyes and showed me a few issues that weren’t noticeable unless you tried to build something on top of them, actually most of the updates and optimizations that came with Genome2D 0.3.5 were directly impacted by development of this game
Me: What is unique about Genome2D framework?
Peter: Hard to say, its very fast, flexible, component based, has builtin camera system and abstract layer for physics what do you need more? A lot of people like it once they grasp the concept, hopefully we will see more and more games build on top of it. I am swamped with feature requests so need to prioritize a lot but you will see more and more game related components coming soon.
Me: Why have you decided to build your own 2D framework on top Stage3D?
Peter: The original flash version of Genome2D was build on top of native flash and blitting but once Adobe came with FP11 and GPU support I knew that its a smart thing to move there. I mean there are no cons to it, maybe except different approach. So basically it was an easy decision and it actually came closer to my original 2D framework which was build in C++ and OpenGL years back.
Peter did also some experiments with overlaying 2D Stage3D framework over 3D Stage3D framework, like here Genome2D running on top Away3D, which is very powerful technique and let’s you build for instance UI in Genome2D and the actual game in Away3D. You can read more details about this technique here.
Behind the scenes of Lume - dreamy adventure now on iOS with Adobe AIR
February 29th, 2012
Lume is a point-and-click puzzle adventure in Adobe AIR and recently landed on iOS for iPhone and iPad. It’s been also nominated as an Independent Games Festival Finalist and currently it’s been promoted in Apple App Store.
Download Lume for iPhone
Download Lume HD for iPad
I did an interview with Luke Whittaker (Designer of Lume):
Me: Hi Luke, first let me tell you that one of the things I love about Lume is the atmosphere. What was the initial idea behind the game?
Luke: We love the feel you can bring to hand made things, and some of our other games like Headspin:Storybook use paper and texture to bring a scene to life. We were experimenting with the atmosphere you could create in an adventure game by making things look like they were handmade, then the crazy thought came to mind of actually building this thing for real, using real paper and card.
Me: How did you build the scene? Is it done in a 3D software? How have you done the animations?
Luke: The scene you see really is just built by hand with paper and glue, and lit with miniature lights. We realised we could get all sorts of atmospheric lighting effects this way, and make something that looked realistic simply because it was real. We set the model up, with trees and the village in the background stepped back from it, using a shallow depth of field on the camera to create a sense of distance. It was filmed on a Canon DSLR by hand. We could have moved the camera mechanically, but it would have been subtly different and we wanted to show the creator’s hand in things as much as possible.
The animation is all timeline animation in Flash, tinted and matched to the movements of the background, with extra lighting effects like strong shadows added to root the character in the scene.
Original animation test with rough cardboard. Proved we could make Lumi look rooted in the scene with Flash.
Me: How many people were involved in the project and how long did it take to build it?
Luke: There have been four of us in total. I worked on the design, the animation and the initial programming. Katherine worked on design and puzzles and the talented BBC cameraman Tom Hooker helped us with the filming. The original PC version probably took six months to build in total, and recently Roger Hicks joined to develop it using AIR for iOS, which has taken a further couple of months.
Me: Why have you chosen Flash/AIR?
Luke: Since the original was built in Flash, it made perfect sense as we wouldn’t need to change the timeline animations or the overall structure too much. When we realised that AIR could actually get Lume running nicely on iOS devices it was a simple choice. Remaking it using other tools would in all likelihood have involved a good deal more work.
Me: Are you planning an Android version as well?
Luke: We’d love to do this, yet it’s a market we haven’t yet explored. AIR should make it a simple process to do this once we’re in a position to work on it.
Me: Most people can’t wait for the sequel, what are the future plans?
Luke: Well firstly, thanks to everyone who’s supported us and Lume since its release, we’re really pleased it’s made people happy and it’s meant that we can be confident we can go ahead with the sequel, where we’re planning some very exciting things. The game will be much larger, the architecture will be like nothing seen before. We’re bringing in some highly talented artists and architects, and planning to take what was loved about the first and just make everything even better. It’s going to take most of this year to make I think, but I can’t wait to get stuck in and to show you what’s in store.
Me: I see your game being promoted on the main games page on iTunes? How big do you think this impacts the downloads?
Luke: It’s difficult to tell without having a comparable version which isn’t featured, and other things come in to play like how it’s previewed and reviewed in the press. But we’ve been lucky enough to get great reviews and we’re very excited that Apple got behind Lume, I think it will be great for sales. If it brings the world of Lume to a wide audience we’re really happy.
Me: Thanks for the interview. Good Luck!
