WARNING!!! THIS IS NOT A FULL STEP-BY-STEP TUTORIAL!
I assume that you already know how to compile a swf with Flash Develop, but I’ll try to go over the basic steps as a quick review. There are quite a few steps along the way to get everything working, so since I don’t want to reinvent the wheel with this how-to so I’ll instead direct you to the original sources I followed where it makes sense:
What you need:
Install and configure FlashDevelop if you haven’t already. FlashGamesDojo also has a nice install/configure tutorial. Click here to read more »
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The Humble Indie Bundle was an experiment that allowed people to pay whatever they wanted for 5 great indie games; specifically: World of Goo, Aquaria, Gish, Lugaru HD, and Penumbra Overture. The deal has been extended by 4 days, so it is still available here. In the process over $1 Million dollars was raised by over 100,000 contributors, 4 of those games went open source, and we had lessons on game piracy and the importance of being cross-platform. So here’s a little snip from the Humble Indie Bundle website:
“The Humble Indie Bundle experiment has been a massive success beyond our craziest expectations. So far, in just over 7 days, 118,959 generous contributors have put down an incredible $1,082,698. Of this, contributors chose to allocate 30.95% to charity: $335,148 for the Electronic Frontier Foundation and Child’s Play Charity. I have made a page for the full breakdown including credit card fees in a JSON format here (json).
“Now it’s our turn to give back. As of 5/11/10, Aquaria, Gish, Lugaru HD, and Penumbra Overture pledge to go open source. We are preparing the sources right now and will be releasing them ASAP. We spent last night preparing Lugaru and it is available now. The code is still a little rough (no Visual Studio project yet, for instance) but hopefully with the help of the community we can rapidly make it more accessible to everyone.
“Note, the games will be “free as in ‘free speech’, not as in ‘free beer’”: see each license for the full, finalized details as they come out very hopefully this week — stay tuned. It is the underlying code that will be made available to everyone.
“Feel free to continue donating to charity, to the developers, or any combination thereof below. We will still be distributing humble bundles to anyone who contributes.”
Here’s a few more essential links:
The open source goodness – UPDATED 6/3/10:
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A special shout out and “Thank you” to Tim at Rewind Gaming for the free t-shirt! I won his weekly Twitter trivia contest 2 weeks ago and this was my prize. Thanks, Tim!
About Rewind Gaming:
“We specialise in retro and vintage video games and consoles, for example Nintendo NES and SNES, Sony PS1, Sega Mega Drive, Master System and Dreamcast, and many others from the 70s, 80s and 90s.”
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Adam Atomic has just released Flixel 2.0!
Flixel is an Actionscript 3 library designed to simplify Flash game creation. I’ve used Flixel on Gunpei Mania and Run, Humanoid, Run! and think that it is really a great tool. The new version breaks backwards compatibility, but it has some exciting new features, a number of bug fixes, and many general improvements.
Here are the important links:
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Chiptune is the art of making music using a microprocessor. If you remember music on any of the retro game systems such as the Commodore 64, Nintendo, Super Nintendo, Gameboy, or Sega Genesis you remember chiptune music. Many indie developers find chiptune music a fitting choice for their games. Here are a few links to help you get started.
Commodore 64
- Cynthcart – A cartridge that turns your C64 into a keyboard synthesizer.
- Mssiah – Another C64 synthesizer cartridge.
- Sid2Sid – Upgrade board to add a second SID sound chip to your C64.
Gameboy
- LSDJ – Little Sound DJ is a music sequencer for the Gameboy. It can be used in an emulator or loaded onto a real game cartridge.
- Nanoloop – Another music sequencer for Gameboy.
- Pixelh8 – Yet another sequencer.
Nintendo Entertainment System
Atari 2600
- Synthcart – Created by the same programmer who created the Cynthcart, this is more of a drum machine than a synth, but it has some cool sounds and effects.
Communities and Examples
Where to Buy
- Atari Age – On the rare occasion when the store is not down for maintenance, you can purchase both the Cynthcart and the Synthcart
- Non-finite – Stocks modified Gameboys and occasionally you can pick up an LSDJ cartridge.
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In a follow up to my previous post, I now present Inspirational Links: The Pixel Art Edition!
Pixel Art Tutorials
Pixel Art Examples
Pixel Art Communities
- Pixelation – A community forum to post your pixel art and get feedback.
- The Spriter’s Resource – Pixel art from many classic games and more contributed by the community.
Miscellaneous
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If you’re an indie game developer you’re probably a pretty damn creative person. So why do you need inspiration? You need inspiration because ideas don’t exist in a vacuum. Whether you’re inspired by real-life or media, the style, content, and execution of your work must be inspired by something. Maybe you already have a good idea, but looking at what other people have done can help you make your idea better.
Retro Game Links
- Hardcore Gaming 101 – Hardcore Gaming provides a definitive look at many retro classics, forgotten treasures, and epic series.
- Racket Boy – A nice little site with some good lists to get you in the know on some retro classics.
- The Old Computer – I won’t get into a discussion about the legality of roms and emulators in your part of the world. I personally feel the best way to experience any game is on the original hardware, but that simply isn’t always possible. Roms and emulators are an import way to preserve the history of gaming.
- RogueBasin – Sometimes you want to recreate a forgotten treasure of a game. Well, apparently no one forgot about Rogue. Rogue is an early dungeon crawling game that has proved so popular it has spawned it’s own genre: the roguelike. This site details many of the intricacies in creating a roguelike game.
- Tetris Wiki – Tetris is one of those games that many developers want to cut their teeth on. Tetris Wiki will help you learn everything you ever wanted to know about Pong, Tetris. Yes, you too can know the differenct between the Akira rotation system and the DTET rotation system.
- Significant Bits – A nice little article about what made those old 2D platformer games so great.
- Atari Age – The Atari 2600 was one of the first systems to really bring the videogame into the home. Almost anything and everything Atari related can be found here.
- 20 Atari Games – A great look a Atari’s games and a bit of history.
- Retro Gamer – Retro Gamer is the only magazine I read and I read it cover to cover. It’s a British magazine so it costs an arm, two legs, and a first born child every month, but it’s worth every penny. They have two collected editions of the magazine available on CD-rom for an affordable price.
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