More than a year ago, I had already welcomed you and talked about our first game idea, Epic Conflict. Then this blog became pretty silent for 10 months, just announcing the “quit beta” of a completely different game, called Bear Air. Why this radical shift happened, will be the topic in the next pose. What I want to tell you now is the main reason for launching this blog (besides the usual reasons for blogging, of course):

1. How to learn developing game from the perspective of absolute beginners (as we were and well … probably still are)
2. Strategic and entrepreneurial aspects, such as decision-making and the use of resources at hand as small indie developer team. The latter will heavily rely on the research and results of my PhD.

Ok, to keep the (second) welcoming not too long, this blog post will introduce a few links, how we got into programming. So, it’s not just some useful links putting together, but our very own path how we learned coding and game development in general. And the best part: You can actually start learning Flash and ActionScript 3 (the programming language for Flash environments) for free! So, what are you waiting for?

1. Quick introduction video to Flash (this is just a one minute intro from a great learning site called Lynda, so you know what Flash is about). Just a little warm-up.
2. Beginner introduction to Actionscript 3. Doug is a great teacher (scroll down to start with the first lesson). You will love his short video tutorials for beginners. Thanks to Doug I now fully understand what instantiating means. Unfortunately, the files he uses are not downloadable, so you really have to concentrate on his videos.
3. Avoider Game Tutorial. Now,  after Doug it’s time to code your first game. Rock’n Roll, yes. Initially, I started with this tutorial but it was too difficult for me to grasp (never understood this instantiating thing, now it’s part of my DNA).
4. Flixel. Now this is where the real Rock’n Roll starts. Flixel is a “game-engine” and takes care of the most important mechanics (e.g. objects hitting each other). Our first Facebook game Bear Air (Facebook version will be released very soon) is based on Flixel. Don’t forget to check out Phontonstorm’s game development blog and his Flixel and Actionscript 3 tutorials. Phontonstorm has also developed a great tool, called Flixel Powertools.

Although we started this journey just 9 months ago, we chose Flash over HTML 5. I mention this because a lot of people are of the opinion that HTML 5 will dethrone Flash in respect to developing “rich internet applications” (RIA). However, because all top Facebook games (from companies like Zynga to PopCap to Wooga) we looked at were done in Flash, we chose Flash over HTML 5.So, that’s it for now. This will keep you busy for at least 2,3 months. And here’s a bonus link as a great reference:

The Actionscript 3 Basics Series from Active tuts. Great site (although it won’t be updated anymore).