Developing shockwave games

I have very little experienc with this, but I do have some so I'll try and help you out. You should probably check out Macromedia Flash MX, you can download a free trial version here. Also, there's a great reference site with tons of free tutorials and resources (like sounds and stuff) at flashkit.com. They also have a pretty good community forum there from what I'm told.

Flash MX is fairly expensive, but if you're a student you can purchase the professional version for $150.00 (or the regular version for $100.00). I'll recommend two books for you. Sams Teach Yourself Flash MX in 24 hours, and "Macromedia Flash MX 2004 Game Programming." Flash's scripting language is called "ActionScript," and is based on the ECMAScript standard. The ECMAScript standard is based on c++ syntax, so if you know c++ you'll be able to dive right in.

ok, thanks for the help and links! I am actually learning C++, so hopefully this wont be too hard.

You can do Flash games with Flash MX, but I thought Shockwave games were created using Macromedia Director. The language used in Director is called Lingo. There are books available that cover game programming usig Director and Lingo. The sad part is that I am unaware of any free way to create Flash or Director games. Macromedia is pretty much the one source for this. And as mentioned before, their software is VERY expensive.

Marcus

Hi,

Shockwave games are produced with Macromedia Director, of which there is a 30 day trial here. However the full product is quite expensive around $1,200 or £999, although it does crop up on ebay quite frequently for less.

Its also not specifically a games creator, more a mulitmedia tool, but one that has been used to good effect for games in the past. Depending on your needs you could get an old version, where pre Director 8.5 you only have 2D, post includes a 3D engine from Intel.

There are a few books that will teach you the basics, some specifically aimed at games, but there are also a number of mailing lists that will help such as Direct-L, Dirgames-l, dir3d-l, lingo-l etc (just do a search at google to find them)

I work with it extensively, although i've not updated my site for some time, it will give you a good idea of what can be accomplished, though its not alwasy straight forward. Noisecrime

thanks for the info. I dont want to make anything fancy, just simple 2D games, so i would be fine with an older version. Unfortunaly, i cant afford the full version of any of the software(the new versions), and since i only have dial-up, i cant download the huge trial either, so i guess im out of luck with developing online games.