Game Development
My first look into programming was by reading through the source code of two games: Nibbles and Gorillas, and I still think game development is one of the best ways to learn programming. There are many types of games I enjoy working on: educational, shoot-em-ups, physics-based, trivia, board games, tower defense, virtual worlds, and many more. Most of my game programming is done is Flash using Actionscript 3, but the ideas and concepts that go into a game are far more important than the technology used to deliver it. Regardless of whether a game is on a desktop computer, browser, iPhone, Android, XBLA (XBox Live Arcade), Nintendo DS, or even a physical museum exhibit... it needs to be fun, intuitive and engaging!
Physics-Based Flash Game
Each year IDEAS puts together a new birthday card for all of their clients. For 2010, I had already been playing around with a physics engine called box2d, so I suggested a game which made use of that. Within a few days after some brainstorming, Gift Stacker was up and running. The goal is to stack your presents as high as possible, without letting them tip over. At the end of each game, the player sees a line which marks the highest they've stacked so far (along with a bar for the all-time top score), which makes the game very addicting. This was created in Actionscript 3 for Flash Player 10 using FlashDevelop and the Flash IDE.
Top-Down Flash Shooter Game
While I was attending Full Sail University in Winter Park, FL between 2005 and 2006, I re-learned lots of Flash, and made my first game using Actionscript 2 called Fish Killah. It features multiple levels, various goals (kill 10 fish, find the exit, kill 3 frogs, etc.) and lots of different weapons like machine-guns, spread fire, homing missiles and lasers. It also features flash blending modes, which were brand new at the time (when Flash 8 came out). All artwork, programming and even music were created by me.
Interactive Flash Shooting Game
For 2009, IDEAS created their first game-based Holiday Card. We knew it had to be addictive, and easy to play without a lot of instruction. Our art director, Millo Aldea, designed all of the artwork and I programmed the gameplay. The finished game was called "Snow Cannon," and featured a high-score list and even cheat codes (which disqualified you from saving a high score if you used any). The card was a huge hit, and a lot of fun to make. I used the Flash IDE and FlashDevelop to create this in Actionscript 3.
Interactive Game for Kids
Another project for a client at IDEAS, this is an interactive children's game on KidsGetAPlan.com, which teaches them what types of things to pack in case of an emergency. They must pack a total of 15 acceptable items, and 5 of those items must be required, denoted by a star. The player finds items by clicking on cabinets and dragging items into their supply kit box. After the box is full, their time is submitted to a high-score list and a page is created with all of their items to print out. The artwork was designed by Millo Aldea and Sergio Mendez, and I programmed it in Actionscript 3 using the Flash IDE and FlashDevelop.
Touchscreen Games
One of my favorite projects to work on at IDEAS was for the National Museum of Crime & Punishment. In total, I created around 10 different interactive exhibits made with Flash for touchscreen interfaces. The exhibits ranged from action games like "Bomb Squad" (pictured above), trivia games, interactive videos, simulators, and even one exhibit created using a combination of Flash and Director which made use of a fingerprint scanner.
There were multiple trivia games created for the museum, and among them my favorite was called "What's My Crime?" The user is presented with an image of a well-known celebrity, along with the options like DUI, Assault and Battery, Drugs and Lewd Conduct. It runs off of an external XML file which holds all of the trivia questions, answers and images so that it can be easily updated to include recent events.
Hacker: When Silent Criminals Attack is a guided simulator, which explains various methods of cyber criminals like brute-force attacks, keylogging and phishing.
Original Interactive Board Game
Illuminopoly is a board game inspired by a Finnish board game called "Afrikan tähti (the star of Africa). It's currently a work in progress, as creating the actual concept for a fun board game is a large undertaking. However, all of the artwork and most of the complex programming is already done. It was originally made with Actionscript 2, but has since been ported to Actionscript 3, along with a custom pathfinding class using Dijkstra's algorithm. In fact, the custom class I wrote for pathfinding can be used for just about any type of board game, since it runs off an XML file. All graphics were made with Photoshop, Illustrator and within the Flash IDE, which was also used for programming along with FlashDevelop.
