I just discovered the “Bitmap” and “BitmapData” classes in Actionscript 3.0 from this blog tutorial on FlepStudio.

Here is an example of what his tutorial and sourcecode looks like:

Actionscript 3.0 - Bitmap and BitmapData Tutorial

This class could have saved a ton of performance and speed in Strike Eagle.  In Strike Eagle, the moving background is a series of movieclips placed side-by-side and continually scaled which is a huge performance hit in the system.  It would have performed so much faster if I was simply blitting onto a bitmap.

Also, all the particle effects in Space ROX could have used the bitmap treatment saving tons of processing power and reducing the total number of movieclips.

I will admit that I am a very jaded gamer.  I am often surprised when a game not only captures my interest, but also delivers a good and sometimes powerful story in the midst.  And so I have a tendency to over think my designs and think of the games that I want to see and play.

Admittedly, this is a problem.  Not only am I a jaded gamer, I could also be considered part of the “hardcore gamer” demographic – up to and including playing (and winning) a gaming tournament.  This skews my vision of what is considered “fun.”

My eldest son liked my game, but I could see he didn’t enjoy it.  It was too complicated for him and after a while, he lost interest.  And my wife didn’t like it at all.  She was proud of what I was able to accomplish with so little resources and time, but it wasn’t the kind of game that she looked forward to playing.

The “golden chalice” of game design is finding what this demographic likes to play – especially women who outnumber men on the Internet.  So I realized that I stepped away from making games for my boys and for my wife and made a game that I would play, but not them.  And even then, the graphics of Strike Eagle, though technically savvy, were not enough eye-candy to cover up its design flaws.

Over the last weekend, I was playing with my two boys.  The eldest was trying to stack a bunch of blocks while the youngest was trying to knock it down.  And they were doing it over and over again, laughing at blowing up castles made of blocks.  I was amazed at how something so simple could be so much fun.

So I thought back to the kinds of games I loved to play as a kid and instead of overcomplicating a design, I was thinking of doing something smaller, simpler and much more fun for my wife and kids – to make something that they would want to play over and over again.

After the completion of my first game, Strike Eagle, I was very sure to write Daniel “Danc” Cook of Lost Garden, thanking him for the use of some of his artwork, specifically the trees and explosions that he generously posts on his blog for game developers to use in their games.  Be sure to check them out, and if you use them to give him due credit.

Danc was very gracious to write me back and asked me about some of the things I learned from the experience.  This is what I wrote.

Hi Danc,

Thanks for writing back.  I hope that things are going well with your game, “Bunni.”  Your blog continues to be one of the most insightful blogs out there on good game design.

I learned quite a bit from the experience of programming my first game: a lot having to do with tenacity and making design compromises to hit the contest deadline.  But upon reflection, I see my game as focusing too much on technical prowess and too little on gameplay.  One of the major design requirements for the contest was to use a 3D element in the game and I used the a 3D plane quite extensively.  However, because of that, the focus of my design became technical mastery rather than “fun” factor of game design.

My game was modeled after “Afterburner” from the 1980s arcade.  But the reason why a game like “Afterburner” is fun, is the novelty of using a flight stick in a fast-paced arcade-like shooter.  Translating the experience to the keyboard and mouse loses a lot of what made “Afterburner” fun.  I’m quite proud of the technical tricks I used to get the moving background effect to look convincing, but in the end, what matters is if the players enjoyed it, and will come back again telling all his or her friends.

I am quite proud of the numbers my game has produced: over 100,000 in ad impressions in a month, and a spike in site traffic on my blog, however there is also the reality of spending over 120 hours of long sleepless nights for a low return.  So far, I’ve gotten back about $.40 to every hour I’ve spent working on the game and to be frank, there are many great games that I’m competing against that are far more polished and deserving of credit that I believe I will not win the contest.

But as my Dad would say, “Count this as a tuition fee.”  I am still a student of game design and have much more to learn.  I will be sure to make my second game a lot more fun and I’ll let you know when it is posted.

Again, thank you for all the incredible posts on your blog, and especially the art that you so generously let game developers like myself use in their games.

Sincerely yours,
Paolo

Now, the next question is, do I go on or do I give up?  Is it worth the price especially looking at my son sleeping next to me as I write, the countless hours of sleep I will lose on my next endeavor, especially in the face of even more hours at work in the coming weeks?

You better well believe it.  Let’s do this again until we get it right.