Hi - my name is Richard, and Photon Storm is my corner of the web where I blog about ActionScript3 game design / experimentation, and the wider world of game and web development.

I’m going to use this blog mainly as a place to link-dump stuff that really interests me, or caught my attention related to all things gaming and AS3. But if time allows I’ll also show-case some of my projects, tutorials and general AS3 musings.

For my day job I’m the lead developer at Aardman Online, the online department of Aardman Animations - most famously known for Wallace and Gromit, Shaun the Sheep, Chicken Run, Angry Kid and loads of other quality animations. Part of the work we do is creating Flash games and other branded online experiences.

Prior to joining Aardman I spent years working in the games industry for a fine company called The Game Creators. They produce a vast range of software that allows anyone to create a decent 2D/3D PC game with relative ease. I’m still in close contact with the guys there, and while not AS3 based I’ll be blogging about anything exciting I see on their horizon.

I consider myself a hardcore gamer, and have always loved gaming since I saw my first ever arcade machine and Atari 2600. I’m also an Atari otaku - the Atari ST holding a special place in my heart, which is why I built this site dedicated to it. So if my AS3 experiments have a seriously “retro” flavour to them, now you know why!

Why Photon Storm?

The name comes from a lesser known Jeff Minter game released for the Atari ST. It was a great game, except very few people / magazines agreed, and even Jeff himself doesn’t rate it too highly. But it had a wonderful name, which I’ve stolen for this domain / blog

The game was a 2D shooter. You saw your ship from above (ala Asteroids), and flew around with a combination of the mouse and keyboard. The control system was very Geometry Wars in style, in that you used the mouse to aim and the keyboard to move. It took some getting used to, but was well worth the effort. Truly innovative for 1990, and not really repeated again until everyone was using dual analog sticks.

What games are in your header?

Someone asked me where all the game art came from in my header. So here goes, from left to right:

The cyborg face = Bio Challenge, by Delphine
Photon Storm logo = Photon Storm, by Llamasoft
Little insect above the logo = Insects in Space, by Hewson
Buxom female = Mach 3, by Loriciels
Purple aliens = Bellum Internecinum, PD/Shareware game for the ST
Blue spaceship = Jupiter Probe, by Microdeal

All Photoshoped together, with a spacey background by yours truly.

That’s all folks

Ok time to wrap. Have fun, play my games, write comments if you wish, or drop me an email.

Cheers,

Rich