I’ve released a beta of Five Dice Frenzy. It’s very nearly finished. The “instructions” suck, and need to be better integrated to the game (because if you don’t really know Yahtzee, then you won’t really understand how to play this!). I’ve also got some more special effects to add when combos happen (shows of stars, etc). On game over I want to explode the dice too

But even so - give it a play and let me know what you think! The game is embedded into this post just after the jump.

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Damn I love messing with Flint - it is one seriously cool particle system This is a little test I threw together tonight in about half an hour (includes creating the planet image!). Leave it for a few seconds to see the planet trail burn up, and then just click anywhere you want to re-position the gravity well!

Code wise it’s extremely simple:

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Ok so you need a seriously monster PC to run this - but, bloody hell - just LOOK at it!

Maybe one day in Flash..

PC and Mac download from here if you feel so inclined:
http://www.octaveengine.com/casual/dltrial.html

The company I used to work for have been busy hacking away at Google’s Android platform over the past 3 months, and they’ve just released this cool video onto YouTube showing what they achieved:

Very nice indeed! I wish them all the best in the competition - although secretly I hope they don’t win so they can concentrate on making something for Flash

Wow this is turning into a great week for AS3 developers everywhere! First we get treated to TweenMax, and today Richard Lord goes and releases version 1.0 of the Flint Particle system. Flint is definitely one of my favourite libs to play with, and allows you to easily add some great effects to your game with little overhead. I used it extensively in my last game Colour Chain, both in the main menu and to explode the blocks when you get a chain. Easily one of the most important components in my AS3 toolkit.

There’s another fine post over at Grey Alien Games asking (and answering) the question: is it possible to earn a living making Indie or Casual games? The article itself is interesting reading, and while it focuses on the PC side of game dev the core concepts still ring true. The comments section throws some more ideas into the pot too.

PaperWorld3D, a game engine for developing virtual worlds and MMOGs in Flash, went open source last week. Based on existing open-source projects like PaperVision3D and Red5, the engine is available under LGPL. The Electric Sheep Company is using PaperVision for a current project, but working with an Ogoglio backend. For newer developers or those with less resources, though, the open-source engine project could be very attractive. John Grden, founding member of the projects, presents a demo below at Flash in the Can Amsterdam:

(News from http://www.virtualworldsnews.com/2008/04/paperworld3d-go.html)

I’m an avid classic gaming magazine collector. I have complete sets of most 80’s and early 90’s gaming mags (those with an Atari specific bent anyway), including the likes of Zero, The One, The Games Machine, etc.

I am also really pleased to have a complete set of C+VG (Computer + Video Games) magazines. That is until I read this announcement today: “ The long-awaited return of CVG to newsstands across the country is only weeks away.” Apparently it will be a bi-monthly magazine that focuses on the “upcoming” games only, so won’t be a traditional review style format. Launch price will be a fiver (par for the course these days) and the front cover looks incredibly similar to the most recent issue of Edge magazine.

I’ll buy it just to see how it goes, but while I bet they continue the issue numbering from where it left off I don’t consider this a true return to form just yet.

Read the fully skinny here.

I was really happy to see the release of TweenMax pop-up in my feed reader today. I have been using TweenLite since I started with AS3, and love the simplicity and power of it. However it does have some shortcomings, not least of which are the limited control over tween sequencing and the inability to pause or get feedback on the status of a running tween.

TweenMax resolves both of these, and throws a few other toys into the mix (such as a very powerful looking bezier system). Definitely a good way to start a Monday! Keep up the great work Jack.

Jake over at Grey Alien Games has blogged an interesting piece about the excuses people come up with for never finishing a game, and his take on how to overcome those.

http://greyaliengames.com/blog/how-can-i-overcome-game-development-obstacles/