Today we are going to learn how to make the following game:

Note: the demo game above is NOT using the gsensor(for convenience), but the mouse. This tutorial will be using the gsensor.

This tutorial is buildup from a previous Gsensor tutorial. You can find it here.

Preparations

Go on ahead and download the advancedGsensorTutorial.zip from the previous tutorial and open the .fla.

Create a new layer and label it ship.

Next draw anything that looks like a ship… here’s what mine looks like.

Go on ahead and select it and make it into a Movie Clip by right clicking and pressing Convert to Symbol.

Make sure to label the name as hero, check Export for Actionscript, and give it an Identifier name of hero. Click OK.

Great! Now you can delete the hero currently on the Stage because it will be dynamically added on to the screen (Do not delete the hero in the library).

Let’s go on ahead and prepare for blasters!

Draw a simple bullet/blaster and like the hero, let’s make it into a Movie Clip by right clicking and pressing Convert to Symbol or the shortcut F8.

Make sure to label the name as bullet, check Export for Actionscript, and give it an Identifier name of bullet. Click OK.

Like the hero, you can delete the bullet currently on the Stage because it will be dynamically added on to the screen (Do not delete the bullet in the library).

Coding

Our goal for coding will be to replace the default image with the cool hero ship we made and allow it to shoot those bullets we made earlier.

Go ahead and press F9 to open up the actions panel. Assuming you have not touched the code, find line 31 and let’s add a container.

createEmptyMovieClip("container", 0);

This code allows us to store everything into a container MovieClip and control everything in a much more structured manner.

Next find line 36 which says:

var mc:Object = _root.attachMovie("ball", "hero", _root.getNextHighestDepth());

and modify it to say the following:

var mc:Object = _root.container.attachMovie("hero", "hero", _root.container.getNextHighestDepth());

If you’ve made the changes and test the movie out (or even play it on the cowon). You should be able to play with the ship with the gsensor.

Coding the bullet will now require a little more coding, but don’t worry we’ll go one step at a time.

Start on a new line on the bottom of the same Action layer, for me it was line 112.

Let’s begin by making a function for shooting a bullet:

function shoot_bullet(obj:Object) {
 bcnt++;
 var mc:Object = _root.container.attachMovie("bullet", "bullet"+bcnt, _root.container.getNextHighestDepth());
 //centers the mc to the middle of the object.
 mc._x = obj._x;
 mc._y = obj._y;
 mc.spd = 10;
 mc.onEnterFrame = function() {
 //movement applied to this mc
 this._y -= this.spd;
 //bounding restrictions.
 if (this._y<=0) {
 this.removeMovieClip();
 }
 };
}

The following code creates a bullet on the center of the designated object (in our program the hero) and will move to the top of the screen at a speed of 10 pixel per frame and will be removed from the game once it reaches the y coordinate of 0.

You will notice that I am using a variable called bcnt. What is that? Well it is a counter as for how many bullets have been fired off. So let’s define the variable bcnt where all the other variables are defined. In our example, it’s line 27 right under the declaring of the variable gCurRotation add:

var bcnt:Number = 0;

Now we are settled. All we need to do is have an action or an event that calls our newly defined function. Add the following action to the bottom of the code:

onMouseDown = function(){
 shoot_bullet(_root.container.hero);
}

The following code responds to every time the user presses the screen/Mouse is down, the shoot_bullet function will be called causing the hero to shoot a bullet.

Awesome! Well that completes the first installment of making a flight clone. Hope you enjoyed it.

You can download all the files here.

If you come across any trouble say it feel free to comment.

Changes made to the game:

• Added Energy Bar
  • To prevent aimless shooting, the energy bar penalizes the player for “wasting” shots.
  • If the energy bar is depleted, the user must wait until the recharge hits 1/2 way.
  • The energy bar automatically recovers overtime.
• Added Score
  • Killing Enemies will show a green score popup.
  • Located Top left of screen
• Added Pause Feature
  • Bullets, Ships, and the crosshair are all frozen by pressing on the screen.
• Added Plasma
  • A high tier weapon with fast speed and excellent damage, bust costly energy
• Added Auto Shoot
  • No longer do you have to tap the screen to shoot. By pressing the [keyboard UP/DOWN] you can auto attack
• Improved AI
  • AI upgraded
• Added End Game Animation
  • Gates close when both enemies defeated.

Check out the game:

22% has been donated so far for a Cowon s9!

Humble Beginnings

Flight has come a long ways since its first release for the iRiver clix and e10. This game wasn’t even fully developed as the CPU had a hard time calculating bullets and the hero was unable to do much. Nevertheless, the game inspired me to a new level of an “active” game and a passion for a smooth playable game – something a lot of flash Clix game lacked.

The First of its Kind

When 2souldesign.net released the v1.1b patch of Flight for the Cowon s9, it was quite a hit. The game began to fully utilize the power of the Cowon s9’s Gsensor for a fully action based game. It incorporated a lot of the nostalgic game elements from old console space games.

The game was unfortunately limited to a direction of moving forward into space with no element of evasion and “microing” your hero.

The Birth of a New Game

Because of Flight’s robust coding, I was able to take away the crucial elements of the game and create a totally different game that controlled a cross-hair in which the hero ship would always aim at – allowing full control of the ship and direction of its aim. This new engine I’ve been working on now enables a totally new way of wrecking havoc on enemy ships and maneuver to dodge harm.

So far I’m happy with the results, although I haven’t been able to test on the Cowon s9.

So why wait? Check this video out.

You’ll notice that the game has the following:

• A Minimap
• The Ship finally has a Hitpoint
• Enemies have more HP
• Hero has more degrees of freedom to move
• Hero can shoot missles
• Hero has unlimited blaster shots
• Hero can slow down time

More updates to come in the future.

Flight in action

After several days of intensive programming and a total redesign of the game, I’m proud to present to you Flight v1.1! While there are still a considerable number of bugs still waiting to be discovered and balance issues, it’s very playable and has a boss level to reckon with.

I’ve taken into considerations to some of the complaints that the game was to bland, and would be fine with slight lag. I’ve tolerated some of the lag that will arise and in return have made it more playable.

Although you can view the changes in detail in the readme.txt (included in the zip), here are some major changes:

• Added new enemies:
• Added a power gauge (implemented, but not completely)
• Added music for title and credit
• Added new enemies

I know there has been an issue for the hero not having more than one life, I will consider this option. For the mean time ~ GG

Download it here

Santoki

Flight in action

After a few days more than expected due to personal reasons, I’m glad to bring forth another update. This update however, may seem like a step down for some due to the changes that have been made/removed.

A few things to note:

• Removed HyperDrive
• Removed Random enemies
• Added fixed enemies
• Added a 2 blaster limitation
• Added 25 FPS limitation
• Changes miniboss moves down 0.15 y-units faster

The Hyperdrive powerup has been removed for the time being, because it had some weird effect on disabling the highscore (to be fixed later on). The random AI ship summoning is now replaced with fixed spawn locations for a more classical 2d shooter experience.

To fight the lag issue, I’ve capped the FPS on flight with a 25fps from the high 30fps. Another change is the 2 blaster limit. This limit will prevent from non-stop blasting, lagging the game, and more strategic runs.

As always, please leave any comments, criticisms, and bug reports.

Download it here: 2SD_Flightv1.02.zip

Flight in action

As promised, Flight will be having continuous weekly updates. It won’t be major changes, but there will be updates. The current version is now v1.01b.

A few things have been tweaked and changed, but a major addition was the high scores. One thing to note is the static background. It is static and I unfortunately must bring the sad news that it’s for the sake of optimization. I’ve tried numerous ways to have a lag free experience while having a dynamic background, but found it impossible. If there is a way, I will be sure to have it available, otherwise, a static background is the best I can do for now.

Download it here.

Santoki

Again comments, critiques, and suggestions are more than welcomed.

Flight in action

After several weeks of brainstorming, I decided the Cowon s9 G-sensor would be best used on a 2D space shooter game and due to the lack of dedicated s9 flash games I’ve decided this game was to be made – Flight.

Flight is currently in its early stage. It has been designed for optimization and expandability. Although at the moment the game seems restricted to a simple shooter game, it has been programmed to have the potential of a totally new and enjoyable experience. So check it out now here!

In the current 1.0 build you can maneuver your ship via the s9 tilt. There are only two enemies you can fight. You have one consumable item known as the Hyper Drive which slows down everything except for you (bullet time experience).

Hope you enjoy it. If you have any experiences of glitches and or bugs that have not been mentioned on the readme.txt included let me know.

Advertisers,

If you would like to advertise, please see the file included in the zip file which explains how you can participate in the advertisements.

Flight will be a great investment for advertisements as it will always be undergoing weekend builds (meaning a new version updated every weekend).

If you haven’t downloaded the game already click it here: download

Things to be added,

As mentioned before, this game has expandability in mind so here are some additions that will be added later on:

• Saving highscores
• More powerups
• More enemies
• Bosses
• Modes of play (Skrimish, Time attack, Story)
• Upgrades and stores
• game GUI and art changes

ps. The advanced s9 gsensor tutorial is on the works.

Santoki