Bomb's Away!

I just finished and submitted my entry for the Flex Developer Derby. You can check it out here:

http://www.bugg.it/terrac/TerraNovaAlpha.html

You will need Flash Player 8.5 installed to view it. (For some reason apps created in FlexBuilder 2 Beta 2 require 8.5 and those created in Beta 3 require 9.)

I think a little background info would be appropriate here:

When FlexBuilder 2 Beta 1 was released I was working with a Flash 8/Flash Media Server-based streaming video/audio application designed for use by college faculty to allow them record media which they could later embed in their online course pages. The group I was working with decided to migrate the application to Flex after seeing how much better it was suited to developing RIAs than Flash.

To be brief, during the time when we were working on the streaming video project I had the idea to do a separate project on my own. I thought that creating a multiplayer online game might be challenging and rewarding. Unfortunately, I had the idea only a short while before the contest deadline, so as of the time I submitted it the game was still in demo form.

The application has a three-layer structure (presentation, business logic, data access). The top two layers are essentially complete and will only need a bit of tweaking once the data access layer is finalized and connected to a MySQL back-end. For now, the data access object has a set of arrays that it is storing data in. Each instance of the application is independent in the demo version - no multi-player action until the DB and a few web services are finished.

The game controls are accessable in the Flex app, as well as a link to an external kml file that allows the player to view the current layout of the game in Google Earth.

The estimated release date will be sometime in August 2006. I'll probably do a limited beta test release to work out any bugs in the full version before then as well. Subscribe to this blog's feed to keep posted on updates and news. I'll also be discussing some of the ins and outs of FlexBuilder and ActionScript 3.

I'm Game

This is to announce the (possibly) first Flex 2-based MMO. The working title is "Terra Captus" - take over the earth. I'll be entering a demo of the game in the Flex Developer Derby which ends... tomorrow. Wow. Time flies; I'd better get back to coding.

Welcome

...to the Flex Developer blog.

I'll be posting my commentary on new things in the Flex world here, as well as code samples, tutorials, and news about applications I'm developing including a Flex-based game I have in the works. Feel free to comment and provide feedback to my posts, post snippets or discuss problems/solutions.

Wow. I'm really excited for Adobe's upcoming release of Flex 2.0 and ActionScript 3.0. It looks like they're really taking a serious punch at making all those Flash app programmer-types out there happy.

More than that, though; Flex 2 will likely make quite an impact in the RIA area. Microsoft and the open source community have both pushed .net and PHP which have been widely used and well supported. After playing around with the Beta version of Flex Builder 2 I can see that Adobe is not just aiming to make development easier, but really trying to cater to the needs of rich internet application developers.

The next version of ActionScript is no small step forward either. The online documentation keeps improving, and it is readily apparent that a lot of careful planning has gone into the class library. These classes look like a good foundation for OO application development.

Kudos to Adobe. I look forward to using Flex extensively in the future.