Makin’ games

I’ve been working on a couple game concepts and want to prototype a few more before committing to one to build out. I’ve been hacking the hell out of Flixel, which I’ve decided to use for a most of the games. There’s a screenshot of game3 on the right there. Weird, eh? Also fugly, but it’s placeholder art so there. I have a new collision detection system for it that I’ll be posting about eventually (at least, I’ve never heard of it before).

The microtransaction (MTX) dilemma

I’m really excited about all the new services that have been released to allow Flash developers to monetize their games through microtransactions. I fucking hate ads, plus the ROI of them in Flash games is usually shit. Many many years ago I knew microtransactions (MTX) were the future of digital content and I’m pleased to see the idea coming to the mainstream (in America at least, Asia was quicker on it as usual).

The problem I’m seeing with MTX is that Flash developers need to try a lot harder by making much bigger games in order to really reap the rewards. Before, you could make a pretty simple, fun and addictive game and monetize it easily with ads. But with MTX, you can’t do that as easily since you need to build more content for players to buy into. For example, to me, putting premium content in a Tower Defense game isn’t viable–the game concept is so small that I doubt anyone is going to pay anything for more turrets or maps (for example). There just isn’t enough game there.

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It’s been a while since my last update unfortunately. I’m planning on updating the site at least once a month with new projects and experiments but sometimes that’s just not possible.

This time it’s because I’m an alpha tester for Metaplace, and I’ve been putting most of my free time into that. Check out the site, post in the forums (maybe you’ll get selected for the upcoming beta) — it’s an excellent project with a ton of potential.

But I’ve also been working on a new AS3 experiment that implements a blitting engine for sprite rendering. This allows me to display over 1000 sprites on-screen at once, as opposed to the 300-400 that’s possible with no special code. I’ll be implementing this in my upcoming Flash game. Maybe.

Welcome to my new digital realm, fresh from the tubes. Not a whole lot here at the moment but I have quite a few projects in the works and will be releasing early and often (or whatever those kids are saying these days).

Cold Constructs is, as you might have guessed by the subtitle up there, a place where I publish stuff I’ve made. What kind of stuff, you might ask. Scripts, plugins, games and other creative works, among many other kinds of things — eventually, anyway.

Most things here are geared towards one central goal: making computers better as best I can. I’ll provide new interface designs, largely as Flash projects, or try to make interesting new game designs (exclusively in Flash).

But this is also my personal site where I like to share my work and get feedback on it. So please don’t be shy with the comment form, and I will always enjoy an email with constructive criticism as well.

Thanks for stopping by, I hope you dig the place.