Lee Brimelow (Platform Evangelist at Adobe) just published on gotoAndLearn.com couple new video tutorials. One focusing on responding to Raw Touch Data and handle multi-touch:

I just uploaded a new tutorial that explains how to respond and handle raw touch data in Flash Player 10.1. In a previous tutorial I showed how to respond to gestures, but intouch mode you can track all of the touch points on your screen. The 3M display that I am using supports up to 60 touch points, although I have yet to think of an example of how to use them all.

And the second one about AIR for Android (part 1):

I just uploaded the first tutorial in a multi-part series on developing AIR applications for Android. In this first tutorial I explain how to get your development environment setup and how to create and load a simple application onto your device using Flash CS5. Future tutorials will cover topics like using the emulator and performance optimizations.

Enjoy!

Adobe recently announced the public availability of the Adobe AIR for Android Developer Prerelease program. Any designer or developer interested in building Android applications using the Flash Platform is welcome to join this program to get access to the beta SDK.

At Google I/O Vic Gundotra, Google VP Engineering announced Flash Player 10.1 and Adobe AIR 2.5 running on FroYo.  The launch represents a milestone that we’ve been working towards for some time, and all of us at Adobe are hugely excited to see Flash Player 10.1 finally get into the hands of consumers. [more from Mark...]

Even if those announcements are all about Android OS the final target mobile operating systems for Flash Player also include Windows Phone 7, webOS, Symbian, and BlackBerry. This is a really exciting news for all Flash Mobile developers out there!

If you don’t have an Android device yet, you can already begin using this technology for your latest cool mobile project! Greg Wilson has an useful post about what you’ll need to start developing Android AIR apps today.

An interesting Flash Lite-related webinar is scheduled by Forum Nokia this month: Building Video Apps with Nokia Web Runtime & Flash Lite.

In this webinar, Robert Burdick of Forum Nokia and Kirk Ballou of Flash Widgets LLC will show you how to build great video and multimedia based applications on Nokia smartphones with Nokia Web Runtime and Adobe Flash Lite. Starting with an overview of video format and codecs supported by the devices, you will quickly know which devices to target your applications to. Next, you’ll learn the basics of doing video playback in Flash Lite via streaming or progressive download. Then you’ll see how easy it is to combine your web programming skills with Flash Lite’s multimedia capabilities to create great rich mobile Internet multimedia applications. You’ll also see some great examples of polished, commercial applications that bring the mobile experience to life with video!

Building Video Apps with Nokia Web Runtime & Flash Lite EMEA
27 May: 2 p.m. London | 4 p.m. Helsinki

Building Video Apps with Nokia Web Runtime & Flash Lite AMERICAS
27 May: 11 a.m. San Francisco | 2 p.m. New York

Build quality for the Hero is outstanding, the device is light but feels really solid to hold.  As many of you have heard me bleat previously buttons are always a big giveaway when it comes to quality.  If a button rocks in it’s bezel, or has a poor action you can tell that it’s not designed to last.  With the Hero there’s no issues with any of the front facing buttons, the volume control on the side could have been toughened up. Read more »

Hi! Below you can find the presentation I created for the last mobile dev day in Rome this year. Enjoy!

Janus Symbian Engine, the custom made extension that will help you improve Flash Lite functionalities, has become an open source project! You can simply head to the official page here: http://sourceforge.net/projects/janussymbianeng/

Janus Symbian Engine, the custom made extension that will help you improve Flash Lite functionalities, has become an open source project! You can simply head to the official page here: http://sourceforge.net/projects/janussymbianeng/

Download it, contribute to its development and use it with Janus Symbian to expand the boundaries of Flash Lite! Of course now Janus Symbian Full and Lite have become just Janus Symbian, and it’s free to use even for commercial projects. You can find Janus Symbian in both the Janus trial package (downloadable from the website) and the registered version (available only to customers as a private download).

Related Link: http://sourceforge.net/projects/janussymbianeng/

This is a short video from the Flash Lite and C++ integration preso in Chicago.

There are at least two valid reasons for embedding a Flash Player instance into a native c++ application: the possibility of having two or more instances of the player running at the same time and the presence of our personalized icon in the system task manager.

To achieve this our application have to handle an instance of the player using CDocumentHandler class and in particular OpenFileEmbeddedL mehotd:

Embedded launching means that the UI of an application, which is responsible for handling given data type, is embedded into the parent application. There will be only parent applications icon shown in the fast swap window when an application is embedded.

The only thing we must remember is that our native application have to handle exit event from the embedded player.

So, basically, our view have to be defined as an Observer for such type of event by implementing MAknServerAppExitObserver interface and by defining HandleServerAppExit method:

To launch our document handler we must do something like this:

By this way the default player for the specified mime type is embedded in our application view… pretty cool! If we want to call a specific player we must define the specific UID in our TDataType object (please refer to the SDK documentation for any doubt).

I’ve compiled and tested the code for Symbian 9.x, but it can be used also for previous symbian versions. I hope this can be helpful. All comments, suggestions and corrections are appreciated.

THE CODE IS PROVIDED “AS IS”, WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO THE WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND NONINFRINGEMENT.

Gaming today is one of the most popular means of entertainment on mobiles. A consumer may be exposed to a number of platforms to play games on, just as a developer may have to develop games. Amongst the various platforms available, Flash Lite is gaining momentum amongst developers worldwide as a very effective means of developing and delivering games.

This article is the first in the series of creating an effective game using Flash Lite 2.0. We will talk about a very simple and addictive game called “Ball Toss” and study its code from start to finish. I will assume that you have at least some Actionscript knowledge. If you are a beginner, some of the techniques may seem new. However I will try covering the basic Flash Lite 2.0 “Actionscript” syntax which includes the use of variables, functions, key Listeners and basic programming logic.

Through this tutorial, I hope that mobile game developers will observe the ease with which one can create games using Flash Lite 2.0.

Story v/s Game

Most developers like to build a story around their game because it gives them a base to build the game-play and add immense eye-candy. If you look at a game like “Zuma”, the basic game concept is to match and remove similar colored balls. However this simple game has been woven into a story in a temple of the Sun God! A point to notice here is, the essence of the game is not lost and the game only gets more attention.

“Ball Toss”, the game that we are going to be talking about today is a similar game which has great game-play and can have a story woven into it.

Let’s Start the Game

We will directly jump into the implementation of the game. It is written in Flash Professional 8.0 with the publishing profile set to Flash Lite 2.0.

1. Start with organizing your Flash file into layers consisting of a “Content” layer, an “Actions” layer and a “Labels” layer as shown in Figure 1.1. This helps you to filter and check your content matter during debugging.
2. Once you have your layers prepared, you can start putting in your graphics and code. We will start with the game code directly.
3. The code should always be organized in blocks known as functions. This helps you while debugging.

Figure 1.1

Initializing the variables

The first thing to do is define some variables. I have started by creating an “init” function. This function will contain all the variables that I will use during the game. The purpose behind doing this is –

1. You keep a track of all the variables that are declared and their purpose.
2. Incase you need to change the initial value of the variable; you don’t need to go hunting for it all over your code.
3. You can identify & edit the variable type if you need to.

Amongst the variables you can see that a multidimensional array has been declared. You might have worked with simple arrays before; they are no different from the multidimensional ones. For instance -

The array “map” is a simple array with 5 values. The first element of map[0] is equal to 10, the second element of map[1] is equal to 20 and so on. An array can hold numbers, strings, characters, objects, and even another array as an element. When an array holds another array as an element, the array is known as a multi-dimensional array.

The array “map1” is a multi-dimensional array with 8 values. The first element of map1[0] is equal to another array itself of value [0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0].

In our game code, the purpose behind “map1” array is to set the tiles on stage for the first level of the game. Incase you need to create more levels you can continue naming the arrays as “”map2”, “map3” and so on.

While initializing our variables, we also create an Object. An Object is like a container that can contain certain items. An Object helps to keep variables organized and also helps the programmer by reducing the long path references.

Building the Game Map

When you start building the game the first thing you will want to do is set the map of tiles on the game area as shown in Figure 1.2.

Figure 1.2

The function “buildMap” checks through the array and places the tiles on the screen. If you look at the code you will notice that we begin by creating an empty Movieclip “container” and then placing the tile movie clips within this empty Movieclip. This container will also store the ball Movieclip.

Keeping all your game elements in a single Movieclip is a good practice because if you ever wish to shift the positions of all the objects, you don’t need to shift them individually. You can just move the “container” Movieclip and the rest will move automatically.

Each tile is assigned certain values, such as its x position in the array(x), its y position in the array(y), its name and its type. It is important that each tile has its own set of properties and values so that when you need to refer to the tiles during the game, these values will help make the reference faster.

Key Listeners

Key listeners are objects that listen to or detect a key action. All key listeners when defined have to either be an Object or a Movieclip. Key listeners can detect both the “keyUp” and the “keyDown” events.

When a keyDown event occurs, the listener tracks the last key pressed, and the program detects it using the Key.getCode() method. If the key codes equal 37(left arrow), 38(up arrow), 39(right arrow) & 40(down arrow), the “mx” or “my” variables are set to corresponding values and the jumpball() function is called.

Jumping the ball

If you look at the “move” function, you will notice that we refer to 2 variables – mx and my. These refer to the new path the ball will follow when a key is pressed. For instance, if the left key is pressed, mx = -1 and my = 0 and if the right key is pressed then mx = 1 and my=0 and so on.

However the “move” function will only be called when the ball is jumping, and this is reflected in the onEnterframe function as shown in Figure 1.3.

Figure 1.3

When you press any of the arrow keys, the “jump” function first checks for the immediate next tile type. If the tile type is “0” – which means dissolved tile, then the game ends.

However if the tile type is “1” – which means solid tile, then there are a number of events that will happen -

1. The solid tile that the ball was already resting on before jumping will start dissolving
2. The solid tile that the ball was already resting on has its type set to “0”
3. The ball’s x or y properties either increments or decrements by 1 depending upon the key pressed.
4. We also have a variable named “blockCount” that keeps a check on the number of dissolved tiles. When all the tiles are dissolved successfully and the ball reaches its starting point safely, the game ends with the user winning.

The Moving Ball Logic

When the ball starts jumping, it also starts moving. For doing this, we first increment or decrement the x and y position of the ball depending upon the key pressed. This movement will continue until the ball lands on the new tile.

We next try calculating the actual position of the ball on the grid by dividing the ball’s position by the tile size, assuming the ball and the tiles have their pivot points placed in the center.

With the new tile position in hand, we now check how far the ball is from the new tile. If the distance for both the x and the y positions is 0, we then assume that the ball has landed on the new tile. We now halt the jumping of the ball.

Conclusion

When the game ends, either with a win or a loss, you have to make sure that you clear the memory of the key listener as well as the duplicate movie clips.

The game is not processor intensive. You can download the sample files and transfer it on the device for an actual look and feel of the final version.

This game can easily be classified under tile based games, and keeping this game as a base, one can easily prepare more tile based games with different concepts. If you have any more questions about “Ball Toss” or about gaming in general, please feel free to mail me your comments.

Download the source here.