Cover image for Starling Game Development Essentials

Starling Game Development Essentials

Author Juwal Bose
Release Date: 2013/12/01
ISBN: 9781783983544
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Book Description

Develop crossplatform, Isometric, turn-based games using Starling

  • Create a cross-platform Starling Isometric game
  • Add enemy AI and multiplayer capability
  • Explore the complete source code for the Web and cross-platform game develpment

In Detail

Starling makes it very easy for an ActionScript developer to create cross-platform, multiplayer games. Starling utilizes GPU to render all the content for excellent performance on a wide range of devices. Multiplayer games have become a very lucrative market, pulling in more and more developers who try to raise the bar for user experience. With the ever-increasing popularity of iOS and Android, the demand for cross-platform games has increased exponentially.

Starling makes it very easy for an ActionScript developer to create cross-platform, multiplayer games. Starling utilizes GPU to render all the content for excellent performance on a wide range of devices. Multiplayer games have become a very lucrative market, pulling in more and more developers who try to raise the bar for user experience. With the ever-increasing popularity of iOS and Android, the demand for cross-platform games has increased exponentially.

This project-based book starts with the game idea, and an introduction to Game States and Game Loop. You also learn about the working of Isometric projection logic.

You get to explore RenderTexture for dynamically creating game levels and later on easily upgrade to the exceptional QuadBatch for deploying on devices. You will then move on to use Starling Particle extension for explosion effects. Finally, you will develop a simple AI Manager to help the enemy make decisions and use Pathfinder to facilitate grid-based path finding.

Starling Game Development Essentials, with the help of FlagDefense game source code, is an invaluable asset to anyone who wants to create a Starling cross-platform game.

Table of Contents

  1. Starling Game Development Essentials
    1. Table of Contents
    2. Starling Game Development Essentials
    3. Credits
    4. About the Author
    5. Acknowledgments
    6. About the Reviewers
    7. www.PacktPub.com
      1. Support files, eBooks, discount offers and more
        1. Why Subscribe?
        2. Free Access for Packt account holders
    8. Preface
      1. What this book covers
      2. What you need for this book
      3. Who this book is for
      4. Conventions
      5. Reader feedback
      6. Customer support
        1. Downloading the example code
        2. Downloading the color images of this book
        3. Errata
        4. Piracy
        5. Questions
    9. 1. Our Capture the Flag Game
      1. Understanding a game
        1. Introducing the game loop and game states
          1. Game state
          2. Game loop
            1. Flash's inherent game loop
        2. Capture the Flag
          1. The game idea
            1. Rules of the game
      2. The tile-based approach
        1. An array-based implementation of a level
          1. Relationship between screen space and level array
      3. Prerequisites for using the shared code
      4. Creating a top-down game scene
        1. Applying the RenderTexture approach
      5. Tools of the trade
      6. Summary
    10. 2. Going Isometric
      1. What is an isometric view?
        1. Cartesian to isometric equations
        2. An isometric view via a matrix transformation
      2. Implementing the isometric view via isometric art
      3. Level data structure
        1. Altering registration points
      4. Depth sorting
        1. Understanding isometric movement
        2. Detecting isometric collision
      5. Summary
    11. 3. Isometric-level Designer
      1. The approach for creating our level designer
        1. Befriending Feathers UI
          1. Creating an isometric grid with the Starling graphics extension
      2. Developing a designer app
        1. Loading files recursively
          1. Displaying tiles
          2. Painting the level
          3. Saving the level
          4. Editing registration points
      3. Summary
    12. 4. Just Finding Your Way
      1. The Flag Defense game level
        1. Game settings
          1. The support classes used
          2. Faster drawing for RenderTextures
      2. The CustomAnimatedItem class
        1. The CustomIsometricCharacter class
          1. Time-based animation versus frame-based animation
            1. Depth sorting issues
      3. Implementing the game level
        1. The game states
          1. The touch listener
            1. Following the AI path
            2. Path finding
            3. Making AI decision
      4. Summary
    13. 5. Boom Boom, Explosions!
      1. Adding some effects
        1. An image-based explosion
      2. Particle systems
        1. Creating the explosion using the Particle Editor tool
        2. Adding smoke
        3. Adding the explosion to the stage
      3. Summary
    14. 6. Going Cross Platform
      1. The finished game
        1. The MainLevel game loop
      2. AiManager
        1. Making the AI decisions
      3. Cross platform
        1. Supporting multiple screens
          1. Dynamic Texture Atlas Creator
          2. Finding the ScaleRatio value
          3. Positioning items properly
      4. Essential tips and tricks
      5. Device-specific changes
        1. QuadBatch to the rescue
        2. Handling touch input
        3. iOS specifics
        4. Android specifics
          1. The Android back button
      6. Saving data locally
      7. AdMob ANE integration
      8. Publishing to the app stores
        1. Apple App Store
        2. Google Play
      9. Summary
    15. 7. Flox – Leaderboards, Analytics, and More
      1. Understanding Flox
        1. Getting started with Flox
          1. Flox game analytics
          2. Tracking the events
            1. The Flox leaderboard
          3. User tracking
            1. The Flox entities
            2. Loading the entities
          4. Using queries for entities
            1. The Flox operations
      2. Summary
    16. Index
3.146.176.145