The past couple of weeks I've been writing Flash games in Actionscript and using two different frameworks to aid my development, Flixel and FlashPunk. I started using Flixel first since several games I've played have used it and it looked simple to get started with. FlashPunk was something I started using the last week and a half for the Vanished game prototype I shared this week.

Flixel

Flixel has been used for quite a few flash games. Adam 'Atomic' Saltzman created the framework for his own games (Canabalt and Gravity Hook) and has open sourced it for anyone to use.

Pros

• Simple sprite loading, animations, and sound effects.
• Basic physics built-in (velocity, acceleration, friction, etc...)
• The library is well documented and has some excellent tutorials as well as user-created examples.

Cons

• Collisions are basic hit-boxes and I found myself wanting more control for certain games.
• No easy way to deallocate objects on the fly and everything seems to end up in the global scope.

FlashPunk

FlashPunk was created by Chevy Johnston and is probably best known for the "Give Up, Robot" series. It's a little more programmer centric but has some great features missing in Flixel.

Pros

• Complex collisions from hit-boxes to pixel perfect bitmap masks. Best of all you can run predictive collision tests along a moving line.
• There is usually more than one way to accomplish a task and usually it just takes a few lines to do some amazing things.
• The debug console shows hitboxes, a console log, frame rate, and other useful information that will save you time. Flixel has something similar but it is more limited.

Cons

• Basic documentation is lacking in certain areas and the basic tutorials leave you with just enough to get started. I had to dig around to find out that the emit function for emitters had a relative position to it's parent object.
• Physics must either be added through Box2D or by rolling your own.

And the winner is...

Flixel is a little to restrictive and I'm finding a lot more freedom using FlashPunk. The lack of physics was an easy thing to remedy and the pixel perfect collision made adding slopes a breeze. I haven't even scratched the surface of FlashPunk and I already feel it outshines Flixel. The framework feels well thought out and the debug console is a huge time saver.

If you are an artist and not primarily a programmer then I suggest Flixel. It is super easy to get started with and has some really powerful classes. As long as you work within the boundaries of the framework you'll find it refreshingly simple to work with.

Both frameworks are in active development and I'm sure that down the road each one will continue to get better. This comparison is obviously my own opinion and not meant to start a flame war between the two. Hopefully I could provide a clear summary of the two libraries.

Matt Tuttle

This is the current game I'm working on at the moment (it's a working title). It is a difficult platformer game that will require you to pass through each level dodging obstacles and making tricky jumps. There will be a brief storyline that I'm not going to give away yet because I haven't completely worked out all the kinks yet.

Most of the games I've made have been for casual gamers or someone who might not play games all the time. This one is the complete opposite. It will hopefully be a challenge for even the most seasoned players but without being too frustrating for those who are persistent.

One of the things I learned quickly was that I needed to have checkpoints. This makes the levels much less frustrating without reducing the challenge of the game. Which is why I think the game VVVVVV is a lot of fun without making me want to throw my computer out a 10 story building.

I spent quite a bit of time refining the controls to make it feel right. This was important before creating levels because it determined how high the player could jump and how they would slide along the walls. I'm hoping people will agree that the controls feel good.

The artwork was a new challenge for me. I've done some animations of people before but not anything quite this detailed, and for programmer art I feel it looks pretty good. The tileset was a challenge to give it that 3d effect and I had to sink the player character into the tiles to make it look like he was standing properly on the ground. I also found that creating background elements (even as simple as they are) really help bring out the foreground and make it look more interesting.

I'm hoping I can finish up the game in the next 2 weeks or so and have it available for testing. If anyone is interested in testing and is willing to provide a good amount of feedback on the game just send me an email and I'll let you try out the beta. Those who provide good feedback will be listed in the credits of the game.

I just posted some chiptunes on the music page that I created in Famitracker.

I've tried other trackers but Famitracker is by far the easiest one to use. You don't have to create samples and the instruments are super simple to setup. I'll probably post a tutorial on here for those who are interested and I'm going to take a look at MilkyTracker again now that I have a bit more experience.

Hope you enjoy!

Spelunk is a prototype I started working on in December. The game is an action rpg platformer much like Cave Story, Metroid, and Castlevania (in fact the background was drawn similar to Cave Story). It's a game style that I've wanted to do for quite a while and just decided to sit down and work out how to develop it.

It is not a finished game yet and is something I keep coming back to just to add little features here and there. Right now the main weapon of the game are knifes that you throw at your enemies. I've got snakes, bats, slimes, zombies, and a mini boss in the game and am looking to add more. If anyone has something they would like to see in the game, let me know.

I need to add a simple story and flesh out more levels so that the game takes more than 10 minutes to beat. At the moment you can just roam around an explore the cave system. I have several powerups that you need to get in order to continue through the game. In general Spelunk is not a very creative game and it's more a project of mine to make a fun Metroidvania game.

The artwork I created myself and it's meant to be super simple. Part of the fun is using your imagination to think of what the game might look like in real life. I wanted to focus more on gameplay than pretty looking graphics and I think you'll find that Spelunk is a lot of fun. Maybe after I finish up the current game I'm working on, I'll release this one onto a portal site.