EgoAnt Development Tutorials

Printing Background Colours Using CSS

egoant@egoant.com (Aaron Clifford) — Wed, 08 Aug 2012 17:27:35 GMT

I was recently tasked with creating a WordPress plugin that allowed the admins to create coupons that could easily be printed. The original system relied on the use of an image library to generate images for each of the coupons. I found that this didn't allow for much flexibility and was difficult to maintain. My preference was to have the coupons displayed as HTML so that they could be styled using CSS.

The problem I immediately ran into was this: CSS background colours don't print. I found a pretty good workaround, though, that isn't too difficult to implement.

Loading a Config File in AS3

egoant@egoant.com (Aaron Clifford) — Wed, 06 Apr 2011 21:07:10 GMT

I was recently asked to give someone a sample of how to load an XML configuration file in AS3. It's a fairly simple thing to do, but I feel it is still is worth posting because it's one of those things you will probably have to do at some point. I have found that more and more of my games are built so that there is some sort of configuration file so that I can quickly swap out assets, change text in dialogue boxes, and other little tweaks that it just doesn't seem worth making the SWF all over again for.

Creating an Infinite Scrolling Pane in JavaScript

egoant@egoant.com (Aaron Clifford) — Wed, 30 Mar 2011 21:57:32 GMT

Okay, okay. I know that things that scroll and whoosh and all that have gone out of style, but that doesn't mean that clients don't WANT them. This code snippet will show you how to create a scrolling pane on your web page that will automatically detect how much content is inside the DIV and make sure the content scrolls nicely in there.

Getting Clicky with Flash Game Tracking

egoant@egoant.com (Aaron Clifford) — Wed, 17 Feb 2010 07:00:00 GMT

Recently I read the Lost Garden article Flash Love Letter (2009) (part 2). In the article they cover the potential of Flash, how Flash devs currently make money, and ways of adding value to your game so players feel like they have gotten value for their dollar.EAVB_SLWGRGOIVR

I develop games not just on my own, but for a couple of government clients as well and one thing that the Government always has to be wary of is how tax dollars are being spent. If they use tax payer money on a game, they need to prove that the game is being played and that any educational material that is meant to be displayed is reaching the intended audience.

This tutorial covers one area of the article in particular, metrics and tracking actions in Flash. In the article they discuss using Google Analytics to track how much fun your players are having, but I prefer Clicky Web Analytics for a number of reasons. First because I find their dashboard is prettier and much more flexible, and second because I don't like to wait around to see if things are working, and Clicky has a fantastic feature called Spy that lets you see what players are doing in real time. Creepy? Maybe. Useful? Definitely.

Flash Game Achievements with GamerSafe

egoant@egoant.com (Aaron Clifford) — Thu, 11 Feb 2010 19:10:32 GMT

Whether you love them or hate them, achievements in games are a common component that can add fun for your players and lead to repeat plays for developers. This tutorial covers the basics for creating achievements for your Flash game and implementing them using the GamerSafe API.

AS3: Simple Light and Shadows

egoant@egoant.com (Aaron Clifford) — Mon, 26 Oct 2009 07:00:00 GMT

Game developers spend a lot of time thinking about light. The reason is simple: light can make or break a game. Light can be used both for effect and as a gameplay element- darkness can be used to mask enemies and provide surprise, and simple effects like a flash of white coupled with a clap of thunder can provide a sense of mood.

In this tutorial I will be going through some basic tactics for creating light and shadows in an ActionScript 3 based Flash game.

Drupal Navigation with Flash AS3

egoant@egoant.com (Aaron Clifford) — Fri, 02 Oct 2009 20:31:45 GMT

I was directed to Steve Zeidner's page about creating a Flash menu for Drupal today and asked if it would be possible to create an AS3 version. Turns out it is, but there are some little tweaks that need to happen, as there always are when converting to AS3.

Flash / PHP / MySQL Score System

egoant@egoant.com (Aaron Clifford) — Thu, 06 Mar 2008 05:57:36 GMT

This tutorial is designed to give flash game creators a relatively simple way to create a high score system in their games. I have included a file that you can download and set up on your server that will allow you to create a high score table in your own MySQL database.