Talking about Flash and Game development.
Ten days ago CNN published an article about Mochi Network: 10 Most Popular Flash Games of 2008.
Where normal people just see a list of funny games, a PROgrammer sees a list of funny games he could take as inspiration when making his next game.
The one that follows, is the top 10 list, with my personal considerations from a PROgrammer point of view.
The aim is to determine which game could easily be developed to make the next game of the year
1) BLOONS
It’s a simple game with a monkey popping balloons with darts, boomerangs and some other weapons. I also made a tutorial about the basics of this game in Create a Flash game like Bloons tutorial. Beside this, some weapons and bricks require some skills in coding.
Great level design.
Skills needed in coding: 2/5
Skills needed in graphics: 1/5
Skills needed in level design: 4/5
Overall difficulty: 2/5
2) Jane’s Hotel
As an inn-keeper, you must make your hotel gain popularity by satisfying your customers. Cool graphics and some advanced game mechanics make this game quite difficult to clone.
Skills needed in coding: 4/5
Skills needed in graphics: 5/5
Skills needed in level design: 2/5
Overall difficulty: 4/5
It’s a Pang clone (also known as Buster Bros). Great game, but not so hard to code.
Skills needed in coding: 2/5
Skills needed in graphics: 2/5
Skills needed in level design: 2/5
Overall difficulty: 2/5
As a Pizzeria owner, you must make you customers happy. Very complex game mechanic with a lot of variables such as ingredients, timing and pizza slicing. Cool graphics and a great intro make this game a pain to clone
Skills needed in coding: 4/5
Skills needed in graphics: 5/5
Skills needed in level design: 3/5
Overall difficulty: 4/5
5) The Fancy Pants Adventure: World 2
Great game that reminds Sonic the Hedgehog with great graphics. The game with the best level design in this chart, and the hardest to clone.
Skills needed in coding: 5/5
Skills needed in graphics: 5/5
Skills needed in level design: 5/5
Overall difficulty: 5/5
6) Tower Bloxx
Build your tower by stacking blocks. The basics are simple to clone, but some visual effects require skill at drawing. The full game, featuring some managerial issues, adds some difficulty to coding.
Skills needed in coding: 4/5
Skills needed in graphics: 3/5
Skills needed in level design: 2/5
Overall difficulty: 3/5
7) Cube Crash
Clone of SameGame, this game can be easily written in any language, from javascript to Php. Basic graphics.
Skills needed in coding: 1/5
Skills needed in graphics: 1/5
Skills needed in level design: 1/5
Overall difficulty: 1/5
Same thing as Cube Crash
Feed Paris Hilton without letting her dog eat your meal. The most difficult thing when making this game is not getting sued by Paris Hilton
Skills needed in coding: 1/5
Skills needed in graphics: 2/5
Skills needed in level design: 1/5
Overall difficulty: 1/5
Great game based on an old C64 game called Kick Start with improved graphics and gameplay.
Very hard to clone without a physics enginem and still quite hard even with Box2D or another similar tool.
Skills needed in coding: 5/5
Skills needed in graphics: 4/5
Skills needed in level design: 4/5
Overall difficulty: 5/5
That’s all. Now it’s up to you: should I start with an AS3 tutorial about Bloons or Bubbe Struggle?
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