Flash Game Blogs

Dangerous High School Girls in Trouble is an innovative and award-winning download game for both Mac and Windows that defies classification. It's a unique genre-bending game that includes puzzle and RPG elements, as well as a variety of mini-games. All these disparate elements synthesize remarkably well, and the gameplay quickly becomes intuitive.

Great news today! After Bamba Snack Quest, our cute toddler is back for more adventures in Bamba Snack Quest 2, a brand new Point’n’Click Adventure series created by E-dologic, an advertising Agency from Israel.

A nasty fly has decided to steal his precious snack. Help him chase the fly and get his snacks back!

There are now only two episodes available at the time of writing, with 5 more coming up in the next few weeks. The site is all in Hebrew, but the different episodes are language free. Don’t forget to read from right to left when selecting the level you want to play!

Have fun!

Update: All 7 episodes are online now!

Play of the Day!
The Play of the Day is a daily column where I showcase my personal pick of the best game uploaded the day before
Deflection by averagegames
Very nice concept, original and well done. The background needs more improvements but if we add the music, the effects of the ball and the challenge, the final product is a very funny game.


Retro Play of the Day!
This piece takes a look into the games uploaded to Kongregate One Year ago! That's almost a century on the internet.
QWERTY Warriors 2 by Weasel
Nice game, with very good graphics and very good for train your type speed. It has difficults, so if you aren't very fast, train yourself in the easy mode and then try harder ones.

Notable Forum Posts
Here's a place where the forum gets spotlighted upon, every day there are great threads and here's a spot to keep up on at least a few
Unofficial Chatroom Contest
Buggy ole Kongregate...

Kongregate News
Kongregate always has some kind of news, we're in beta! What's going on recently with Kongregate and the Kongregate community
Kongregate is quiet, maybe too quiet... The only news I can tell you is that greg is going to give Platform Racing 2 some badges.

COCAK News
Am I slacking, probably. Here is a place where I tell you whats up in my world so you can know what to expect from the blog world
I hope that FRAGM3NT is ok so he can continue with The Daily Kong this week.

Did you enjoy The Impossible Quiz and The Impossible Quiz 2? If so, I would recommend you give a try to the Never Ending Level Game.

This is a weird and challenging puzzle game in which you use clues provided on the screen to proceed to the next level.

According to the author Clarence Ball, “if you beat all the levels you win and get your name on a high scores list. This game does start off easy to lure in the unsuspecting, but it gets very hard.”

Until yesterday, there were 132 levels to complete to beat the game; today, 18 new challenging levels have been added by the author, so now there are 150 levels you must complete to beat the game! That’s probably why the game is called the Never Ending Level Game!

Have fun!

2008-04-25 Update: NOW WITH 170 LEVELS!

2008-07-06 Update: NOW WITH 182 LEVELS!

In Sandlot's newest addition to the Tradewinds series, Tradewinds Caravans, experience the excitement and derring-do of a merchant's life, without the boredom and general unpleasantness that would tend to come with the real thing. In this loose, fantastical simulation of a merchant's life circa 100 BC, you will explore the silk road, fight your way through swarms of bandits, and uncover the unique story of the character you choose.

A new installment in the never ending Super Sneaky Spy Guy series was just released at Melting-Mindz Games!

“Enter the strange world of Sneaky and search for some new treasure in some strange places!”

This new game looks good and is quite different from previous episodes. Turn on your speakers, grab a soft drink and enjoy!

Have fun!

Okashi - Escape from the House of Candy is the latest Room Escape game by Twinkle, the author of Escape of Gray Door, Alice: Escape from Wonderland  and more. Your goal today is to escape from a house full of candies, and the front door is locked, as usual! Have fun!

Note: There is a poll within this post, please visit the site to participate in this post’s poll.

We might be going biweekly on these polls…

As regular readers will know, we've been done over with a hacked version of "Law of the West". Instead of just bitching about it, we've decided to be pro-active.

This is going to take a number of forms, one of which is SICO, or "Source In, Crap Out".
We looked at what encryption and obfuscator software there is out at there, and came across irrFuscator. It looks pretty cool, and at 69 euros isn't going to to break the bank, but it also looked like it was something we could do ourselves without too much effort.
Where SICO fails compared to irrFuscator is that from what I can tell it takes the whole project and messes it up, so public functions ( And therefore getters / setters ) get screwed with too, whereas our project just takes one file and so has to leave anything which could be called from a different class alone.
Also it converts strings, but it looks costly. Looking at the example on their page, "end" gets converted to irrcrpt(23, "uzd."). That kinda looks like a static class is added to the project with a method called irrcrpt, which takes the first value as the "key", and I guess it's just a simple XOR with the string value.
Fine for scrambling a filename, but I think it would be too harsh [ In performance terms ] to do that to every string in the game, so it's easy enough to just add a method in like that by hand for your filenames / passwords / cheat codes etc.

( In case this reads like I'm just bashing irrFuscator, I'm really not. It's better than SICO, I'm just pointing out the differences ).

So what can our baby do ? Here's the loader class we use for it:

package Classes {  
    import flash.events.Event;
    import flash.net.URLLoader;
    import flash.net.URLLoaderDataFormat;
    import flash.net.URLRequest;
    
    publicclass IO {

//---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
// Properties
//---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
        private var loader:URLLoader;
        private var callBack:Function;
        
//---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
//Constructor
//---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
        public function IO(){
/*
Null constructor, we don't need to do anything here
*/
        }

//---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
// Public
//---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
        public function toString():String {
            return"IO";
        }        

//---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
        public function loadScript(filename:String,callBackArg:Function):void{
            callBack=callBackArg;
            
            loader =new URLLoader();
            loader.dataFormat=URLLoaderDataFormat.TEXT;
            loader.addEventListener(Event.COMPLETE, xmlLoaded);

            var request:URLRequest =new URLRequest(filename);
            loader.load(request);
        }

//---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
// Private
//---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
        private function xmlLoaded(eventArg:Event):void{
            var source:String=eventArg.target.data;
            callBack(source);
        }

//---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
    }
}

And here's what it looks like after being run through SICO:

package Classes {  
    import flash.events.Event;
    import flash.net.URLLoader;
    import flash.net.URLLoaderDataFormat;
    import flash.net.URLRequest;
    
    publicclass IO {

        private var _V64K0q:URLLoader;
        private var _87qjufb1lsM:Function;
        
        public function IO(){
        }

        public function toString():String {
            return"IO";
        }        

        public function loadScript(M85u8En4i:String,_87qjufb1lsMArg:Function):void{
            _87qjufb1lsM=_87qjufb1lsMArg;
            
            _V64K0q =new URLLoader();
            _V64K0q.dataFormat=URLLoaderDataFormat.TEXT;
            _V64K0q.addEventListener(Event.COMPLETE, _v1zr6rD62q);

            var kDu541CN2C5:URLRequest =new URLRequest(M85u8En4i);
            _V64K0q.load(kDu541CN2C5);
        }

        private function _v1zr6rD62q(_wVl6q:Event):void{
            var n1XScOB03y:String=_wVl6q.target.data;
            _87qjufb1lsM(n1XScOB03y);
        }
    }
}

Pretty mashed up. There are still some quirks to it which need ironing out, and it's not got a list of reserved words or anything that cool, but that code is nasty once run through it.

Next we need to actually make some sort of front-end for it, ideally using Air to get to play with that, more possibly with Zinc to make it easier, and then decide what to do with it. It won't ever be for sale, it may be a case of we just give it to friends and let it spread gradually like that, we're not sure yet, but it will be given away. There's no point bitching about hacking, and then coming up with something that makes our stuff safe and screw everyone else.

And that's part 1 ( Or 0.5 ) of our push to try and get the community as a whole being a bit more protected, there is more to come. Olli and I have had some long chats the past couple of days. We both came to the conclusion that yeah, having hacked games floating around sucks, but there are some things which are more acceptable than others.
If LoW had been hacked to use the hi-score component of the system it's been hacked for ( Some "shovelware portal in a box" system ) and everything else had been left intact, then we can swallow that. Just. The game gets spread so the sponsors happy, we get our credit out so it's not too bad for us, the ad gets seen etc. It's not that bad. It's only when the game is just ripped of everything like that we get pissy.

Part of this process of stopping it is to actually get involved with the boards that link these games, for fear of sounding like a politician, it's about education. A lot of sites with hacked games on are run by decent people, just trying to make a couple of quid, and not really knowing about any harm they could be causing 'cause they never ever have any contact with a developer.
Flash games are percieved as such a throw away commidity that the line between IP theft and hosting becomes very blurred. A lot of people who run boards wouldn't dream of hosting mp3's, but see Flash in a totally different light.

We really fucking resent having to spend time on things like this, but if we're in the position of toying with ads and sponsorship as well as the client based work, then we need to protect our IP. Like we all do.

There's more coming,

Squize.

A few short, experimental-type games this week, including one from prolific Game Maker designer cactus, a two color game where you are a wild boar, and a game where you control a dark sun to capture golden butterfly/angel-type things. And just to make sure you don't go mad with weirdness, there's a nice relaxing mahjong game to tame the inner beasts.

Play of the Day!
The Play of the Day is a daily column where I showcase my personal pick of the best game
uploaded the day before
Modern tactics 3 by lautan

Really great RPG, with a great gameplay, and graphics. It isn't very easy to learn how to play, but it is very addictive. The music is ok, as the backgrounds. This game is great for those who love action, war, and RPG games. If you liked the previous Moder tactics, try this one!

Retro Play of the Day!

This piece takes a look into the games uploaded to Kongregate One Year ago! That's almost a century on the internet.

Nodes by Eggy
Great game, I loved the concept. It has a medium badge, very easy one. This game only requieres patience. Great effects. This is more a simple, but funny game, so try it!

Notable Forum Posts

Here's a place where the forum gets spotlighted upon, every day there are great threads and here's a spot to keep up on at least a few
Kongai cards suggestion

Forward and Back buttons can cause badges to break

Kongregate News
Kongregate always has some kind of news, we're in beta! What's going on recently with Kongregate and the Kongregate community
No news today, we just got a new challenge, very easy for IndestructoTank! AE.

COCAK News
Am I slacking, probably. Here is a place where I tell you whats up in my world so you can know what to expect from the blog world

As ususal, no news here.

This Week’s Selection:

Ranch Rush
Help Sara turn a failed nursery into a thriving Ranch Rush with three acres of empty land. Harvest fresh produce, gather eggs from ostriches, collect honey from bees, whip up ketchup from tomatoes, and much more!

Mystery of Unicorn Castle
Be careful! Only you can reveal the secrets of the inhabitants and guests of the Unicorn castle  in this new Hidden Object game. Free the family from an evil spell that has haunted them for centuries!

Fitness Frenzy
With a hard body and healthy mind, your clients can conquer the world. In Fitness Frenzy, you play as Vicki, a personal fitness trainer, and you must help all sorts of people — from newbie joggers to muscle-bound weight lifters.

Also Recommended:

The Tuttles: Madcap Misadventures
Get caught up in The Tuttles: Madcap Misadventures, an hilarious arcade family friendly adventure that pairs having a good time with doing good!

10 Days Under the Sea
Your mission in 10 Days Under The Sea is to set sail on the open seas, and help Little Carrie find her spirit.Comb underwater scenes for hidden objects in gorgeous locations like the Sea of Japan, the Caribbean, and the Nile!

Ancient Quest of Saqqarah
Never get bored with 7 different styles of bejeweled-like puzzles and 3 difficulty levels in Ancient Quest of Saqqarah, an innovative and fun match-3 game!

If you are looking at great Download Games, you can always check for more information into our Download Games section! We only feature the Best Casual Games available.

The Clumsys is a hidden object game that departs from the traditional formula just enough to feel like a new experience. It's Tim's tenth birthday and his friends are over to celebrate. Grandpa Albert is working on a time machine in the barn, but when he turns his back the children discover it and go hurdling through time. Each of the 20 kids has been deposited in a different era, and it's your job to find them, fix all the problems they've caused, and bring them back!

Rouge Rogue Badge (medium - 15 points)
Hunt down every last button in ButtonHunt


The Hunt for Red Button Badge (medium - 15 points)
Uncover every last red button in ButtonHunt 2


Spherical McCarthyism Badge (medium - 15 points)
Hunt down every last red button destroying our country from the inside in ButtonHunt 3


Here we have the video guides for all ButtonHunts:

ButtonHunt


ButtonHunt 2


ButtonHunt 3


All these videos are made by me. You can find more at my YouTube account.

Now through the weekend of July 4th, take 40% off all games purchased at Big Fish Games.

Neon has a certain glitz to it. Whether it's glittering in the lights of Las Vegas, shining in the sign of a convenience store, or just brightening up the periodic table, neon always adds a little extra to everything it touches. It was only a matter of time, then, before someone mixed the brilliance of neon with the brilliance of puzzles.

Dinosaur Room Escape is the latest Room Escape game created by Parallellove, the author of Panda Room Escape, Monkey Room Escape, Rabbit Room Escape, Fish Room Escape, Gorilla Room Escape, Wildboar Room Escape, Rhino Room Escape, Kangaroo Room Escape, Snake Ropom Escape and many more.

You are trapped in a room, and the question is, where is the dinosaur?

Have fun!

Update: Dinosaur Room Escape walkthrough in comment #33 (thanks J!)

GlueFO is an Asteroids-like Arcade game with upgrades and bonuses. “Your GlueFO is not equipped with conventional weaponry owing to financial concerns, use your GluVex 3000 to capture and fling the tiny orbs!” Simple graphics but addictive gameplay. Have fun!

Errrr.... Makena day!

In case you didn't know, Makena is just a chick. He is Roo's famous bird, and for our fourth annual Roo Day we are celebrating Roo AND Makena.

So happy Makena Day!

AND, if you are in the United States, Happy Fourth of July!

Escape 02 – Who am I? is the second very nice looking Japanese Room Escape game released by K-Style from Japan.

Escape 01 – Welcome to Esc Co. Ltd, his first game, is only available in Japanese. But the good news is that Escape 02 - Who am I? was also released in English.

Escape 02 is easier than its predecessor, even if the TAB key is not active anymore :-)

Have fun!

Thanks to Falaiseju for pointing this one out!

Update: K-Style’s site is down. Temporary alternative link here…

Free Falling is live! This game is the latest creation of IDAC, the team behind The Daydream, JOBpico, Bon Voyage, Strawberry Tomato and so many other popular Room Escape games!

You enter an unknown room, and the door closes behind you. You start looking for items to use and then you realize that Free Falling is all in Japanese!

There is no English version available at the time of writing, but it’s not really a problem here :-)

Have fun!

Note: Please be patient while the game is loading…

Update: Free Falling walkthrough in comment #25 (thanks DNOMN8R!)

Update: Free Falling video walkthrough!

New Required Playing Blog Entry By Steve Fulton

Escape Bathroom is a new Japanese Room Escape game, available in both Japanese and English (sort of), that takes place in a… bathroom! You are not alone here, a black cat is watching you! Look closely for various items that can help you escape from the Bathroom. Have fun!

Here on the slab of land just south of Canada and north of Mexico (including bits of land in the Pacific ocean and a whole hunk of terra firma way in the north), today is Independence Day. You know what that means, right? Fireworks, parades, barbecues, picnics, and this year, Link Dump Friday!

Just a quick note to inform you that the three first chapters of the amazingly beautiful adventure series Tipping Point are now available in a single compilation sponsored by Bubblebox and FreeGamesNews!

In case you missed it, enjoy now the magical world of Tipping Point!

Have fun!

And in case you are looking for a walkthrough, here it is!

Storage Escape is a new Room Escape game developed by the author of Lost Memory, Sniper Escape, Bad Reception, E-Scape, DIY Escape, Locked In, Stuck Inside, the Trapped series and the Puzzled series.

“You are stuck in a storage room, find and use items to help you escape!”

Talking about items, don’t forget to press the spacebar if you want to put an item away!

Have fun!

Update: Storage Escape walkthrough in comment #5 (thanks Iv0ry972!)

Black and White Room Escape is the second Room Escape game created by Rhosus, the author of Escape Blue Bathroom.

For an unknown reason, you find yourself trapped in room all in black and white. The door is locked and you need a code to open it.

Look for clues, search for items and eventually, escape the Black and White room!

Have fun!

Update: Black and White Room Escape walkthrough in comment #48 (thanks Bogdan!)

New Required Reading Blog Entry By Jeff Fulton

Good news for all Shift series fans, Shift 3 is live!

“Shift 3 is here, and it’s unlike any Shifting experience you’ve had before. A massive Adventure mode takes you to the roots of the SHIFT experiment, tonnes of achievements to earn and even an unlockable Celebrity secret character!

And if that isn’t your cup of tea, theres a selection of 18 Classic style levels from Shift players around the globe to battle your way through, and highscore boards all around!”

Antony Lavelle, the author of Shift and Shift 2 has done a super job in this third installment, and the adventure mode is just awesome: Shift fans, you won’t be disappointed!

Have fun!

We have recently discovered that one of our sponsored games is out there in a pirated version.

I know that is is part of the deal to spread a game as much as possible, but when someone hacks the (encrypted) game and removes all that what makes it a sponsored game ... I get pissed. I mean it was for "free" anyway.

So fellow flash developers, have a look at your stats and see if your games happen to be run from this domain:

http://forum.***.**/...

These guys steal games, and use hacked versions.

See this:


Of course the loading screen ad has been bypassed too.

There is money involved so I think it's my damn right to be pissed. I have contacted them, let's see what happens.

/* edited, we found thesource and further steps have been taken ... read the SICO post */

nGFX.

No, I'm not in a good mood today.

If you've played the original, or the even better update to that one, then you probably will be thrilled to know that Tony has just released a third game in this fantastic series that takes the concept of negative space and turns it upside-down. Shift 3 extends the familiar jump and run, puzzle-platformer formula by adding a few surprises.

Wogger Mini #129 is online! What is hidden behind the door? Wogger Mini is a Point’n’Click Adventure series created by Bernd Mattiebe from Germany. Help Wogger and his family on their never-ending journey in a surreal world full of danger. Have fun!

 I recently had the pleasure of working with the nice people at [Little Lives](http://www.littlelives.com/) on a reskinned version of [Witchcraft](/games/witchcraft/?id=1) to celebrate the Singapore National Day Parade. In addition to all new graphics and sounds, we added...

Happy July! We have two updates for you this week: the new click away ad format, and the addition of Moneybookers as an additional payment method.

What are Click Away Ads?

Click away ads is the newest ad unit available to MochiAds developers. Unlike pre-game and inter-level ads, these new ad units do not have a 10 second time period and are designed to provide developers with more flexibility in monetizing their games. These ads are available in a 300×250 size and can be placed in custom locations throughout a game. With these ads, the game player can close the ad at any time and continue playing the game.

Using Click Away Ads

Below is an example of Click Away ads integrated into Playfish’s game, Word Challenge. They show the click away ad at the completion of the game, and allow the gamer to close the ad by selecting the green check button.

Click Away Ads in Playfish’s game Word Challenge

Here are some other ways you can integrate them:

• Integrate them into your game start screen. User closes the ad by selecting the “Play Game” button.
• Use Click Away ads at any natural break in game play whether it be between levels or at a game over screen
• It’s up to you to choose!

Click Away Ad Policies

Developers have more flexibility with click away ads in their games. You can review the general ad policies here, but the key policies in this new ad unit are as follows:

• Closing the ad must be user initiated, not developer initiated
• Only one ad can be shown at a time to the gamer
• Unlike pre-game and inter-level ads, developers are permitted to play sounds and music while the ad is being viewed

New and Updated Payment Methods: Moneybookers & PayPal upgrade

We’ve added Moneybookers as a new payment method for MochiAds users, in addition to the existing methods of PayPal and payment by check. Moneybookers provides local payments in over 30 countries. :) You can take advantage of this by logging into your account, and selecting “Accounts” in the top right navigation bar. This will take you to a menu where you can manage your payment methods.

In addition, we’ve also upgraded our PayPal account to pay users via the Mass Payment service. This enables PayPal users to take advantage of lower transaction fees from using PayPal.

Let us know what you think!

---

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Dawn Dash Escape is the latest Room Escape game released by GamesHandbook. “You have had a big night out, gotten drunk and taken a big ugly lay home. You have to get out of her room with all your clothes but don’t wake her up!” Shame on you! Have fun!

Sorry for the lack of updates, everyone: I'm currently in Switzerland enjoying the fondue (true story). However, I did stumble across something interesting during my last five-Franc Internet session. Although we've all heard for years that Google does index SWFs in some mysterious way, no one has really ...

New Tutorials Blog Entry By Jeff Fulton

Play of the Day!
The Play of the Day is a daily column where I showcase my personal pick of the best game uploaded the day before
buttonhunt3 by Achilles015
This game is really amazing, the graphics, concept, the jokes inside the game, makes it very very addictive. This game already has badges, and it is the best game of the sage. The sound effects and music is awesome, and I recomend this game to everyone. It is quite easy, and if you enjoyed the previous games, you must play this one!!

Retro Play of the Day!
This piece takes a look into the games uploaded to Kongregate One Year ago! That's almost a century on the internet.
! Music Mania ! by Coolio_Niato
Another great music game. This one has a lot of minigames, and a lot more to unlock. In the first one you are little man and you have to dodge the obstacles; The second one is very similar to streamline, you also have to avoid obstacles, and finally, a minigame very similar to super crazy guitar maniac deluxe, or flash flash revolution.
In the three games the music is very good, the gameplay is very intense and the unlockable games are the goal of this great game!

Notable Forum Posts
Here's a place where the forum gets spotlighted upon, every day there are great threads and here's a spot to keep up on at least a few
Prison
Badged Games?

Kongregate News
Kongregate always has some kind of news, we're in beta! What's going on recently with Kongregate and the Kongregate community
We have new badges for ButtonHunt and ButtonHunt3, both mediums. No news after that.

COCAK News
Am I slacking, probably. Here is a place where I tell you whats up in my world so you can know
what to expect from the blog world.
As FRAGM3NT is having some problems doing the Daily Kong, I wanted to help, that's why I'm writing again this. As usually I got problems doing this, but at least I'm trying :P.

New Retro Games Blog Entry By Steve Fulton

Sorry folks yet again no image ... but some code :)

The current game (let's call it CC for the sake of it) is getting close to the point where I would declare the main game engine done, most of the events are processed now and the final enemies are going to be done today (hurray!).

As the title suggests (wow it's something post related) I want to write about the dumb ass AI one, nope rather 4 of the enemies in CC use, if you were so bold to call it AI.

While reading up the docs about the original game I read this:

"goes around objects to the left"

And there are 3 more which go around things to the right.

HA!

I first simply ignored the fact of "going around" and just coded a simple "if enemie hits wall turn left".

So after noticing my mistake I removed the old code and started to write the one that should allow my enemy to move around things. Sounds easy enough.

"Go ahead as long as there is something to the left, if not, turn left ..."

After a while I really lost my temper and just coded something that could deal with right turns as well, by checking 3 tiles + one, as you can see in the next image.

Jein, it's a dummy approach. (jein is a pseudo German word, combining "ja" and "nein", yes and no).


In order to simplify (though, yet unoptimised) the checking of the tiles I set up an array of points, holding the offset for each of the checks. To make my life even easier I just numbered the directions (which is used all over the game):
0 = north, 1 = east ...

So the array for 0 (north) looks like this:

this._aTest.push( [new Point(0, -1), new Point( -1, -1), new Point( -1, 0), new Point(1, 0)] );

And because this one should move to the left I added a second array that holds the next direction to go to:

this._aDirNext = [3, 0, 1, 2,  1, 2, 3, 0];

(You might wonder why it has eight entries instead of the needed four, I'll come to that later)
I now could just lookup the next direction I need to face by simply checking with the current direction:

this._iDir =this._aDirNext[this._iDir];

Now, with that in place checking the movement was easy:

private function checkMoveBug ():void {
            
    var strTest:String ="";
    var i:uint;
    var xx:int;
    var yy:int;
    
    for (i = 0; i < 4; i++) {
        
        xx =this._pPos.x +this._aTest[this._iDir][i].x;
        yy =this._pPos.y +this._aTest[this._iDir][i].y;
        
        if (this._refChipsGame.getTile(this._refChipsGame.aMapGame[xx][yy][0]).objProperties.bMonster && this._refChipsGame.aMapGame[xx][yy][1] == -1) {
            strTest += "0";
        } else {
            strTest += "1";
        }
        
    }
            
    switch (strTest.substr(0, 3)) {
        case"000": // "C"
        case"100":
        case"110":
            this._iDir =this._aDirNext[this._iDir]; // turn to the next dir
            break;
        case"111": // "A"
        case"101":
            if (strTest.charAt(3) == "0") {
                this._iDir =this._aDirNext[this._iDir + 4];// this one uses the second pair for "A"
            } else {
                this._iDir =this.getOppositeDir(this._iDir); // this one is used vor "D"
            }
            break
        /*
        case "011":
        case "001": // "B"
            these are not needed because we can just move ahead
            (there is something to the left)
            break;
        */
    }
    
}

The final version has the 4th check removed from the loop and just checks it for "111" and "101".

And because we use an array to store the test offsets, we can make the enemy around things to the right by just changing the values (north):

this._aTest.push( [new Point(0, -1), new Point( 1, -1), new Point( 1, 0), new Point(-1, 0)] );

and changing the aDirNext array to face right:

this._aDirNext = [1, 2, 3, 0, 3, 0, 1, 2];

Vioal. Done.

I hope this is quite understandable (the code is, my writing might not)

nGFX

Boat House is the latest in a series of excellent room escape games from Gump, in which the player must navigate a chamber filled with initially-puzzling gadgetry, codes and machines in an effort to escape, this time all the way home from some distant location in space. And it's extremely well done.

I just wanted to drop a quick line to let you all know that up until now Jared has been slaving away on Bubble Tanks 2.  However, I’m stealing him away from you for a few days to hang out with my family in Milwaukee over the 4th of July.  When we get back it’ll be right back to the grind, I swear!  Haha!

Hope you all grill some mean foods and see some awesome fireworks and have an all-around terrific weekend.

Happy Independence Day (a little early)!

Ruins of Pantheon, the fifth and latest chapter of the Jinja Series, Aztec's ongoing, epic point-and-click saga, has just been released. Take one part Indiana Jones, mixing in a few heaping spoonfuls of mysterious alien technology. Add a nice dash of interstellar warfare, a sprinkling of impending doom, and plunk it all down into a tranquil, traditionally Japanese setting. Voila!

New 8bitrocket History Blog Entry By Steve Fulton

New diatribe Blog Entry By Jeff Fulton

Its pretty much complete, and looks to be ready this week…

Get ready for a Shift experience the likes of which you’ve never had before…

I often see people asking about protecting their SWF files after they’ve created their game. Of course they’re invited to use a encoder, but that’s generally not enough. This article will show you some ways to dissuade the hacker from doing his work. Feel free to leave your comments and questions below or on the MochiAds forum thread.

It’s always frustrating when we work for months and then some guy takes our work and calls it his own. Of course there are ways to pursue them after this happens, but here are some ways to stop them or make it harder. With this tutorial, you will learn some methods to easily protect your games, without using complex math or programs. It’s all ActionScript using variables. So let’s begin:

Encrypt Your SWF

First, get a program to encrypt your SWF file. This is important because it will stop most hackers. I recommend Amayeta SWF Encrypt. The trial version allows 25 encryptions, so use it wisely before buying, because the full version costs $125 USD. Note that Amayeta and similar programs don’t protect your game 100%, but they do make it more difficult for folks to steal. There’s also Flash Encryption Genius, which also offers a free trial — with the full license costing $99 USD. I tried those two and here is my review:

• SWF Encrypt: The most well-known of the encryption tools offers different levels of security. However, because it’s popular, more hackers are focused on ways to bypass it. Another downside is that the trial version leaves a big watermark on the top left corner (see screenshot 1, below). A plus is that you can preview the game directly in the program. It’s useful when there are many files. We can also selectively choose what to encrypt.
• Flash Genius: This program allows you to choose parameters for protection (Main Scene, Button Event, etc.) just like SWF Encrypt, and the game works perfectly. However, it prints a small watermark almost in the middle of the screen, which can make playing hard (see screenshot 2, below). It works for Windows, Mac OS X and Linux.

1.

2.

Make Your Code Harder To Read

Next, I’ll explain some ways to make the decompiler work harder to further protect your code.

After you’ve made your game, the first thing to do is select “Find and Replace,” and replace all your variables’ name with something of no relation.

For example, instead of the variable “Lives_remaining,” use “Pie_is_my_device.” Be mindful in creating these words; keep a text document for yourself that tracks what each variable name means — so you know what to change if you need to. Doing this makes it harder for a hacker to decompile your code. Instead of finding neatly organized variables that he can change and modify, he will have to spend energy trying to figure out what each variable means.

Protect From Import

Flash provides the ability to import compiled Flash files, which allows a Flash SWF file to be imported into an FLA. If you check the “protect from import” box in Flash, you can protect your file from being imported into a Flash file by another user.

Instructions: In Flash, navigate to “File,” and then “Publish Settings.” On the “Flash” tab, select the “Protect from Import” box and enter a password.

I’ve Been Hacked, What Do I Do?

If your game was seriously decompiled, what do you do? If it’s a sponsored game, I would recommend alerting your sponsor and enlisting their help with dealing with the Flash site. It’s also a good idea to contact the website you’ve seen your game on via email or through their contact form to request that they remove the game. In some cases, they may not be aware that the game was illegally copied. Send them a polite and professional message to request taking it down. Good luck!

I hope you found these tips useful. Don’t forget that there is always a way to bypass protection. The tips I mentioned can make it more difficult, but make sure you use these in addition to your other encryption methods.

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© Dereck Sycopre for MochiLand, 2008. | Permalink | 4 comments

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Boat House is the fourth installment in the Japanese Room Escape series created by Gump, the author of Guest House, Terminal House and Rental House.

It’s time to play again with energy drinks!

If you like Gump’s games, you will surely enjoy Boat House!

Have fun!

Update: Boat House walkthrough in comment #63 (thanks zoomzoom!)

Update: Boat House video walkthrough!

When I heard the newest Nitrome game since Sky Wire 2 was called Small Fry, I turned to my own "Small Fry", seven-year-old Roland to help me out with the review. Roland says this one is special because you get four different characters, and you have to get them all to the tree house at the end of the level.

Brown Dyed Hotel is a collection of puzzles that, as a whole, is one part discovery and one part riddle game, and it will surely give your gray matter a workout. Since each puzzle is slightly different than the one before it, the experience feels fresh and unique, if a bit short. There are only about 12 levels from what I could see. Some notes on the site hint at more, though.

In Larva Mortus, you play a 19th Century ghost hunter (or rather, an "agent of exorcism"). Plow through monsters and demons with your trusty broadsword and an assortment of weapons, such as shotguns and flame throwers, to rid the land of supernatural evil forces.

Escape from the Box-Room is the second Room Escape game released this week by Tesshi-e, the author of Escape from the Compartment of a Truck, Escape from my Room, Escape from the Same Rooms and more. After you successfully escaped from the Restaurant three day’s ago, you find yourself trapped in a Box-Room now! Have fun!

Update: Escape from the Box-Room walkthrough in comment #17 (thanks Snowman!)

Preloading with Flex for actionscript projects still seems to be really under-documented. Personally I've found it to be a bit of a joke that you've got to search half a dozen sites to find out how it's done, I mean it's preloading, it's what Flash does.

So I thought I'd add "my" approach here. It's what I'm using and seems to work well, it's been cobbled together by reading through the half a dozen websites, so I'm not claiming it's all my code or my idea, it's other peoples code who are clever than me shoved together.

Let's start at the begining,

package {
    import flash.display.DisplayObject;
    import flash.display.Loader;
    import flash.display.LoaderInfo;
    import flash.display.MovieClip;
    import flash.display.StageQuality;
    import flash.display.StageScaleMode;
    import flash.events.Event;
    import flash.utils.getDefinitionByName;

    [SWF(width="400", height="600", frameRate="40", backgroundColor="#FFFFFF")]

    publicclass Preloader extends MovieClip{
//---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
// Properties
//---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
        private var logoClass:Class;
        private var logoClassInstance:Object;
        
//---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
// Constructor
//---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
        public function Preloader() {
            stop();
            stage.showDefaultContextMenu=false;
            stage.scaleMode = StageScaleMode.NO_SCALE;
            stage.quality=StageQuality.LOW;

            addEventListener(Event.ENTER_FRAME,mainloop);
        }

//---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
// Private
//---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
        private function mainloop(e:Event):void{
            if(framesLoaded >= 2){
                nextFrame();
                triggerLogo();
                removeEventListener(Event.ENTER_FRAME,mainloop);
                addEventListener(Event.ENTER_FRAME,mainloop2);
            }            
        }

//---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
        private function mainloop2(e:Event):void{
            if(framesLoaded == totalFrames){
//It's all loaded, has the logo finished ?
                if(logoClassInstance.animCompletedFlag==true){
                    removeEventListener(Event.ENTER_FRAME,mainloop2);
                    nextFrame();
                    triggerGame();
                }
            }            
        }

//---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
private function triggerLogo():void{
            logoClass = getDefinitionByName("PreloaderLogo") as Class;
    if(logoClass) {
        logoClassInstance =new logoClass();
        addChild(logoClassInstance as DisplayObject);
    }
}

//---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
private function triggerGame():void{
            var main:Class = getDefinitionByName("Main") as Class;
    if(main) {
        var app:Object =new main();
        addChild(app as DisplayObject);
             app.waiting();                        //Call the singleton to kick it all off
                logoClassInstance.dispose();
    }
}

//---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
    }
}

Just to run through this nice and quickly, the preloader extends the MovieClip class as we're using 3 frames for the game ( The actual preloader class, the PreloaderLogo class and the Main one ( Which is the game itself )).
In the constructor we just do all the stage stuff that we want to do ( Hide that menu ), and then run an eventListener ( Mainloop ) which checks to see how much of the overall game has loaded. If frame 2 has loaded it means how logo is loaded, so we can fire that off ( See the trigger logo method, and below is the PreloaderLogo class )

package {  
    import flash.display.MovieClip;
    import flash.display.Sprite;
    import flash.events.Event;
    
    publicclass PreloaderLogo extends Sprite {
//---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
// Assets
//---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
        [Embed("/_assets/assets.swf",symbol="gywLogoMC")]
        private var gywLogoMC:Class;

//---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
// Properties
//---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
        private var gywLogo:MovieClip;
        public var animCompletedFlag:Boolean=false;
        
//---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
// Constructor
//---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
        public function PreloaderLogo(){
            gywLogo=new gywLogoMC();
            waiting();
        }

//---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
        public function waiting():void{
            addEventListener(Event.ADDED_TO_STAGE,logoAddedToStage);
        }

//---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
        public function dispose():void{
            stage.removeChild(gywLogo);
        }

//---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
// Private
//---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
        private function logoAddedToStage(e:Event):void{
            stage.addChild(gywLogo);
            gywLogo.gotoAndPlay(1);
            gywLogo.addEventListener(Event.ENTER_FRAME,waitingToEnd);
        }

//---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
        private function waitingToEnd(e:Event):void{
            if(gywLogo.currentFrame==gywLogo.totalFrames){
                gywLogo.gotoAndStop(gywLogo.totalFrames);
                gywLogo.removeEventListener(Event.ENTER_FRAME,waitingToEnd);
                animCompletedFlag=true;
            }
        }


//---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
    }
}

All that's happening there is the class embeds our logo and plays the animation. The waiting() method checks to see if this class has been added to the display list, if we don't wait then you open up a world of pain where the class can't find the stage.
The waitingToEnd method is as simple as it gets, once the animation has finished it just sets the animCompletedFlag to true.

Going back to the preloader class, after the PreloaderLogo class has been triggered we're running mainLoop2. That's just a check to see if the whole game ( ie all 3 frames ) has loaded. If it has when then check for the animCompletedFlag to be true. If it isn't it means the preloader logo is still running, if it is true, then we're done. The game has loaded and our sexy intro anim is done. From there we do exactly what we did before and trigger our Main class ( The game itself ).

The last part of this is the setting in Flex itself. Right click your project and select properties. From there go to the "ActionScript Compiler" options and pass the following arguments to the compiler

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