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A few days ago I was looking through the forums searching the term "medals" as I was preparing to add them to my game and was looking for some insight about them. After not finding my answer I made a post and my question was quickly answered.

However, in my search I noticed a lot of threads about people wanting to know how to remove medals from their account (which you cannot). In one particular thread I read, the guy wanted to remove them from his account because he ended up claiming them for himself (or maybe it was the beta testers) before the game launched. By claiming them I mean the thing newgrounds has here that shows who got the game's medals first.

My game is done now. I finished adding the medals. I noticed that in the Project System it says my medals are untested. From what I read during my medal search here in the forums is that you have to test your game in Project Preview and by unlocking the medals in that mode it makes the medals approved (correct me if I'm wrong).

So my question is: If I test the game myself will I get the first unlock credit? I don't want my user name in all the slots for being the first one to unlock the medals in my games. Alternatively, my game is so very simple that I have no need for beta testers whom which could get the first slots for unlocking medals.

So will I get the "first unlock" acknowledgement for testing my own game in Project Preview? If so, is there any way around this other than beta testers?

Wanting feedback to improve your game should come before you upload it to the portal because right now this just feels like you're trying to promote your game in the forums.

I think the component tries to place itself at the top of the display, but you can add it with code at the beginning and it'll handle itself.

Just got my first medal working a minute ago. You are correct, sir. It does indeed place itself at the top of the display list.

According to the wiki it says drag the Medal Popup component to the stage. My stage is currently empty because I am not working with frames. If I drag the component to the stage then addChild my game (movieclip) to the stage it will cover the component. When I unlock the medal will it appear or will it be hidden behind my game?

If it's hidden could I add the medal popup component inside the MC that I add to the stage?

At 4/11/14 08:35 PM, MSGhero wrote:

At 4/11/14 08:25 PM, Hero101 wrote: Lastly, do you guys think I should reformat my game to a smaller resolution??

640x480 is the FD default, so I usually stick with that. Not too big for background artists. If your game still looks good at that reso then I suggest switching. But if it's a lot of work on your artist to resize or remake assets, then it's prolly not worth it.

Well I'm the artist as well. Just spent the past 2 hours working on changing it and while it looks good it is going to be a lot of work. Not in just resizing the art assets but also changing the locations of things I added in through code. Since it is just my first game (if you can call it that) I think I will just leave it as it is and work with a 640x480 resolution with future projects. If my current 800x600 keeps my game from being distributed to a lot of portals, well, so be it. Live and learn.

Thanks for your guys input. Much appreciated as always.

What size do you guys make your games? I am finishing up my first game and I made it on the rather large size (800x600). I was reading the FAQ on FGL's website and it said this:

"The safest resolution for a web game is 640x480 -- this screen size will be usable on just about every website. Most game sites can actually support up to 700x550, so that's usually a safe size. (This resolution will just barely fit on an 800x600 screen when the browser window is maximized.)

To optimize sale value, never go smaller than 500x400 or larger than 700x550."

So I guess mine is too big... So I was curious what size you guys typically make your games? I know it probably varies from project to project but I was curious your guys typical resolution size for your games.

Lastly, do you guys think I should reformat my game to a smaller resolution??

Ha, the last time I uploaded a game here was ages ago. Maybe I should delete my games here, as they reflect poorly on my portfolio. I only use Flash professionally at the moment, the company does use Flash Professional but I set it up in FlashDevelop instead. Most of the graphics are made in Illustrator or Photoshop, then embedded in an SWF or as a bitmap and then dynamically imported. Not an ideal workflow for Newgrounds games.

Ha I was only kidding around with you :P I do appreciate your response to my question and all feedback that I get when I have questions. So thank you.

At 4/7/14 04:44 AM, Wolfos wrote: What is Flash Pro? Is it graphics and animation software? Not a very good one. Is it an IDE? It is, just not a very good one. In fact, it's very bad.

Yes, so I've heard some claim this before. I do plan to incorporate Photoshop with future projects. Thanks for your opinion; however, given the level of art in your games I think my first game is turning out rather marvelous ;P

At 4/7/14 02:48 PM, Aprime wrote: So www.flashkit.com was the shit back in the day.

Haha so true. I used to go here way back when for all of the sound effects and music. Years later it doesn't feel like that department has grown much...

I think adobe pretty much stated this way that they don't really support this product any more.
They reduced flash to something that can publish games to mobile platforms.

So yeah, if you want to pay a monthly fee for that, go ahead.
Or just use openFl, which can target a lot more platforms.
It uses haXe as a language, which is very similar to As3.
They have a similar API and you can use swf files as assets.

What are those features of CC that you like?

Well to be honest I was really interested in it's capabilities to publish games to mobile platforms coupled with the real-time test/debug on mobile via USB. I've heard openFl, Flash Develop, and others here in the flash forums and I really need to look into them. I'm still fairly new to Actionscript and so right now I just code and animate inside of Flash Pro CS6.

It seems a lot of programmers frown upon coding inside Flash IDE and I will have to research other options in the coming weeks after I finish my first real game.

Question: If I were to code in openFl could I still do all the visual stuff (movie clips, timeline, etc..) inside of my Flash Pro CS6 and some how link the code written in openFl to the swf? Forgive me if that's what you meant when you said "you can use swf files as assets".

So I've worked with Flash since the Macromedia version and now the latest version is only on Adobe's creative cloud service and it appears (correct me if I am wrong) that all future products will only be available through their online subscription (lame...). I used to use Flash for making fun little animations to show friends and now the past year I have been learning how to make games using Flash Pro CS6 and Actionscript 3.

I've seen posts here in the forums of people using Flash CC and I was wondering how you like it? I am content with CS6 as the last (and final) update allow to export to mobile devices. However, I do like some of the new features in CC and if Adobe is only going to keep their products on the cloud from now on I will have to upgrade eventually.

So, again, what do those of you who use and/or tried Flash CC think about it? Whether you use it for animations or creating games I am interested on what you guys think.

Once again: actually read the links that hero provided.
The biggest advantage of the conditional compiling is that you can tell the compiler to completely ignore whole blocks of code.

I did read it a few times. I think I get it. I will have to just to test it out for myself and see if I truly understand the article. If I hit anymore hang ups with conditionals I will be back. I really do appreciate all of the feedback. It's much appreciated. Thank you.

On a sidenote, you should give meaningful names to variables.
Instead of "debug" use something like "medals" to denote that this variable adds medals or not.

I appreciate this side note. I wasn't 100% sure if the word "debug" strictly had to be just that. Glad to know I can change it. Thanks again.

At 3/2/14 02:59 PM, MSGhero wrote:

At 3/2/14 02:31 PM, Hero101 wrote: Also how would I use the CONFIG::toggle you suggested?

Bottom left is a plugin for FD that makes it easy to toggle the boolean constants. The actual stuff you type in is in project properties.

Welp... I guess this means I need to make the move to FD for my next game. I'm currently just using Flash IDE. I did notice that in Flash IDE there is an actionscript settings where I can add Config constants (currently that list just has CONFIG::FLASH_AUTHORING. Since I can't get the toggle plug-in for Flash IDE could I just add CONFIG::debug to this list? If I did this then in my coding could I do something like this to unlock a medal (and for this example say medal was unlocked for doing 10 damage:

if (CONFIG::debug == true && damage = 10)
{
    //unlock medal
}

Would this work? And if it does would I just go back into these settings and change CONFIG::debug to false to make a swf that won't fire off medals?

Sorry to everyone if this counts as bringing up an old thread (1 months) but...

You can do conditional compilation so you can "have a copy" of both swfs without changing the code at all. Stick the api stuff in a CONFIG::toggle and it'll only get compiled when you have that compiler constant set to true.

MSGhero I've read the articles you posted above and doing a conditional compilation seems like the best way to go about it. That way, like you said, I don't need two versions of my game.

The issue I'm having is fully understanding how they work. In the link you gave me they had CONFIG : : debug and CONFIG : : release. Correct me if I'm wrong but everything between the brackets of debug doesn't render out in the swf and with release it does??? If that's true then having all of newgrounds API inside CONFIG I would just export a single swf in release mode for newgrounds so it can have medals and then change release to debug for other versions that I distribute elsewhere across the web?

Am I getting this right or am I way off. I really did try to understand the article it just confuses me because I am still learning.

Also how would I use the CONFIG::toggle you suggested?

Any chance someone could create some pseudo code for me would be really helpful...

Thanks in advance for your time and effort

At 2/11/14 05:04 PM, Payn wrote: Hey people, please help me out.

I'm using Adobe Flash CS6 and it's lagging like crazy.
I can't use Flash for anything anymore, and I've looked all over the internet for a solution.

Does anyone know how to get rid of this lagg?

What are you doing when it lags? Animating or making a game? Is your flash player updated to the latest version?

At 2/11/14 12:37 AM, wolftriplex wrote: I have at least 812 items in the library right now.

Why so many items?? What are they? MCs? Buttons? Bitmaps? etc...

You don't need to add a keyframe after the first frame. Did you try uploading it to the dumping grounds here on newgrounds and testing it?

I would think that the over state wouldn't still be active when I remove the movie clip it is on with removeChild. Don't understand why the over state would still be active later on when I addChild the movie clip. It's a minor issue that I might not totally care about as it reminds the player what mode they last selected (if they had click 2 player and then went back to player selection screen to play single player the 2 player button would still be in its over state to show that's what they last selected).

However, I want to learn all the ins/outs/how things work with coding and understand them completely as I continue my quest to learn AS3. Thus, I really want to know why this is happening.

At 2/7/14 12:09 AM, kkots wrote:

At 2/6/14 11:47 PM, Hero101 wrote:

Select your button wherever your placed it.
Go to Properties (Ctrl+F3) and set the type to Button.

Also, select the button symbol in the library, set the type to Button in Properties in there too.

That's the thing though...all my buttons are set to Button types...

At 2/6/14 11:27 PM, kkots wrote:

At 2/6/14 09:00 PM, Hero101 wrote: Well I just added a menu button so that it takes the player back to the title screen.

Post code where you take whatever back to whatever.

menuBtn.addEventListener(MouseEvent.CLICK, onMenuBtn;

function onMenuBtn(event:MouseEvent):void
{
      addChild (titleSelectionScreen);  // adds the page where players choose single or 2 player
       removeChild (gameCon);  //removes game container (movieclip)
}

Yeah I know I could avoid this if I made and programmed my buttons with code

What? How did you program the button? What type of a symbol is it: Graphic, Button, Movie Clip? In library and on the stage? Check by clicking the button and looking at Properties, should be set as a Button or whatever type you need in there. Post the button code.

It's a Button symbol that is inside the gameCon movieclip. It's also in the library like you asked. It's not on stage until the gameCon is added to stage.

So the issue is that after loading the gameCon (I can post that code too but it looks just like code above just different names between parentheses) and then the player clicks menu button it goes back to title screen selection but the button - whether single player or 2 player - is still in the over state.

The code for the single player and 2 player (which I realized I should have posted up top instead haha) is the same thing only reversed.

Ok I work in Flash IDE and in my game I addChild a title screen. On that title screen (MC) I have a button that I made in Flash and that button is white but turns yellow for it's over-state. When it is clicked I addChild the actual game and removeChild the title screen. Well I just added a menu button so that it takes the player back to the title screen. I found out that when I click that menu button and go back to the title screen the button on the title screen is still highlighted (still in it's over-state) even though my mouse isn't over it.

While it doesn't really bother me I was wondering how I could go about to fix this? Yeah I know I could avoid this if I made and programmed my buttons with code but I didn't do it that way nor am I going to for this tiny project.

Was curious if there was a way to correct this with the way I have my game set up.

Thanks in advance guys.

If anyone is interested in helping develop any aspect of this game, we would be very appreciative and more than happy to put your name in the credits. You would also of course be allowed to use the game in your portfolios.

You are going to have a share a piece of the pie (profit) if you want any serious help.

At 2/5/14 08:18 AM, formingtime wrote: Maybe you've got an answer to this problem,
When i publish in flash the scene looks fine and when i convert to video with swivel it looses the filters (blur and shadow) in the moviesymbols.
I'm not an expert and pretty new to all this. So maybe someone can enlighten me;-)
Thanks in advance.

I'm not really sure as I haven't used Swivel before but I know that it is suppose to keep filters as stated here:
https://www.newgrounds.com/wiki/creator-resources/flash-resources/swivel

Maybe check the info/tabs in the publication settings

At 2/4/14 09:50 AM, kkots wrote: Nice. Hope the original poster will find this useful. If he is not dead from our programmer talk already.

Hahahaha! Nope not dead. Just a bit overwhelmed. I really need to learn about Arrays and Loops. Then I could follow a little better. I really do appreciate all the feedback guys. I will be referring back to this thread after I've taught myself how Arrays and Loops work.

Thanks again everybody :)

You can do it like milchreis said and just put aiAttack 7 times into the array and aiMagic 2 times to get the probabilities from your example, or you could use the analog switch case:

Yeah as I just posted I will definitely have to spend a lot of time learning Arrays as my knowledge of them is zero at the moment :( Once I finish this simple game I'm gonna dive into learning them.

Also I've never heard of a switch case... I will need to look into learning them as well.

Thank you for your constant input. I really appreciate it :)

At 2/3/14 07:24 PM, milchreis wrote:

At 2/3/14 06:51 PM, Hero101 wrote: but I was wondering if in theory if this would work?

Yes, you can have long chains of if/else statements.

An alternative way is to use a switch statement, which is not too different.
It makes it more clear that you are deciding between more than two different choices.

As you are just calling functions, you could simply stick them into an array.
This will work no matter how many "actions" you have.

// some untested code sketch to illustrate

var actions:Array = [aiAttack, aiMagic, aiHeal];

function doRandomAction():void
{
actions[Math.ceil(Math.random() * actions.length)]();
}

Oh that's really interesting! To be honest I don't know anything about Arrays yet :( I've been learning through a simple book so far and it touches on them in the next chapter that I haven't got around to reading. Guess I will also have to learn through online tutorials too because I constantly hear about different ways to use Arrays in games here on the forums. When I look at the code for some of the arrays it confuses me. I know the first thing I would like to do with Arrays is learn to put like a collectible (like coins from Mario) in it so that way I can reference use them in a game without have to have an instance name for each and every coin on the stage/level. I was told I would need to do this with Arrays but no one showed me a coding example. I guess that's for the best as it will make me learn on my own and potentially make me understand them better. I will definitely be diving into learning Arrays after I finish this first game.

Ok, forget my previous post, I was slow posting it and MSGhero's answer is better anyways.
Glad it works now.

I have one last quick question for you dude. Based on the code you gave me posted above in this post (which works - thank you), I was wonder if in theory you could do this a ton of "else if" statements. Like:

if ( //insert parameter check)
{
    //run code
}
else if ( //insert parameter check)
{
    //run code
}
else if ( //insert parameter check)
{
    //run code
}
else if ( //insert parameter check)
{
    //run code
}
else if ( //insert parameter check)
{
    //run code
}
else if ( //insert parameter check)
{
    //run code
}
else if ( //insert parameter check)
{
    //run code
}
else
{
    //run code
}

Now I'm not sure why anyone would need to do a ton of else/if statements, but I was wondering if in theory if this would work?

Ok, forget my previous post, I was slow posting it and MSGhero's answer is better anyways.
Glad it works now.

Haha it's all good. Thank you guys for all your help. Thanks to the help in this post I am on the home stretch of finishing my game.

The else that it seems like you didn't type is what restricts the 2nd conditional to the numbers 8 and 9. If it's less than 8, the first conditional takes care of it and the 2nd one never runs.

Ooooh damn I didn't see the "else" in the "else if" of the second condition.... Forgive me I'm not all there tonight...

Thank you guys...

At 2/2/14 01:27 AM, Etherblood wrote:

At 2/2/14 01:00 AM, Hero101 wrote:
Unfortunately that didn't work for the aiMagic because it would still cast magic if it was <= 9 but attack is <= 7. It works for attack and heal but I need magic to be 8 or 9 only. If it is <= 9 then odds are it will also be <= 7 which is what attack is.

Either I don't understand your question or I need to explain else-statements.
You want to call aiAttack if aiNumber is 1-7, aiMagic if it is 8-9 and aiHeal if it is 10?
Because this is what the code I posted does, if you want I can try to explain else-statements or you can just google it.

No I understand them completely. I tried your code and traced what the number would be every time it aiMagic was called and I got numbers below 9 all the way down to 1. Think about it.... <= 9 .... so the number can be less than 9 but it never stops at 8....

So I fixed it by doing this:

if (aiNumber == 8 || aiNumber == 9)
        {
              aiMagic();
         }