With the release of CS5 imminent (the official release date is 10th April – just a few days away) online bookstores such as Amazon and Barnes & Noble are slashing the price of CS4 titles. If you’re looking for some solid introductions to Flash and Actionscript there are some real bargains to be had.

Books like Flash CS4: The Missing Manual, Adobe Flash CS4 Classroom In A Book and Learning Flash CS4 Professional are being knocked out at way under half price in some places, so grab a bargain while you can! In fact, if you’re in the UK you can get an even better deal in the current Amazon “50% off selected computing and internet books” sale where several Flash titles are reduced even further.

Of course, the bargains won’t stop at just books. I suspect that after April 10th there will be plenty of opportunities to grab bargain bin versions of Flash CS4, so if you’re still using an old and weary installation of MX2004 and looking to get up to date without splashing out on the latest upgrade to CS5 when it’s released, keep your eyes open for the next few weeks as I’m sure you’ll be able to grab a real bargain!

After going though all the survey results so far, and chatting to a number of people I’ve decided to start posting articles and tutorials here on the Flash Games Classroom website.  I’ve had a great respsonse to the survey about what YOU want me to include in the Flash Games Classroom course, and one idea that keeps popping up again and again is to have some free content that people can get started with right away.

Well, with that in mind I’ve decided to write a series of game tutorials and host them on the blog here, so anyone just starting out will have a great resource for learning the basics, and can then graduate onto the paid course when they’re ready.  I love the idea that my content will be accessible to more people, so I’ve started work on the tutorials and the first one will be on here in a couple of days.

I’m expecting this to be a win-win situation.  Visitors to this site will get free content, and I’m hoping that I’ll get some great feedback which will help me to fine tune the course content before it’s launched early next year.  So join in, leave comments, ask questions… I want to know what you want to learn, what tutorials you’d like to see, and what frustrations you have with learning Flash, Actionscript or any aspect of game development from the absolute basics to marketing your finished games and everything in between!

I’m really looking forward to getting some tutorials on here and getting some feedback, and I hope you’ll have lots of fun and learn loads from reading them!

Many thanks to everyone who filled out the survey so far and offered feedback.  It’s given me a much better idea of exactly what to include in the course and how to structure it.

I’ve been getting a lot of questions about the course, when it will be available, what level it will be for and what the content will include so I wanted to write a short post here to answer some of those questions…

The course will be availble soon.  I can’t be much more specific at this point but I’m aiming to launch early in 2010.  I’ll post here with a definite launch date nearer the time, and I’ll be emailing a promotional code out 48 hours before the official launch to anyone on my prelaunch email list where they can get a substantial discount.  If you’ve not done so already add your name and email to the list to take advantage!

The course will consist of 12 modules.  Each module will include a written lesson, multiple video lessons, and one or more case studies.  Each module will focus on a different core concept (such as colision detection/reaction, or artificial intelligence for example) and the lessons and case studies will teach the concept and techniques using real world examples.  The case studies will be complete games, including the source files, which can be used as learning tools and also modified and published as working game.

The course will be Actionscript 3.0 based in order to be up to date.  You will need Flash CS3 or Flash CS4 to follow the lessons and edit the source files.  A 30 day trial version of Flash CS4 is available from the Adobe website.

That’s all for now.  I’ll be posting a proper breakdown of the modules, and preview videos in the near future.  If you have any more questions please do email, and if you’ve not yet completed the survey please do – I want to structure the course to best serve YOUR needs so let me know what you want to learn!

All the best

Billy

Welcome to Flash Games Classroom.

This is just a first test post.  Over the coming days and weeks I’ll be posting here articles, news and tutorials on Flash games development as I build up towards the launch of my Flash Games Classroom course this Fall.

Details on the course to come very shortly, in the meantime you can take my survey and help to ensure that the course I provide contains exactly the content YOU want!

Thanks for dropping by, and make sure you subscribe to my email newsletter to be put on the early notifiction list so you can take advantage of a big discount when the course goes live.

All the best,

Billy Deakin